Outrun - Cyberpunk LitRPG

The War Room sat in a basement level of the Blue Crusade Little Yukoto Department. It was a fairly wide room in a high-tech style with strips of white lights lining the walls. Brackets of metal supported the ceiling. A large lit-up table sat in the middle covered in holographic maps. The atmosphere was… heavy as I walked in.

Inquisitor Ligh stood around the table alongside two other Crusaders. Both Knights, if I had to guess. They both had the crossed swords symbol of Knights on their silver armor. One wore heavy-duty armor covering almost head to toe and the other wore extremely light armor that barely covered her vitals. Full helmets obscured their faces with sheer silver masks, a telltale sign of Blue Crusade higher-ups.

Four Squires stood around the two Knights, three of them partially covered in silver armor and the other one in just the normal ballistic vest and Blue Crusade trench coat. A noobie Squire, like me. Well, hopefully not ‘like’ me considering I was little better than a spy turned slave.

Hope stood at the Inquisitor's side. She flashed a tired smile at me, though it looked more like she was baring her teeth threateningly. Subtle Cues read as friendly though, I think. To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure why she was here since her arm was still broken.

Her movements drew the others’ attention to me. The heavy atmosphere turned to one of immense dread and guilt as all three of the silver-covered Crusaders turned to me. I barely held myself from flinching back as I saw myself reflected in all three of their face coverings. I flickered Cold-Blooded, giving myself a moment of ice-enforced calm as I continued my stride and approached the table.

Inquisitor Strumgard waved an arm to me. His voice was as unsettling as ever. It's icey cold with forced inflections like he was trying and failing to sound human. “If it isn’t the woman- err, girl? Shquire of the hour! C’mon in. We were just discussing shtrategy.”

The heavy Knight spoke as I felt his eyes bore holes through me. His voice sounded even and calm. “I don’t believe we’ve met, yet.”

”S-Squire Zuku Ichima. I was just brought under Inquisitor Strumgard’s uh, tutelage recently.” I answered as evenly as I could and glanced at the table for a distraction. It was projecting a small hologram of a blueprint- of the tower SPS resided in - as well as a map of the surrounding area.

The man nodded “Knight Zaval.” He pointed to two of the Squires in armor. “Those are my Squires: Squire Verlon and Squire Encis.”

“Greetings.” Squire Verlon bowed his head slightly, his dark blonde hair flopping into his face.

”Hello.” Squire Encis frowned at me, eyeing my arms for some reason. It’s not like he could see anything under my trench coat.

”Knight Amity.” The woman jacked a finger at the other armored one and the noobie. “Squire Cronch. Squire Sterling.”

The other one in armor eyed me for a moment but didn’t say anything. The noobie gave me a charismatic smile. “Nice to meet you.”

“Now that drivel ish done with, my Shquire here was the one infiltrating SPSh. The plan is to snatch the principal of the school… One Vio Boushly. A corporate drone who hadn’t done much with hish life until he was offered the principal position at Shentinel Private School. He took the position lasht year. Shuspected fake identity. What are we walking into?” The Inquisitor asked me.

I tried to think back to the security. “Uh, Sentinel armed guards are capable of pouring out if need be. The school itself has every hall and corner locked down by cameras and sensors. There are plenty of turrets everywhere and security gates capable of deploying from the ceilings.”

I paused for a moment, sending a look to the Inquisitor. He didn’t respond to it, but Hope flopped her head encouragingly. Or she was just passing out? Hard to tell. “The biggest threat is the plants all over the school. I’m not quite sure what’s going on with them, but they can affect the mental state of those exposed to them. I felt heightened emotions and increased drowsiness. I’m not aetherialy aligned, but I suspect magic.”

”Nova… you didn’t mention anything about magic, Inquisitor.” Knight Amity folded her arms as her two Squires shifted uncomfortably.

My Inquisitor shrugged. “I- uh- I thought I shent it in the file? No? Okay, the guy we’re after is known to use plant magic. Um… was there anyone else of note there, Shquire?”

