NOVEL WEB Chapter 24: Pursuit
Claire - Rollo Halls Associate
“Forget it then. Don’t risk exposing yourself and go back to the clinic first.” Rollo, her current boss, dryly commanded.
“What W—”
Before she could voice her complaint, he cut her off, “We’ll be fine. We can still keep in touch while you head back. There’s no point for you to be so close to danger anymore.” Then he hung up.
“Damn it!” She slammed her hand onto the dashboard.
She couldn’t believe this. She thought she could finally be useful and help him and Thorne out. That was why she had been working so hard on learning about cybersecurity.
Taking a deep breath, she started sorting out her thoughts. She knew it wasn’t Rollo or anyone else’s fault, and she blamed herself for being inadequate. She knew she was only a beginner, so she shouldn’t even find this surprising, but she couldn’t help but feel frustrated. She wanted to contribute and make it safer for those two and the current her wasn’t able to do that.
Searching through her contact list, she placed a call while the car drove her back.
“Hey Clairy, what’s up?”
She sighed before responding, “Lana, are you free? I could really go for a drink right now.”
“Woah, I thought you were a law-abiding citizen who won’t drink until you’re past twenty.”
“Yea? Who’s going to enforce the drinking age, the corpos?”
“Ha, they’d probably encourage you to drink more instead, to up their sales. I would know, I’ve worked for them. Anyway, sorry, I can’t come out tonight. We can do it tomorrow when you come over for lessons.”
“Okay…”
“So what happened, girl? Want to talk about it?”
She let out another sigh, ”...I got told to sit out because I couldn’t breach some dumb network.”
“Girl, you’ve been learning how to about cy-sec for how long? It’ll take a lot more learning before you’ll be able to consistently breach into most up-to-date civilian networks.”
A text came in from Thorne with an update, confirming the hideout was a harvester den and they got in safely.
“Ahhhh, how did scums like harvesters even get up-to-date security patches? Don’t tell me they pay for it like normal people.”
“You’d be surprised. Most groups past a certain size likely have a cy-sec specialist on hand. It takes a lot more brain than you think to run their shit. It’s not as simple as just randomly picking people up and chopping out their chrome and organs.”
“So I won’t be able to breach into any harvester network anytime soon…just great. Please tell me you have some way to help me learn faster. I can’t stand this.”
“Not unless you’ve got a high-end SAID model with a hypnopaedia feature. Then you’ll need the cassettes with the right knowledge on it, which are even harder to get. There’s a reason why most skilled cy-sec specialists are corpo or former corpo.”
She sighed for the third time, “Anyway, we can talk more when I come over tomorrow. Thank you for listening to me vent.” She watched as the car pulled into the parking lot in front of the clinic.
“Sounds good, see you.” With the call ended, she exited the car and set course for it to go back to the boys using the auto drive.
Instead of returning to the clinic right away, she started walking down the street. She needed something sweet to cheer herself up first.
Just as she made her way out of the plaza, she noticed from the corner of her eye a couple standing around, both staring daggers at her from across the street. When she turned towards them, they both looked around, avoiding eye contact. They were holding hands, but otherwise seemed to ignore each other.
She continued onward to Rollo’s favorite milkshake place while she kept an eye out. Not her actual eyes, but from the street-facing security cameras that she could breach. She plugged her terminal into her neural port discreetly and continued walking down the street.
Once she was down the street, the camera feed she had pulled up on her optics showed the two suspect individuals following in her direction. It was late at night so there weren’t that many pedestrians which made it easy to keep track of them.
Trusting her gut instinct, she made a few turns to confirm if they were tailing her.
And they were.
Are these guys related to the people who attacked us? Now I can call for help and be a damsel in distress or… I can deal with it myself.
Deciding she wanted a safety net just in case, she started moving toward the street with all the clubs and bars. These places weren’t like Haven and were cheaper and catered to the more casual folks instead of mercenaries. This meant that the security policy was different, and they didn’t allow weapons to be brought inside.
The old weapon detectors in the lobby worked through automated scans and had an open connection for her to invade from. She used the programs she received from Lana and breached into it like she was taught. She wasn’t at a level where she knew exactly how it worked and could only use her pre-made programs and alter it slightly, but the old detectors still had known exploits.
She allowed herself to pass the detectors while still holding possession of her pistol and entered further into the establishment. A moment later, one of the two people stalking her followed her in. The woman was forced to leave their firearms in the weapon locker.
Little did they know that even though her stalker stowed her guns away, she could still trigger the detectors the moment she tried to walk through. Immediately, the bouncers nearby moved to intercept and tackled the woman onto the floor.
Taking advantage of the commotion, Claire swiftly made her way to the weapon lockers and hacked into the one her pursuer had used. As fast as she could, she unloaded the magazine and attached a tracker to it before loading it back in.
