章 219: Caving
In the end, the crew had no other choice but to accept Aliya's gig. Not only were they in hostile territory, but they were sat across from someone who could easily have them targeted by the entire city.
Fortunately, the pay outweighed any leftover hostility that might've been there: a hundred thousand Eddies plus a small percentage of what they managed to steal from the vault. Of course, doubts still remained on whether Aliya would have them zeroed as soon as they were finished, so while Maine and his personal crew got to work scouting out potential entry points into the Crystal Tower, Lucy got work checking out Aliya's cred when she wasn't trying to access the Crystal Tower's systems.
They'd been given private luxury rooms in New Caesars Palace which had all expenses paid for, along with a completely specced out Netrunner room for Lucy to work in. That had probably been the richest any of the group had ever felt, being waited on hand and foot with the ability to ask for anything was quite addicting...
Maine and Rebecca kicked Pilar's ass when they discovered he was overusing the BDs and 'private services' some of the staff offered. It didn't matter that he was doing it, merely that it was cutting into actual work time.
While the others were doing that, Ori took the opportunity to explore the underground sections of the city with Rebecca, mostly hoping to find any leftover structures from the Venetian resort that'd allow them access.
To him it was unavoidable that some of the 'mole people' would've tried to break into the various buildings and casinos around the strip, hoping to score something big. But the underground folk, from what he'd seen thus far, lacked any real firepower to allow any overt action. They were little more than homeless peasants living on the scraps the people in the Strip tossed away. The most impoverished even made use of the sewers, siphoning cooking oil, fuel, and other equally off-putting things.
There was a reason the saying "Don't eat underground unless you want to eat shit." existed, the more accurate version would add potential cannibalism to the list too though.
That wasn't to say everyone down there was a disgusting degenerate, the biggest independent group down there called themselves 'Free people of Las Vegas', who supposedly aspired to return the city to its rightful owners, the people.
It was actually this group that might've saved Ori and Rebecca's lives... Well, the latter's at least. After a week of running around, they'd managed to navigate through the tunnels and around the general vicinity of the Crystal Tower's foundations.
Only for them to be stopped by some sort of blockade? The tunnel was only maybe five or six feet wide, but it'd been blocked off with scrap metal and rusted stop signs. Through the holes of the hastily constructed defence, they could see many FPV members milling around, presumably guarding something.
Ori squints at Rebecca who had a pleading look on her face, submachine gun gripped tightly. "No, we're not killing a bunch of homeless people for no reason, besides, they might actually have a reason for being here." he states with finality as he knocks on the metal door.
"Boo... A hundred bucks says they're hiding some fucked up secret that'll force us to kill them anyhow. I'll just get it over with beforehand," she stares at him smugly, "I told you so."
"Feel better?" he snorts.
"Totally. Nothing's better than getting proven right."
"Who goes there!?" one of the FPV members shouts as they approach the door.
"None of your business, we just need to get through here, I'm hoping I won't have to murder you all." Ori states matter-of-factly.
"Y-you fuckin' what?" the dirty man utters in complete bafflement.
Rebecca steps out and pushes her face against one of the peeking holes, "Are you deaf? Let us in or we'll do it the hard way!"
"This area has been locked down! You'll leave unless you wanna die!"
"You threatenin' me!?"
"No!" the man sputters, "I mean literally, you will die if you go past here. Those corpo-cunts dumped a bunch of their bots down here that'll shoot anyone on sight. Don't matter how tough you think you are, you can't dodge bullets in these small ass tunnels!"
"Wait, the area's already protected?" Ori questions, not that surprised the Crystal Tower would take such measures.
"Why'd you think we barred it off!? Twenty people already got zeroed by those fuckin' things!"
...
Ori sighs, "Whatever, just let us through. We can handle ourselves."
...
"Fine, but I ain't cleanin' up what's left of you." the man grouses, unlatching the many locks and opening the metal door. He gestures over at the far end of the small cave where a small hand-dug hole sat. "Walk a couple minutes through there and you'll die, so, I'd recommend not to..."
"Just because all of you are pussies doesn't mean we are!" Rebecca remarks and glances at Ori, "Come on, we got some tech to scrap!"
Ori slows his stride as looks to the guard, "Any chance you know what make the bots are?"
"N-no, no one's gotten close without getting shot the fuck up."
"Hm...."
---------------------
Ori and Rebecca venture forth through the tunnel and quickly reach the end of the shallow passage, finding themselves standing opposite a semi-large cavern which had sewer pipes running through it and unloading their contents into a larger pit. Some pipes were cracked and broken, leaking disgusting fluids into the room, producing an incredibly pungent and rancid smell that almost had Ori running for the hills.
More importantly was the rusty-looking bipedal military-issue robot standing amongst the fill, laser sights flashing over the surroundings to try and peg anyone who dared encroach on their territory.
"Think we can handle them?" Ori asks, focussing on the three heavy-duty units wandering around the place.
Rebecca just smirks, "Do politicians lie? We got this shit!"
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