Ghost in the City Chapter 82

I opened my eyes in the net. My lobby was still blank

I really needed to spend so ti building this up. A lobby could be a really useful tool if prepared correctly.

But I shook that away and dived into the city.

I did plan on talking to Yoko today, but first there was sothing I wanted to explore myself.

I wanted to find more Scavs.

What? My Bank account was looking a little thin, and it was better to find another den to raid sooner rather than later. Ichi still had to pay rent after all.

So I needed information, and I wasnt going to accept going to see Yoko and just having it handed to .

A netrunner was all about finding information.

So I was going to gather it myself this ti. I wasnt a detective, but I had seen plenty of cop shows!

If you wanted to hunt soone. You had to find out where their victims had been.

So first step was the NCPD Criminal database.

It was easy enough to find the location of, I jumped to the NCPD City-Net page, and instantly I was in front of a prison of a building. Gates, and fences, digital barbed wire, and Daemons shaped like dogs walking around the walls.

I scoffed though. For all of its look of security, thats all it was. I walked right up to the gate and requested access.

The gate opened and I was allowed to access the public pages. You would think that would an if I wanted the private stuff I would have stronger security, but that wasnt true.

I walked past the gate. Past the guard Daemons. Past the security, into the lobby of a building, and then once I was in. I just turned away from the lobby room, that looked like I was visiting the DMV. Instead I found the visual door that had Secure. NCPD Only On it.

Like I said. They already let in past all the security. In this case I was pretty sure it was intentional. The NCPD didnt care if soone went looking for their criminal database after all. I an I already had access to it through my Kiroshi. The access that Vik had set up for was super common, and so it was child's play to just walk through the secure door into a file room.

The door lock on the door was flimsy and I breached it within a few monts.

Like I said soone wanted people to be able to access at least this set of files. Inside was a storage room, nearly infinitely long filled with old storage cabinets. I walked over to the first one and popped it open. Inside was files on a recent Grand Theft Auto. I closed the drawer.

I needed sothing else.

So with a bit of a ntal command, I inputted a search function for all files relating to kidnapping.

The room rumbled. Like I was in the matrix, and thousands of the cabinets vanished as the whole space rearranged itself.

Then when the shifting room still left with millions of cabinets, I narrowed it more. Within the last four months. It rumbled and shifted again. There were still a ton of files, but at least now I could start.

First just to see I added Scav into the search to see what would happen. The room didnt alter in any way that I could see.

I pulled open the first file closest to .

Violet Espinosa. Age 27. Reported missing 4.17. Deceased. SCAV.

Peter Franklin Age 36. Reported missing 5.2. Deceased. SCAV.

The reports were all like that. Sure there was more information on each one, the police reports had a lot of information including the missing persons criminal history and such.

But that bit was the most interesting point.

Why was SCAV on all these files?

Why was Deceased? Did the NCPD know sothing? I couldnt find any information on why they were listed that way.

In the end, I didnt get an answer, but the more recent kidnappings at least had locations for last seen.

So I started collecting the data. Opening a file and just dumping the last location into a map of Night City. Slowly more and more dots grew across the file. There were hundreds of kidnapping reports, and I was just dumping them all into the file to see what would happen.

In the end, there were definitely hot spots on the map, but it didnt really give enough information to know for sure.

But, I knew where to look now.

So I found the most recent kidnapping report that was closest to the hotspots, and pulled those files saving them to my own server and took my new hotspot map. Then I walked out of the NCPD server.

--

Markus Leon. Went missing yesterday. Age 30. His wife made the report. Markus had been last seen walking to work from his apartnt building by his wife.

His work was three blocks down the street. He never made it to work.

But I had a general ti he had left. And this was a modern city.

It had caras everywhere.

So first I walked to the apartnt complex that Markus lived in. The Server was old. It didnt have the security to really stop as I accessed the system, breached past its defenses and accessed the few security caras still working.

Most were broken, but the elevator one worked.

I checked the ti, and watched.

6:37 AM.

I found him. Markus steps onto the elevator from the third floor. Heads down, and walks out.

I jump out of the cara. The lobby cara was broken, but there was an outside cara looking down at the entrance. It was a few floors up, which is the only reason It wasnt broken.

6:38 AM.

Markus walked out of the complex, turned left down the street and continued his path.

Okay. I checked the net for buildings along the road he had gone down.

The next building over was a hotel. The security was tighter, but still easily bypassed especially since I was in the net.

Its caras were active. Protected by bullet proof dos so they wouldnt get destroyed.

