Chapter Twenty-Five – Ramen Break

Chapter Twenty-Five – Ramen Break

“Certain traditions are fated to fade away. Sometimes they are kept alive by historians and dedicated practitioners, but as technology moves on and culture shifts, the need for some traditions just ceases.

It was a grand risk, but I believe the rewards have been worth it.“

–Minato Watanabe, CEO, founder, and sole employee of Automata-Ramencorp International

***

Because of the way the building was laid out, the mercs’ place was set at the end of this long corridor. To one side was a long wall with nothing on it but a few little vents and a couple of cameras. Along the opposite side was a Korean nail salon, of all things.

Gomorrah and I never got to that corridor, of course. When we reached the building the mercs were staying at, we went up a few floors and picked some seats at this shitty little android-operated ramen stand.

The bot behind the counter wasn’t one of those fancy models trying to look human. It was just a cheap assembly of hard plastic over poorly-oiled actuators and servos. Most of the cooking was done through a conveyor system, so all it had to do was handle the transactions and put bowls in front of customers.

Gomorrah paid.

I slurped up a few freshly overboiled noodles and blinked as my eyes watered from the heat on my tongue. “Ah, okay,” I said. “So, the front entrance is obviously a no-go.”

“Obviously,” Gomorrah said. She opened her third pack of spicy sauce and dumped it into her bowl. “There’s brazen and then there’s brazen.”

I nodded and spun my chopsticks around, ignoring the ads scrolling along their sides. “Yeah. So that leaves my first less-dumb idea. We, or at least I, go in by the windows on the outside.”

“You’re not afraid that they have those monitored?”

“All of them?” I asked. I shrugged. “Yeah, you know what, they might. They had some pretty good gear, and it took a lot to track them to here. Wouldn’t surprise me if they went overboard with the safety stuff too.”

“Could your Myalis disable the security?” Gomorrah asked. “My AI isn’t strong with that, but I have a few points to spend.”

I can. While we’re playing telephone, do you mind if I connect with Gomorrah’s AI directly?

“Go ahead,” I said.

Gomorrah looked at me quizzically for a moment before her mouth twisted. “Ah,” she said. “Pleased to meet you, Myalis,” she said.

The ramen bot juttered, then spoke with a familiar voice. “A pleasure to meet you as well,” Myalis said.

The bot shifted to the side, its head, which was a boxy thing with a pair of sensors and a couple of gang-tags sprayed across it, turned towards me and spoke with a new voice, masculine, and smooth. “Greetings, Stray Cat, I am Atyacus, Gomorrah’s AI assistant.”

“Oh, uh, hey,” I said. I waved to the bot. “Are you two just… going to share a body?”

“It does simplify things to a degree. We’re sharing data as we speak, and most Vanguard do seem to enjoy having something to address physically while they speak,” Atyacus said. He–and it definitely sounded like a he–had a cultured sort of voice. Like one of those fedora-wearing guys in those black and white movies.

“Cool,” I said. “While you’re in there, can you get me another bowl of ramen? I wanna try the pork one.”

It was Myalis that replied. “What is Lucy going to say when she tries to pinch you and finds more than she bargained for?”

I glared. “I won’t get fat. I’ve got an orphan’s metabolism.”

“Is that even a thing?” Gomorrah asked.

I shrugged. “Sure. So, the plan? We use Myalis to shut off security, then I slip in through a window?”

“Do we even need to enter the building at all?” Gomorrah asked.

“Unfortunately,” the ramen bot who was currently Myalis said. “We do. Other than their connection to the water and power grids of the main building, I can detect only one communication line into the building. Specifically, to a router on the topmost floor.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

A square opened in my vision, footage, live I guessed, of the back of a cubical. There were a few posters pinned to the wall, and a calendar, but not much else.

“That’s the most I can get from it. The rest of their network seemed to be wired, and it’s a closed loop. I can access one of their printers, but they haven’t used it for anything very sensitive.”

“Okay, so we need to get in, then we can connect to their network?” I asked.