Outrun - Cyberpunk LitRPG

Putting Listeners out wasn’t as easy as it might seem. I had to be strategic with where I placed them to avoid BugHounds. It might’ve been a bit of excessive paranoia, but Cold Moon Solutions did triple down on security, so I didn’t want to get caught if they did a sweep

All that being said, I needed a good spot that wouldn’t be scanned too deeply. My first pick? In the ceiling. As for how I would get the bugs in the right places? I had a couple different methods to try. If none of them worked, I’d have to get around the old-fashioned way.

First things first I headed to the bathroom. Really, the bathroom was the perfect place to get to work. No cameras, and I knew from the blueprints the bathrooms in this place were the kind with a lockable door.

Once inside, I tapped on the back of my hand lightly. “Corvid?”

A second later, the crow popped out of the Aether. Different from every other time I’d seen him go in or out, which was quite flashy, there was barely even a disturbance in the Aether. I wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t been watching for it specifically.

Corvid cocked his head at me as he glided over to the sink and perched on it. “Caw?”

I passed over one of the bugs to him, then, using the toilet as a stepping stool, pushed up one of the roof tiles. “You think you could fit up here?”

”Caw.” Corvid flew over to me, perching on my shoulder momentarily as he tapped my cheek with his beak. He then flapped his wings, going up into the ceiling.

“Nova.” Yep, this was the first of my plans. Use the bird. Hmm… maybe I should rethink some of my projects. Why make a drone when I could just strap a camera to Corvid?

The crow shivered and backed up from the edge of the ceiling. “Caw-!”

I threw those thoughts to the back of my mind. I could think about all of that later. “Okay um…” I didn’t think this all the way through. Hmm… how to direct Corvid to bug the right place?

I rooted around my pockets, searching for the lone Scouter I brought along. I took a bit, but I completely removed the outer protective casing of the Scouter and passed it up to the bird. “Uh- okay- bring this with you, and follow the direction of the stabilizer?”

”Caw?”

I pulled out my phone and connected up to the Scouter. I pulled it up, getting a face full of myself as Corvid picked the device up in his claw and hopped around. I pointed in the direction of the elevator. “Okay, uh, go that direction.”

Thankfully, Corvid was one smart avian. I guess it makes sense. Crows and ravens are supposed to be one of the smartest bird species. And that wasn’t even considering sprites were definitely smarter than their mortal counterparts.

It was a bit of a pain, but I managed to direct Corvid to roughly the right area. Unfortunately, access out into the elevator shoot proper was blocked by a grate. We got around him flying back and grabbing a screwdriver. Yeah, Corvid was quite intelligent. From there, it was fairly simple to hide the bug on the roof of the elevator in a grate. Not the best spot ever, but it would be good enough to pick up any conversations from the elevator.

I also had him fly around and bug a few more POIs. Unfortunately, we could only bug one floor. I barely stopped him in time from passing an array of runes dividing up each floor. Not quite sure what it did, but there was a high chance it was some kind of alarm or sensory magic.

The top and bottom floors were off, though we did manage to get the break room. I would’ve liked to get some more areas on the second floor, but quite a few of the shafts were protected by even more runic emplacements. Especially the ones around the offices. We got what we could before I recalled Corvid.

He hopped back down out of the roof, dropping the Scouter into my hand as he glided down to my shoulder. “Caw, caw?”

”Chek, you did a great job!” I rubbed his head slightly then proceeded to clean everything up. “I’ll get you a treat soon!”

”Caw! Caw caw caw!” Corvid hopped around happily.

No idea what he was actually trying to say. I didn’t speak Avian. I could somewhat read his Cues though. They weren’t necessarily hard, and there was a man-crow thingy at one point while I was playing poker.

Corvid flew back into the Aether, again with a far more subdued approach than how he did every other time. His being so considerate of the situation sure was nice. I’d hate to think how everything would’ve gone down if summoning him tripped some kind of sensor… maybe I should look into getting better-concealed gear? I had plans a while ago, but they kinda faded to the back of my mind at some point.

Anyway, I returned back to Mr. Danvers’ office. “I’m back.”

”Great! I’m just about finished… Just give me a few more minutes and I’ll have all the paperwork ready.”

“I’m in no rush.” I smiled politely at the guy, returning to my Kyzen the courier facade.

Nearly twenty minutes later, I walked out of Cold Moon Solutions with nobody the wiser. I returned to my bike to pick up some stuff, then got up onto the roof across the way from CMS once more. It was the perfect spot for my Signal Booster. Clear airways, secluded, and nobody would look up here. And it was fairly easy to reach.

Now, the range on the Signal Booster wasn’t super impressive by any means. It only added about four or five city blocks to my field of operations. Within that area though, I found the perfect spot to set up a temporary base. It was up on the roof of an apartment building a couple blocks away.

An old shed of some kind sat on the roof. Looked like there was a garden or something at one point, but based on the dust collecting everywhere, it’d been at least a couple years since anyone came up. Anyway, the shed was the perfect spot to leave my deck recording. It took a bit to get set up, but eventually, I got it all plugged in and ready to go.