6:38 AM.

Markus walks past the entrance. I watch for a minute after he goes past.

No one seed to be following him or anything.

So I pulled out of the security of the building and moved on.

I continued down the street. Any building that didnt have caras. I would jump across the street and see if there were caras facing outward enough to catch across the street.

Down we went. Until I crossed a street and Markus didnt appear.

I went back, and saw him reach the crosswalk through a diner's cara, and then nothing.

I jumped around, checking all the corners of the street trying to find sothing.

6:41 AM.

I spotted it.

Markus didnt cross the street, the path he should take to go to work.

No, he turned left and continued walking down the street.

Interesting.

I continued to follow his path as he headed away from his workplace.

What was Markus up to?

Not that I was interested if the guy had just bailed. I was looking for scavs.

Down the street we went, only a few tis I had to skip a few buildings and wait for him to walk into fra.

Then suddenly I jumped to the next cara and he never appeared.

I checked all the caras in the area, I could confirm he disappeared.

After a few minutes of checking, I realized there was only one place he could have gone.

An apartnt building.

So he was in the apartnts? I an Scavs often set up there, but this wasnt exactly what I was looking for. Where were the group of scavs beating him unconscious or drugging him and dragging him into a rape van or sothing?

The apartnt complex was run down, didnt have any security caras inside.

Probably on purpose.

But it did have a server still, everything had a net channel after all, had to, to have TV.

So I started sneaking in. Sothing weird was going on.

The server as I slipped in was dark and run down, plenty of slow down spots.

I wouldnt be surprised if the TV reception in the place sucked.

But the security might as well have been a broken lock. I popped in, and checked the apartnt listings.

Markus Leon wasnt on the registry of course.

But I did find sothing interesting.

An entire section of the complex that had everyone stop paying rent as one. Consistent rent paynts by so of the people and then suddenly nothing. This started months ago.

But more interesting? The server data was modified.

It wasnt anything amazing, but it wouldnt be sending any alerts to the owner to let them know there was a late paynt.

Services would shut off still, but the owner wouldnt know he needed to bring in more people.

Interesting.

Second floor, rooms 220-230 were all non paying.

There was a temptation to back out and check it out in person but

I was a netrunner. This was the sort of thing I was ant to do.

So I started poking around.

Soone capable of hacking into the register to shut off alerts would want internet access.

If they had access, they had opened a path.

So I started pinging the area around the building.

The virtual datascape around flared up and traffic glowed a brighter color than the rest.

There.

I smirked. There was a side channel that had been rather roughly built into the side of the server.

To my eyes it looked like soone had laid a long wire from the access point between the internet and the building server, up into the building. I pinged it, making sure to keep the touch as light as I could.

It blazed through the wire, showing a spider web of systems. Caras. And computers all together.

I smirked as I slipped through. Yes there was security. Yes they had so good ICE.

Yes they had expected it to keep soone out.

Not good enough.

I breached through the ICE, and as I did, a monster slipped out of my avatar.

A Daemon.

I smiled at it, as its legs skittered into the server. It looked like a cross between a spider and a facehugger.

I loved it instantly.

I watched it slip into the server and its actions spread out to anything connected to the system.

I slipped in after. Traveling through the wire into a low fidelity server.

There wasnt much inside. The server was just a computer system setup to run everything, but I could poke around.

I easily snuck right past the Guard Daemon. It was shaped like a robotic dog searching endlessly for intruders.

But it had my giant spider wrapped around its face, a single large eye the only thing that could see, and as it looked at , it just seed to ignore my presence.

I had already been sure it couldnt see . The Daemon was perfect for bypassing low level security Daemons. Instantly I accessed the caras connected to the system.

I had seen a lot of scav dens.

I had grown rather used to the sights of them.

This wasnt a scav den.

It was a drug den.

I scowled. What the fuck? There were drugs being cooked up, and drugs being used. One side of the apartnts was set up to manufacture sothing.

The other side was a drug den. Couches and beds littered the area. Plenty of people passed out among the ss and detritus.

Okay sothing was up.

I was on the tail end of a kidnapping

Oh no. It was just a missing person. I scowled, searching the caras for any sign of Markus. If he was here, then he really wasnt missing.

And there he was.

Fuck. I shook my digital head pulling free of the cara systems.

This wasnt my target. A complete bust.

I headed out of the hidden server. I considered sending a tip to the NCPD, but

It could be useful knowledge. I would keep it for now. Just marking down the info. It wasnt like I couldnt access their little server again in the future. My second Daemon would take care of that. Wall Breaking left a Daemon behind giving access after all.