”The assistant. From what I could see, she’s in on it.” I shrugged, trying not to flinch as all three of them turned back to me. Seriously intimidating. “I could only get so much information in a week.”

Knight Amity rubbed the bottom of her helmet as she peered down at the map. “Are we going to have to worry about Sentinel forces?”

“No.” My Inquisitor shook his head. “I called in some favors. Still, arreshting him inshide the school is decidedly a bad idea conshidering it would essentially be attacking a bunker inside of a heavily guarded fortressh.”

Squire Sterling raised a hesitant hand. “Are we expecting him to fight back?”

The Inquisitor nodded. “He won’t come easily. His… friend that put us onto his tracksh was a tough fight. Our besht bet is to hit him on the way to school early in the morning.” Light Strumgard messed with the hologram projector, manipulating it to a street right outside the school. “Shquire Hope here has been watching the principal and other VIPsh to get their schedule.”

Oh? Are we not informing them of the larger game at play here with this ‘circle’? Hmm… for a policing force, the Blue Crusade sure has a lot of trust issues. Back when I got that job with Iris, the Knight hadn’t wanted to call for help from other Crusaders either. The cloak-and-dagger approach worked for me all things considered, but still.

Hope stepped up, rubbing a tired hand at her eyes as she looked down at the hologram. “Our best bet is to hit him hard and fast. He lives about a block away from the school and walks every morning, meeting up with his assistant on the way. Our ideal ambush spot is here-” Hope struggled to manipulate the hologram with just one hand, but eventually got it. The projection showed the stoplight just outside of SPS’s tower. “We get him between locations. Tomorrow morning. Block the road and set up dummy traffic.”

“Are you sure you need us?” Knight Zaval asked.

“Yesh.” The Inquisitor motioned to Knight Amity. “We’ll be responsible for hitting him. You, on the other hand, need to head in and search his office. Only hish office. It's the best we could get short term, and we really don’t need Sentinel breathing down our necks harder than they are. Make sure to grab his computer. Shquire Ichima tried to use a BED on it, but the techies couldn’t breach the ICE. You know how finicky they can be.”

Right. I was wondering why I hadn’t heard anything about that. Sucks the device wasn’t as useful as I thought it would be if they still had to get through all of a system’s defenses. Nothing could be easy, I guess.

“The BED?” I couldn’t see her face, but I suspected Knight Amity arched an angry eyebrow based on her voice. “The BED that's been deemed an Invasion of Privacy and against Civil Rights?”

“I prefer the term ‘Gentle Observation of Privacy’.” Inquisitor Strumgard scratched his silver mask. “And by catching criminals, we’re protecting Civil Rightsh! It all worksh out, Martha.”

“Don’t call me that, Ligher. I would complain to the commander, but I doubt he’d do anything. Squire!” I snapped to attention as the Knight stared me down. I think, “I doubt this drunk fool told you the BED was highly illegal and locked up for a reason. Return it to the Crusade. Consider this a ‘Gentle’ warning.”

I glanced at the Inquisitor who nodded his head slowly. “You heard the bitc- Knight. Put it on my deshk as well as a report. Skip the minutia unless it involvesh the principal. Other than that, you’re free to return to regular dutiesh and relax.”

“Sir.” He didn’t need to tell me twice. I briskly walked out of the War Room and headed back to my apartment. I guess I should’ve felt a bit bad about not being part of the squad going after Vio Bously, but I was ready to be done with this entire gig. Definitely wasn’t as relaxing as it first appeared, though it has been mostly successful at getting my mind off of… well, the box.

It was only a matter of time till I got whatever the Interface Expansion was and would have to decide on the murderous entity. I still had time though. At least until I got a skill to level twelve.

Writing up the report wasn’t too bad, but it was time-consuming. Once again, the Net saved my bacon as I pulled up copies and templates of Blue Crusade reports and just filled in the blanks. I also carefully reworked the actual sequence of events to better fit my narrative and exclude anything that might mark me as suspicious.

