Chapter 85

That night I parked the Quadra a long way from the marina, and spent a good walk down the sidewalk.

 

I wasn’t wearing my normal gear either. I was in my Section 9 outfit, including the ninja mask. Which would have earned me some weird looks walking down the street in Night City, but it was late, and I was purposefully avoiding attention. The few cameras that could have spotted me as I walked down the street were hacked and turned off.

 

It’s not like I cared if someone at Pawn Shop noticed someone turning off their camera.

 

As long as it didn’t spot me.

 

As long as I wasn’t spotted.

 

I reached the Marina. The main entrance on foot was two large stone staircases leading to the high end super expensive parking lot. The sort of place that had parking meters costing ridiculous amounts of eddies to park to keep out the riff raff.

 

Unless you were in the club of course.

 

But I bypassed that. As always the biggest weakness in a security system wasn’t the lock, but the material the lock was attached to.

 

You see the marina had a locked down entrance way. With barricades and an actual security room with a guard sitting there to refuse the riff raff access.

 

But the marina was overlooked by a large office building. I was pretty sure it was actually customs. Or a shipping corpo building, but I wasn’t sure who owned it.

 

But it didn’t matter because a bit higher up than a normal person would be able to jump there was a long walkway that went along the entire building looking over the marina. Some architecture worker had designed it probably intending to let overworked peons go out on the walkway for some fresh air.

 

Of course that would require the people in charge to have installed an actual doorway to the porch.

 

They had not.

 

So there was a visual walkway just… There.

 

Despite the heavy traffic of Skyline St west, behind me. No one noticed a shadow leap up and easily slide over the large glass barrier around the walkway.

 

The inside of the building was dark. No one was around. Like I said. It was 3am. Not every corp required people to have night shifts. I still stayed low and practically crawled across the concrete. Shimmying all the way over the marina until I was on the back end of the Marina.

 

There was zero security on the back end of the marina.

 

No one was crazy enough to just jump into the ocean around the city after all!

 

I used a well placed palm tree to reach the floor. Which was nice, because on the back side I was probably three floors off the ground.

 

It would have been a painful landing.

 

And now all I had to do was find a security room.

 

I came up from the back of the Marina. The multiple cafes and bars only gave me cover as I came up from behind one of them avoiding the few drunks that were still active this late.

 

The security was also quiet, most of them sitting around, or I noticed to my amusement hanging out inside one of the bars flirting with the pretty bartender.

 

I noticed it. The back end of what I had thought was a bar actually had a security room. Better yet?

 

It had an open window in the room that would allow someone to walk up to the security officer to ask for help.

 

No glass, or window.

 

There was a guard though.

 

Hmm.

 

I tucked myself away. Hiding in between the drop off of the pier and a plant, with a perfect view of the guard.

 

I just needed him to move.

 

But I had time.

There was no cameras looking at me. And there was no one that could see me. The few times someone got close. I just tipped myself off the edge of the pier, and hung on until they walked past.

 

Chrome arms don’t get tired.

 

Eventually the guard inside got up from the computer and stretched walking out and across the path to the bar. I watched him slip into the bathroom.

 

I ran.

 

Leaping through the open window before the bathroom door had even fully closed. I collected myself making sure there was no one else inside, that I hadn’t attracted any attention. Once I was sure, I turned to the large computer system. I jacked in.

 

The security here was tight, but the moron hadn’t locked his computer when he went to the bathroom.

 

I was in the system in seconds, downloading the file to a shard. I was downloading all of the camera records of the last month. It would give me everything I needed, but the camera records was a big file. I kept calm, immobile, watching as the numbers ticked up. Checking through other files, I noticed a list of the yachts harbored, and who owned them. I added that to the shard as well.

 

The bathroom opened. I caught it out of the corner of my eye, but now I was focused.

 

Fuck.

 

I kept watch, peeking out the window just waiting. The guard stopped to chat with a coworker, even grabbed a drink from the bartender that had been flirted with for the last hour. But this guy wasn’t going to intrude, drink in hand he started walking back to his workplace.

 

Double fuck.

 

The numbers ticked up.

 

He walked closer. It was going to be close… No, I realized. I didn’t have time. I tsked, considered my options and grabbed a can from the desk and chucked it out the window.

 

It clattered into the bushes across the path and the noise caused the guard to slow his walk and look over.

 

Of course those were also the bushes I had been hiding in before, but I needed a few moments.

 

He walked over and noticed the can looking around he ended up looking up. There was a lounge on top of the security office I was in. So he probably just assumed somebody threw it from up there. Shaking his head he started making his way back to his little office.

 

I was done. Unjacking my personal link, I waited for him to open the door and start moving into his little guard room. I leapt back through the window silent as a ninja and raced to the waters edge. I quickly leapt over the edge of the pier grabbing onto the concrete and disappearing into the shadows.

 

I didn’t hear anything and danger sense hadn’t even prickled.

 

I hung there for a while just to make sure. And only once I was, did I relax, but I wasn’t done just yet. Just because I had the data didn’t mean my fact finding gig was over.

 

I pulled open the copy of camera data and checked the time that the scavs would have arrived.

 

There were a few cameras in the area, but thankfully a few of them were pointed at the parking lot. I watched through the small screen as I hung there off the side of the pier. Water lapping gently against the concrete half a dozen feet below me.

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They drove right up to the security checkpoint, got waved through after a brief check and drove in.

 

I moved to the next camera watched as they drove through the little dock area talking to the security post that I just leapt out the window from and that opened the second security gate letting them drive closer to the dock and start to unload.

 

They carried the crates out onto the dock and dropped them off right on the pier and then left.

 

The fuck?

 

I kept watched skipping hours at a time to try and find what happened to the crates. Suddenly they vanished, and I went back finally finding what I was looking for. Some crate bots rolled up, picked up the crates and rolled them onto one of the yachts.

 

The big stupid looking black military-ish one we had noticed this morning. Or rather I suppose I should call it Neo-Militarism?

 

I mean it did stick out like a sore thumb. Looking like some stealth boat.

 

I glanced over my shoulder looking right at it.

 

I checked the records and had to snort at the name of the yacht.

 

Who the hell named a fancy shmancy luxury yacht the GEIshhhhA?

 

I started shimmying heading across the concrete towards the wooden docks.

 

Sure there were still some workers around but none were going to be able to spot me. I climbed back over the edge, raced over the wooden dock, and slipped over the edge of the boat without a noise.

 

Their wasn’t much to see. It was all black and sharp angles, but the stairs leading down into the yacht were open.

 

It was a… Ew.

 

The smell told me everything. It stank of human sweat and other things. Drugs were laying all over the place. Money rolls and alcohol spilled everywhere.

 

Was this a scav boat or not!?

 

What the hell was going on here? I moved through the club like atmosphere just glad no one was here.

 

And doubly glad there weren’t any cameras around.

 

I reached the other end and saw there were two doors both locked. One was connected to the inside of the room, the other outside on the back of the boat.

 

The one outside looked like it led upwards, which was probably the bridge. The other inside led down.

 

Which is where I would put money on the crates being.

 

This wasn’t going to be easy. The door wasn’t a normal lock and was actually heavily secured. I would need to breach into the system to get it to open.

 

I pulled the personal link out of the back of my neck and slipped it into the door jack.

 

The security was strong.

 

Really strong. This ICE wasn’t just off the shelf stuff. If I tried to breach it, I was definitely going to set off an alarm.