That one looked like a giant eye that went and hid itself in the corner of the server room it would remain quiet and hidden until I needed to access the server again.

--

So I went down the list.

Taking a small break to hit the bathroom in between.

Most of the missing reports went sowhat similar. People running away just to escape. So ended up caught by rival gangs and flatlined. So were even picked up by the NCPD despite the report of them potentially dead.

I realized that any ti soone reported missing NCPD just filled out a missing persons report, listed them as deceased with a SCAV label for so reason.

Fuckers.

In the end it didnt matter. I was going to search through the missing reports until I found my target. I had all day.

And in the end, following the sa steps, just tracking people down through old cara recordings. I found them.

It was a report on Hannah Curtis. The forty year old Corpo woman. Who worked for a Biotechnica subsidiary. She went missing two days ago, she did have more protection than a normal worker, and likely would have been searched for, but her biomonitor confird a flatline.

So they gave up.

I didnt.

She was harder to track. I ended up having to follow her car through the city, hacking caras as I went, even losing track of her once, and only finding her by chance down a side street.

I couldnt see exactly what went down, but I could guess.

Her car goes in the alley, and minutes pass. Then a truck drives into the alley. Her car drives out of the alley with a new driver and no Hannah.

A scan of the man's face told what had happened.

Turns out Hannah had a drug addiction. She stopped in the alleyway to et her dealer, and he stole her car. Probably knocked her out or killed her.

You would think that was the end, but the dealer, a Mr. Samuel Alexander Harrington. Had connections.

The truck leaving had a man driving that was wearing an imager displacer. Couldnt get his face, but the image of the face with crossed out eyes was more than enough to confirm it was a scav.

So I followed along, with notes to follow up with Mr. Samuel soti. That had been a nice car, and it would be a sha to let him keep it.

But I followed the truck.

In the end tracking them through the city was starting to beco routine. Security existed, sure, but it wasnt like I was in a rush. Any ti I hit a place with security too heavy, I could skip it, try to find an easier cara to hack into, or if I absolutely needed that Cara to know where they went, I could just slowly breach in, take my ti.

I wasnt trying to rescue soone after all. I was hunting.

Considering how often I was breaching into systems I was earning a nice nestegg of Breaching XP as a bonus.

Then I just followed them ho.

Sure the caras in the area they finally stopped were mostly broken down, or nonexistent. But when I narrowed the scavs down to a specific block area. It wasnt hard to then start checking each building one at a ti.

The people that were running non-scav business were given a ntal apology for the intrusion and ignored.

Although I would have to keep an eye on that porn studio, there hadnt been anyone acting at the ti I breached, but it looked sketchy, and if they were kidnapping people too? Well I would just clean them up as well.

But I found them.

What had once been a small office building, and that according to the records should be shut down, but had active internet and electricity flowing to it.

As I slipped into their net their caras told the full story.

Scav den.

I noted the address, and even started poking around their systems.

I cant believe how easy this is from the net. I couldnt help but admit to myself as I looked around the scavs, network lobby.

Sure their security was pretty good. Great even. They likely had a netrunner set it all up to start with.

But it wasnt being monitored, and an automated system was easily bypassed in the end.

My Cyber Ninja perk ant when I breached into the system, their security Daemons had a hard ti finding . Plus it was also infecting the people attached to the network.

I was gonna have a lot of fun when I hit this place. Their network would already be mine long before I set foot in real life.

I stilled at that thought.

Netrunning wasnt easy.

It wasnt a ga. I could die here. I was getting overconfident, and that is the sort of thing that kills. I wouldnt just be able to pop a maxdoc if soone fried my brain.

I shook off the confidence, and ntally switched back to assuming I was being tracked. I doubled down on making sure everything was in place, that my additions to the network. The backdoors and daemons wouldnt be noted.

Then I backed out after gathering all the cara data I could.

--

I had sent a text to my chooms after I got back to my body.

*Section 9 eting tonight. Target located. et at Lizzies 6PM.*

Feeling cool for sending out a totally tactical ssage I went ho.

The sun was coming up, which was funny because when I arrived at the apartnt the sun had been coming up.

I had been in the net for nearly a whole day.

I didnt feel too bad, but as I reached the street I jogged down to the parking lot instead of just calling the car here.

Even if my stats didnt deteriorate, I still needed a bit of exercise, to stretch my legs.

I was already a basent dweller at this point

I shook that annoying thought away and went ho.

I wanted a shower.