Of the things omitted were the attempted interrogation, my identity used, and almost anything else that could blow back onto me. I wasn’t a real Crusader, nor was I even getting paid for that matter, so there wasn't a reason to do it all legitimately.

I brought everything back to the Blue Crusade Department late at night. The Inquisitor left his office door unlocked, so I slipped in with the BED and report. I slapped them onto his desk, barely resisting the urge to swipe something from his office.

That didn’t stop me from looking around though. It was mostly just filled with boring paperwork and cheap paperweights. A stack of papers with a sticky note tacked onto them sat off to the side of his terminal next to his keyboard. BED was written on the note.

I glanced around, eyeing the office for cameras as I stretched, 'tripped', and knocked the papers off his desk. ‘Panicking’, I quickly moved to pick them all up, glancing through each of them in turn. Every single page had a full dossier of the people I hit with the BED.

One page in particular stood out to me; the top of the page printed with ‘Dr. Carl Langstrum’. I glanced over the sheet, recognizing it as the crow mask guy from the gala. Filing that into the back of my head, I tidied up the stack and headed back out of the office like I wasn’t even there.

— — —

I leaned up against a concrete pillar in the middle of an abandoned and falling-apart parking garage. In the distance, I could hear traffic and occasional gunshots muted by the thick walls of the garage. The place had chunks fallen out everywhere, leaving drops onto the floor below. Broken pipes were everywhere as they dinked with the slow flow of water.

The garage was right within the sweet spot of the projects and the Scath Heights where no one wanted to be and even fewer people wanted to repair anything. It was incredibly dark. The only lights around were the neon bits shining through the occasional fallen part of a wall or bullet hole. The storm covering the night sky didn't help anything.

It was, in part, my fault. After we checked the place, scaring off a group of homeless for the night, I cut the power to the lights. Outside of the messy homeless camp, there were signs that this place had been used as a dead drop or by gun dealers in the past, but the thick layer of debris and dust everywhere pointed towards it being out of use for a long time.

I checked the time. Almost midnight. Still had several minutes till it was time. Torren would call over the comm channel once Claire showed up, so I zoned out slightly and focused back on the notes pulled up onto my phone.

Dr. Carl Langstrum - a rich scientist interested in developing biotech organs and medical technology. Or at least that’s what I managed to find off the Net. He had an impressive amount of accolades and was credited for helping on several projects from Raijin to KairoTech Global. He was a rare free scientist not bound to a single corp.

He was also a very controversial figure. He was a leading developer of the ‘exo-womb’, an external womb for pregnant women who either couldn’t or didn’t want to carry their child to term. The device had a failure rate of fifty percent when it was first released. Many scream streams posed the guy as the next major mass murderer for developing and producing faulty tech. He won the slander lawsuit, though I suspect he bribed the judge.

The guy had an army of private security at his beck and call, and well-trained ones at that. There was a video clip floating around about an attempted assassination on the guy. The assassin didn’t get even a block before he was swarmed and killed by private security. They were closer to PMCs than anything, though they still bore some signs of solo mercs.

Based on more current scream streams about the guy from smaller media companies, he’s been hitting auctions and markets mass-buying magical items and trinkets, of which there's been a massive inflow over the past couple of months. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together- he’s shifted research to the Aether. If that assumption was right, it unfortunately meant the egg was in his research lab. His extremely well-guarded lab.

Even the lab's blueprints weren’t obtainable by normal means. The city archives had the blueprints, but I recognized them as a simple apartment building rather than a lab. Probably paid someone to do a switcheroo.

Getting the egg wouldn’t be easy. I'd have to put it off along with most of my other requests for now. The reward was a Trait point, so I can’t imagine in any world where the Request would be simple considering how stingy the interface normally is. Hell, it has been over a week since I’ve gotten a Skill level up thanks to its dumb requirement for me to finish what I’m doing.

Seriously, why couldn’t I get stronger just by reading a dumb book like Torren-

As if he felt me thinking about him, Torren called across the comms. “She’s here.”

I sighed, dropping my phone as I pushed myself off the pillar. “Chek…”