As the feed for my Listeners went live, I walked out of the shed and moved over to the side of the roof. What to do now? I could return to the restaurant and keep an eye out on the building itself, but, I don’t know, it felt like a bit of a waste? I still had a rather massive list of things I needed to do anyway. And right now I was just waiting.

I returned to my apartment and tinkered with the security mechanisms for my stash. I was about a quarter of the way done with everything I wanted to build, though the printer finished the parts a while back. I went ahead and ran it again, redesigning some areas to better fit what I wanted but otherwise worked on various devices.

After several hours building and passively researching the various runes and wards I’d seen in Cold Moon Solutions, I decided to change it up. I got dressed, grabbed a small golden card from my gathered loot, and headed down to my bike.

On my way to my destination, I went ahead and dropped by a duffel full of completed parts in the speakeasy. I’d have to drip-feed everything in to avoid suspicion. I also went to a shop and bought some raw synthetic beef for Corvid. He seemed to like it well enough.

After that, I headed to Battle Born Arena, the holographic fighting arena Mira took me to a while back. I’d been looking through my Skills recently, and I came to the unfortunate realization that I was actually pretty weak outside of my particular set of Skills.

I had some loose plans to head for a merc dive to get a gig at one and start getting a rep. I was way too underpowered as is when it comes to combat though. I’d been lucky in almost every encounter within recent memory.

More precisely, I’d abused the hell out of Insight. I had a feeling that just Insight wouldn’t matter if I went against someone with actual combat training though, like Hope or any other of the squires. And, since I was finally kickstarting my thieving adventures, there was a real chance I’d have to go up against some of them at some point. I’d rather not get caught out.

Hence Battle Born Arena. I figured it wouldn’t hurt to get some more experience. Battle Born Arena had been on my mind since Mira first brought me here and I leveled Melee Weapons. Now that I was in fairly good shape, I was ready to actually fight once more. That, and it would be nice to relax for once and just play a game.

As soon as I stepped into the building, I felt the Gold card Mira bought for me vibrate in my pocket. In an instant, various holoprojectors shot down onto me. On a reflective surface across the hall, I watched my appearance swap to what I set it last time. A simple mask covered my face as my hair turned silver. My tag, Moon, projected just over my head.

It took a bit, but I managed to work my way around until I found the right area for 1v1s. I headed for the medieval section once more. This time around, I picked out a dagger and a small hand crossbow. The dagger was a basic thing made of rubber, though the holoprojectors scattered around quickly turned it into a rusted and chipped dagger.

The crossbow on the other hand, literally, was some kind of plastic I didn’t recognize off the bat. It came with a small quiver full of about fifteen bolts that I promptly strapped to my thigh. The bolts were small things made of the same kind of durable plastic though tipped with rubber. The holograms took over, making the bolts and crossbow look as though they were frayed hunks of wood that had seen some use.

I typically had a dagger and pistol concealed somewhere on myself at all times, so the choice was pretty easy. Better to practice with what I had—or at least with something that closely matched what I typically wielded—than some crazy weapon I’d never even touch like a spear.

Course, I could’ve just gone straight into the ‘modern’ section and picked up a knife and pistol, but I wanted to work on my biggest weakness—close-quarters combat.

After getting geared up, I started looking for a match of ‘To the Death!’. Unlike the contact mode I played last time, this one had ‘health’ bars that the arena’s system would keep track of. It seemed the closest I could get to a real fight.

Of course, before I could even do anything, I had to sign about a dozen liability waivers. Most of them were in the case of accidental injury during a match, though there were quite a few terms I had to sign off on regarding machinery.

As soon as I hit ‘Find Match’ on the console by the door, the sheer white room transitioned into a grizzled coliseum with roaring crowds up in the stands. I could even smell a hint of blood being released from somewhere. Gotta hand it to the arena, they really knew how to set up an immersive fight.

From the way Mira explained the matchmaking, someone could physically come into the room to fight, but usually, that was reserved for friends in a more ‘custom match’ kind of game like what I first experienced. Outside of that, matchmaking resembled a video game, with holo-arenas all over the world pooling into one massive server. Quite impressive tech all things considered.

With such a vast array of people fighting, it was only a matter of seconds until a match was made. On the far side of an arena, a holographic gate raised up, revealing darkness behind it. A robot walked out mechanically, a rubber longsword clutched in its grip.

As the bot walked towards its starting location, the holoprojectors kicked on, turning the robot into a rather frail-looking man in rusty armor. He looked like he was from across the ocean. Some kind of corpo drone from the look of his slack face.

A box, eerily similar to the interface, popped up in my vision.

[Match: 1v1 best of 5. Unranked.

Contender: xXx_whino_xXx

Skill Estimate: Moon < xXx_whino_xXx]

“Round one, fight!” An announcer called. The voice was set up to sound as if it came from the emperor’s box.

Whino gave a polite bow to me then hefted his sword as a nervous tension filled the air. Was bowing part of the etiquette? I returned the bow, though I kept my eyes on the guy the entire time.

I didn’t want to close in too close, especially considering I had the range advantage, so I backed off and fired a shot with the crossbow. Oddly, the trigger had about a second delay before it fired.

Thanks to the delay, the guy easily dodged the first shot. By the time I pulled another bolt from my holster and reprimed the crossbow, the man rushed me with a ferocious swing.