How To Live as a Cyberpunk Solver

135. bait

To the fixer, the White Town Sewer was a familiar place.

When the discharge starts in the rainy season, mutant monsters in the polluted area outside the city hide underground along the pipes.

Max, who only had a handful of experience, had one experience, so it was needless to say the prestigious ‘skinhead’ Kruger and Elia Garden.

“I-I’m new here…”

“It’s no different from your city.”

Ground cities after pioneering had similar facilities. Since the environment is similar, the structure must also be similar. Of course, the detailed divisions are different, but in the case of the sewerage, there was no advantage to the home ground because you couldn’t find the way without a map anyway.

“And it’s not mutant hunting. Although finding mice is similar.”

Leonard sent the organized data to the brain chip and terminal. It was like the soul of a psycho chip distributor moaning in a corner. He said while touching the cyber arm temporarily placed by the skinhead.

“There are two problems.”

Leonard gestured to speak quickly. Skinhead flipped through a few pages of data and launched them into augmented reality. I still can’t see Max, but it didn’t matter because I didn’t even know the video was uploaded.

“The first is how you get into the basement. As you know, the entrance is locked after the rainy season.”

“Only the center managed by the City Hall is like that. There are not one or two buildings equipped with sewage facilities, so if you decide to hide, you can sneak in as many times as you like.”

“So the second problem arises. How do you find where the Liberation Front is hiding in so many underground facilities?”

“There are terrorists who contact distributors. If you trace back their movements, you will get clues.”

It’s easy to say, but everyone knows it’s not easy. Corporate public security and bounty hunters are on fire, so even if you buy yourself, you will buy it five or six times. I’m good at finding people, so if I spend time and money, I’ll be able to find them someday…

“Isn’t that time a problem? There is no guarantee that they will remain down the drain.”

“Ah, do you have anything difficult to think about?”

At that time, unlike others, Max, who was only looking at the screen of his phone, said.

“If it is not difficult?”

“Don’t try to solve it technically, think primitively.”

Among the two, I felt that he was the most primitive human being. He smiled, revealing the pretty crooked teeth that cyborgs don’t have.

“Don’t look for it, let’s find it.”

“how?”

Max looked at the distraught psycho chip distributor.

“Throw the bait.”

There were a total of 3 distributors of psycho chips active in @Junk Town.

Brooks killed by Leonard, Derek killed by a gang of skinheads, and Connor Cooper, now held in the 13th Street bar.

“Brooks never reached out to anyone. Because I downloaded the brain chip before that.”

“It’s the same with Derek. I put the psycho chip in and immediately became a psycho cyborg.”

If so, there was a high possibility that the Liberation Front would not know the current situation.

“Can I use that friend to bring him to the surface?”

“Go, possibility…”

“There is a possibility.”

However, no matter how much I searched the distributor’s memory, there was no such thing as the phone number of the Liberation Front. It was natural.

“You said Brooks or Brutus. They say they send people over there to give them work and monitor them.”

“Then you’ll soon find out that the 22-2nd street shopping mall was robbed.”

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what we did.”

“No. No.”

Max mimicked the finger gestures he had seen somewhere. The skinhead made his already nasty impression even more savage. But Max, who grew up seeing a lot of unsightly things, wasn’t intimidated.

“You have to make them suspicious. That’s how it jumps out of the water.”

“You’re not hiding because you’re suspicious?”

“That is the point. You know tail cutting, right?”

If they were caught, they would throw them all away and go into hiding, but if they were likely to be caught, they would cut off their tails. As far as the possibility goes, it was the highest betting probability for now.

“So what are you going to do?”

“Take that bait on 22-2 Street. Then, won’t the watcher come to see you out of curiosity?”

“I don’t think you’re just curious…”

It wasn’t bad though.

@Max’s strategy was adopted unanimously. However, it was too unnatural to take the bait by pointing out the Brooks store on 22-2nd Street, so after deliberation, I threw it away at 21-9th Street.

Surveillance was not attached. The opponent was A-044 City’s most wanted bounty. It wasn’t because the police were lazy or incompetent that they didn’t get caught with that much credit hanging around their necks. At the slightest hint of suspicion, they will not take the bait.

“Shouldn’t I still attach a location tracker?”

“A tail? Did you see the lizard carrying its severed tail?”

Leonard’s point was correct. After being freed from the brothel’s grim lair, Kerner, a distributor, made a desperate attempt to escape. When I saw that, my head went well.

There was no way that corporate public security would treat corporate terrorism collaborators politely, gangs and solvers could not protect themselves with information worth 100,000 credits each, and the Liberation Front, which tried to silence itself at every opportunity, could not be trusted. The only way Kerner Cooper could survive was to get out of Junktown and into the wasteland.

“That couldn’t be easier.”

Taaang-!

Gunshots rang out in the back alleys where temporary buildings were tangled up. Conner’s head snapped to the side and he fell flat.

People fell, but there was no commotion. A street shooting was not a new surprise, so I went on my way, looking around. Some greedy scavengers approached the collapsed Connor to ask for anything. Thinking about getting implants without knowing who shot the gun seemed more like intelligence than greed. However, there were no additional shots fired. The sniper who killed Kerner had disappeared without a sound.

