Gearbound: Cyberpunk 2077-Chapter 123

Maine found himself pushed all the way to the end of the sofa, Dorio's face drawing ever closer.

"Maine," she said quietly, "be straight with me. This job—was it El Capitán who set it up?"

Maine's voice wavered. "Does it really matter who posted the job? If someone's paying, we take it. But if you all think it's too risky, I can turn it down—no problem."

Dorio drew out his name, sounding suspicious. "Maaaine..."

"All right, all right, I surrender!" Maine raised both hands in a half-hearted display of defeat. "This gig... didn't come from El Capitán."

Dorio's eye twitched. Just as she suspected. El Capitán would never hand them such skimpy intel. But she wasn't letting Maine off the hook just yet.

"Well? If not El Capitán, then who?"

Maine's cheeks burned a little. He lowered his voice. "It's Faraday..."

"What?!"

All around the booth, Sasha, Rebecca, and Pilar gawked at him in disbelief. Maine squirmed under their stares.

"What's with the overreaction? It's not our first time working for Faraday. We used to run gigs for him before El Capitán showed up."

"But we're with El Capitán now," Dorio cut in, sounding exasperated. "Why would you run off and—gah!" She jabbed a finger hard into Maine's temple. "What's going on in that head of yours?"

"It looks high-risk," Maine admitted, "but it might not be so bad. I scoped out Corpo Plaza myself: around one or two in the morning, it's practically a ghost town. All the corpo drones clock out."

Dorio refused to be convinced. "What about the NCPD that patrol the plaza, or the building's security?"

Maine answered with calm confidence, as though he'd rehearsed every point.

"Sure, the NCPD's there, but it's minimal. Ever since Johnny Silverhand nuked the plaza in 2023, it's been quiet for decades. The cops think the same.

They're on a set salary—why risk their necks on patrol?

"And about corporate security... well, there's practically no on-site personnel at Biotechnica's building. All for the same reason I just mentioned."

A flicker of doubt crossed Dorio's face. "You know that for sure? You've been inside?"

Maine folded his arms. "I know a guy who works at Biotechnica. Slipped him a little cash, and he told me everything. None of it's top secret; it's not like he was worried about NDAs or anything."

He walked to the corner of the booth and leaned against the wall, meeting the other's unsettled gazes.

"You think I like working with Faraday? That I'm some big oaf who doesn't see a trap when it's dangling in front of my nose? No. I look huge, but I'm not dumb."

Sasha, seated next to Rebecca, suddenly piped up, "So how much is Faraday paying?"

Everyone turned in surprise. "Sasha?"

"One-eight," Maine said. "Eighteen thousand total."

Sasha lowered her head, doing the math under her breath. "If Falco joins us, that's roughly three grand each."

Falco was the team's driver. Strictly speaking, he wasn't an official member of Maine's crew, but whenever they needed a top-tier wheelman, Falco was the one to call—he was so good, that they nicknamed him Night City's Takumi Fujiwara.

Guessing Sasha's train of thought, Maine added, "Nah, we'll each take two thousand. The rest is yours."

"Maine, you can't be serious..." Dorio's eyes widened.

"There's no on-site security staff at Biotechnica, but they do have automated defenses. Out of all of us, Sasha's the only netrunner—she's the key. She has to go in alone."

"Are you hearing yourself, Maine?" Dorio fumed.

Maine shook his head. "I'm not strong-arming anyone. If Sasha's not comfortable, we drop this job. I'm just asking." He drew a quick breath. "I've already got a plan, though. I made contact with one of El Capitán's underlings—Juliet. She specializes in hacking into Zetatech, Biotechnica, you name it."

"She got me a jammer that'll knock out Biotechnica's auto-alarm system for five minutes. If it triggers a real alarm, their security bots will respond in about two minutes. Meaning we have just enough time to grab the data and get out."

"You'll have about two minutes to reach the office, one minute to bypass the ICE and transfer the data, and a minute or so to bail before the jammer shuts down. Even if you run a few seconds over, we'll still have time to slip away before the bots show up."

Maine took a slow breath and met Sasha's eyes. "So, Sasha... are you in?"

"I..." Dorio started, but Sasha spoke over her, voice firm. "I'll do it."

...

Two a.m. A single car rolled into Corpo Plaza and eased to the curb. It was every bit as deserted as Maine had promised—eerily quiet, not a soul in sight. Even the lights in the towering corporate buildings had gone dark, leaving only the illuminated walkways and the perpetual golden and blue holographic koi that drifted around the central plaza.

"Sasha, if you wanna back out—"

"I'll be out soon."

Before Dorio could finish, Sasha popped the door, bag slung over her shoulder. Without hesitation, she hopped out and hurried toward the Biotechnica building.

"Maine," Dorio growled, "that plan of yours better work... or you're dead."

"Relax," Maine muttered. "As long as Sasha follows it, we'll be fine."

...

The front doors of the Biotechnica building were sealed tight. Most floors were dark inside, same as the rest of Corpo Plaza this late at night—nobody was around to keep things running. People needed sleep; even megacorps had to let their wageslaves rest for a few hours.

Which meant if no one was around, Sasha only had to worry about security cameras. As she thought it through, her feet never stopped. She reached the doors, pulled a pink personal link cable from a port on her wrist, and jacked into the terminal next to the entrance. Less than a minute later, the sealed doors slid open.

Inside her bag, the jammer Maine had mentioned kicked in, silencing the system's automatic alarms.

"Maine called it. This thing actually works," she murmured in relief, taking a cautious peek into the pitch-black first-floor lobby.

Flashes of gold light shimmered sporadically in the darkness—the scanning beams of the security cameras. Watching constant surveillance feeds was exhausting and boring for human personnel, so the company that made these cameras (Fuyutsuki Electronics) had developed a built-in scanning device. Rather than rely on a bored guard to spot trespassers, the camera beamed a detection line across the room. Anyone caught in that beam without the proper authorization triggered an alert.

Sasha timed the rotating gold scans, waiting until the beam swung away before darting into the lobby. She vaulted over the front desk in one smooth motion, ducking behind it with just a second to spare. Slipping out another personal cable, she plugged into the desk's port and disabled every camera on the first floor.

Only then did she allow herself a quick breath. Maine's voice crackled over comms, tense. "Sasha, you in? Hurry it up; that jammer won't last forever."

She didn't bother replying; even a second saved could be critical. She rushed into the elevator and pressed for her target floor. While the elevator ascended, Sasha pulled a piece of gum from her bag and popped it into her mouth, a personal ritual she found calming before any netrunning job.

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By the time the doors opened, she checked the timer: three minutes and forty seconds left on the jammer. Racing through the dark corridor, she hacked and deactivated any cameras along her path. She reached the correct office with three minutes to spare. The lock took mere seconds to crack. Sasha slipped in and headed straight for the terminal, the office's lone swivel chair waiting behind the desk.