Looking at the cameras pointing outside, it appeared the other male stalker had moved to cover the back door, which meant the woman who was now having an interesting conversation with the bouncers was responsible for watching the main entrance.
She briskly made her way toward her original destination while she had her SAID call for a cab to wait for her there. Once she bought the sweets she had been craving, she entered the cab and observed the location of the new tracker she had placed. It was on the move, so she made the group call to Thorne and Rollo.
“Guys, some people just came after me. I got away and I’m tracking them down right now. I’ll ping you my location.”
Thorne and I rushed out of the harvester den and thankfully, my car had made its way back and was already waiting in the same spot.
We set the car’s destination to follow after Claire. Thorne, who sat beside me, checked his equipment while Claire was on the line with us, retelling us a more detailed version of what happened.
“...So they’re pulling up to a gated mansion, let me see if I can find a way—”
A loud shout suddenly rang out beside me, “Stop! Wait for us first!”
I looked over at Thorne and listened quietly as he continued, “You’ve done enough already! Why didn’t you call us in the first place when you noticed you were being followed?! It could’ve gone really differently.”
“Come on, you want me to just sit here doing nothing? I’m not some kid that needs babysitting. I can handle myself.”
“That’s not what I meant. You should’ve given us a heads up, so we could back you up if anything went wrong! You can’t be taking needless risks like this, Claire, not when your life is on the line. Promise me you won’t do that again.”
“...Okay… I might’ve acted too impulsively…Sorry.”
That was the first time I heard Thorne lash out, but understandably so.
I needed to start going over options to up our security after this. Right now it was just street gangs, but if more organized groups or mercenaries set their sights on us, we were grossly unprepared, not to even mention corporations.
We arrived and met up with Claire on the main street closest to the mansion she had tracked her pursuers to.
Claire wore a bashful smile as we approached, “Hey guys, here’s the receiver for the tracker. Take this as well. You guys haven’t eaten or drunk anything for some time right?” She handed us each a burger and a drink.
“Thank you,” I took a sip of the drink, my usual milkshake that was slightly melted, but the sugar helped energize my mind. “I’ll head in first to scout it out. You two stay here and wait.”
Thorne waited until he finished chewing to respond, “...Okay, you really need to get me one of those suits soon.”
“The suit’s really just to test the tech out. I’ll definitely get you one once the cybernetic version is done.”
I moved out as soon as I finished snacking. The entire place was fenced off with metal gates. There were cameras spaced out as well, but with my suit’s stealth system on, I could climb over and approach the building in the distance undetected.
There was a limit to how fast I could move as the camouflage system started being more wonky the faster I moved. It was something I planned to work on further before moving on to the implant version. This suit was destined to only be a prototype as it was just plainly inferior to a cybernetic version. Especially when the stealth system wasn’t active, it screamed out suspicious activity to anyone who saw you wearing one.
The three-story mansion soon came into view and had even more security around the premises, but thankfully, someone left a window open on the second floor.
Once I climbed up, I immediately tried to breach into their camera network while I hugged the walls to stay out of sight, allowing the suit to rest.
The security in place here was notches above everything I’ve tried to breach before. I knew Claire wasn’t better than me at hacking yet, so I had to be mindful of cameras from here on.
Moving cautiously, I cleared each corner and noted down spots where I could hide at while the suit needed a break. The rooms I had entered so far appeared to be simple bedrooms, storages, and bathrooms. It wasn’t until I reached further in that I heard the sound of people.
“---back?”
“Yeah, I led him to the boss, and he seemed pissed. Better to stay out of sight tonight lest he take it out on you.”
“If Larry can’t do a proper job, then the boss should use us. I don’t get why we’re being kept in the dark.”
“Shhh, stop complaining. Larry is his wife’s cousin, so of course, he trusts him and his group more. We don’t need to snoop where we shouldn’t.”
The two who were conversing soon came into view. They both had combat vests and rifles, decked out in red-themed clothes. They stood by the staircases that led further up.
They changed the topic to the girls they recently saw and other mundane topics. I slowly moved past them with the camouflage activated while their conversation distracted them.
On the third floor, my search for important people bore fruit when I spotted a pair of sentries who stood guard by a set of fancy double doors. With the door shut, it wasn’t feasible for me to walk by even if they couldn’t see me. Instead, I went into one of the adjacent secluded rooms and climbed out the window.
My boots clamped onto the outer wall as I made my way toward the guarded room. For some reason, the people in the mansion really liked their open windows, allowing me to peer into the study where two men sat on sofa chairs, having a conversation over a drink. In front of the two was a man and a woman who kneeled before them, staring straight into the ground.