“Did you find it? did you find it?”

“Shh. Be quiet.”

There were no people or tracking devices at the site of 21st Street. The Liberation Front gang that shot Kerner must have confirmed that and shot it. However, it could not even confirm the drone flying overhead.

“You must have checked to see if there is a fixed drone.”

It is illegal for individuals to operate drones in the city, but there was nothing that could not be done if they were determined to launch them. The sniper thoroughly scanned the scene and determined that there was no monitoring device, but Leonard’s hacking skills were beyond what they could have imagined. Hundreds of overhead advertising drones were connected into a single network to create a giant camera.

It is an autonomous drone that flies while looking straight ahead, but each video was being transmitted to Leonard in real time. I slightly tweaked the flight altitude and route to shoot more precisely, but it was fortunate that I didn’t notice that far.

“You shouldn’t underestimate your talent for finding people.”

Leonard smiled. A pair of two people were found going from rooftop to rooftop. It was clear from the direction of movement and armament that it was the sniper who had shot Kerner Cooper.

“Really… Who do you do these things with, if you don’t have Mr. Leonard?”

“You have to. you.”

Leonard gave Skinhead and Elaia hand signals. After completing the gun inspection, the two fixers rose from their seats. The sound of pulling the slide was cool like a grinding sound.

“Let’s begin.”

@ It wasn’t wrong to investigate all over the city. The sniper circled around Junk Town, then switched cars and headed for 9th Avenue. I couldn’t fly the drone that far, but the skinheads caught up in time and didn’t miss it.

“There’s no way I would go to a place full of entrepreneurs like that, so of course it must be 9th Street.”

Although it is a white town, it was a place with many low-level technicians. It wasn’t too strange to load a long bag of tools into an out of shape pick-up truck and run between buildings.

-This is the third floor building on the northeast side of 9-5 Avenue. Ms. Elia, what floor is this?

-That, that, does that matter? Hey, it’s an underground parking lot!

Leonard brought up a map of 9th Street and turned the steering wheel.

Like a wealthy neighborhood, a barrier was installed at the entrance to the parking lot, but somehow it was wide open. It doesn’t have a hacking module like Leonard, but it seems to be able to operate the device by connecting a socket to a basic level (?). At that level, he would have made a name for himself in A-040 City.

-…I did it.

The skinheads protested with the voice of bolmen. Leonard was also a pitiful middle school student who was not free from prejudice.

-It’s on the 5th basement floor. Stop upstairs and come down.

Leonard went all the way down to the fourth floor and pulled over by the entrance. Max, in the passenger seat, grabbed a gun and checked the chamber again.

“I’m not going?”

“I’m looking for a map of the 9th Street sewer.”

I had been to this sewer a few times, so I had a map. I received it for mutant hunting, so it doesn’t come out completely and it’s not accurate, but it’s better than rushing into it. After examining the basement of 9-5 Avenue, it was floated in the corner of the field of view and the current location was linked.

-Mr. Leonard, we go in first. I left a mark, so check it out.

“Aww! go fast! I will take it all away!”

Max says ‘100,000 credits!’, ‘100,000 credits!’ They shouted and urged. That was at least 100,000. It was hard to earn even if the scavenger request was double digits, so I was nervous.

“You too have become a solver.”

No agreement was reached on how the bounty would be divided, but it was customary for the party that caught the most to get the most. Leonard drew his revolver and got out of the car.

“I’m not in a hurry because I’m not here to hunt mutants.”

I couldn’t say that I was belittling the skinhead crew that started first. Leonard didn’t even share the map shamefully.

The last basement floor had few cars. A pickup truck driven by a sniper from the Liberation Front and an old coupe belonging to a group of skinheads were all.

Leonard habitually checked the location of the CCTV. As befits a wealthy building, cameras are installed here and there, but when I looked at the arrangement, there were blind spots. There, the mark left by the skinhead and the business card of ‘Dirty’, a broker that can be seen in augmented reality, were placed.

It was a small and flimsy plastic card to Max’s eyes without implants, but it was a hologram device that was hard to pass by because it was invisible to high-powered eyes.

“I can’t ignore this face.”

“A face? What kind of face is it?”

Max turned the business card back and forth, puzzled. All it had was a few names written on it. Leonard took his business card back and came back! made up The built-in chip was smashed and a small spark flew out.

“You did a good job finding a place like this.”

Behind the unseen face was a metal locker with a fire hydrant written on it, but without any fire extinguishing tools. Looking inside, the wall was artificially demolished and a hole was dug in the floor. The camouflage was removed by passengers, so there was nothing to be afraid of.

The secret entrance was much wider than it looked from the outside, and it seemed that even a super-heavy cyborg like Ryan Bourne could somehow get in if he adjusted himself.

“I think I found the right one.”

“Because it’s not common to find a guy who makes a mouse hole like this.”

Leonard sent Max first, followed after cleaning up. I bent down a little and passed half a floor before the familiar White Town sewer appeared. The dark background and the bleak sound of the water reminded me of a secret organization hideout.

“Isn’t it just sewage?”

“feeling. It’s a feeling.”