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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Rebecca takes cover by the entrance as Ori steadily approaches one of the many murder bots, knowing full well how powerful these things were. While Lazarus had seemingly replaced most of them with their own machines, as the crew as seen on the Strip with one burning a woman alive, Ori was sure he'd be able to destroy these ones.
The main reason he was taking this risk at all was the designation marked on their sides, they were Militech units, meaning they didn't have any connections with the Crystal Tower anymore, simply placed here to dissuade anyone attempting to break in via this route.
Since according to Aliya Militech had already pulled their support due to the DMS coupe, these machines probably had no connection to any network left, which is exactly what Militech intended... Purely out of spite, they allowed DMS to rely on these unreliable units...
Ori slinks over, dunking between stone rubble and sewer pipes as he approached. The things were almost triple his height, and his lack of proper weaponry made it difficult to visualise exactly how he was going to bring the down...
He wasn't afraid though... Once one of the machines turns towards the pebble he'd tossed he leaps out, running up and springing off of the back of its leg, up to its back before plunging the Injector straight into it.
The machine gives a whirring screech as it tries to shake him off, but he keeps his grip and maintains his position, allowing the nanites to quickly take it apart.
The other two robots open fire on their comrade but Ori ducks down, allowing the brunt of their attacks to hit their comrade. The powerful weaponry quickly begins tearing it apart, but he keeps the injector active, eventually spreading black nanite tendrils through its component.
The robot freezes, and after a moment, drops to the floor limply. Rebecca leaps into action as the first one falls, drawing the two robots' fire towards her and allowing Ori to recover from the massive amounts of resources he'd absorbed, most of which had had to be scrapped to stop his body from imploding on itself... Metal and materials could only get so dense before the energy expenditure became too costly.
"Hahaha! Come on! You buckets of bolts got no brain or somethin'!? COME GET ME!" she shouts and hurriedly ducks back into the tunnel, causing the bots to all but forget Ori's existence. With that, he sprints over at the next, his Monowire shooting out into a huge arc that splits one robot completely through the middle with some small amount of difficulty.
As the separated pieces fall to the ground, a bright sparking bolt hits the last one in the back, instantly burning a hole through its plating and into its core... Another moment later and it falls to the ground, limp and inactive.
"How about that!? Asshole!" Rebecca cackles as she runs up and stands victoriously above the destroyed robot.
Ori rolls his shoulder and brushes some dust off of himself, "Nice job. Let's see if it was worse the effort."
"I doubt they'd have even more security after those bots." she points a thumb over her shoulder, "Most gonk mercs would die to those things."
He shoots her a withering glare, "Bragging is fine but don't get cocky. One good shot from those things would've blown you to pieces..." he remonstrates before making his way over to the sewer access, one flowing with the Crystal Tower's garbage and refuse...
"We'll do a quick check then get back to the other, we can't alert the Tower before we're ready." Ori states, clambering inside while the Collective mutes his sense of touch, smell, taste, and anything else that'd allow him to not experience wading into shit...
"Ah... I'll keep watch back here. You go ahead..." Rebecca says, kicking her shoe into the ground to rid it of 'doo-doo water'.
"Yeah... Great..."
---------------------------
Ori spends three or four hours in the sewer pipes, carefully laying out the structure, hidden security systems, and potential pathway to the vault. He was lucky, the cameras, insect-shaped robots, and other defences were easily dealt with, either by destroying them with his Injector, stopping their emergency signals completely, or sneaking past them with some careful subterfuge.
The route he found, unfortunately, led up to a toilet in the women's bathroom. This was located on the second deepest floor in the basement, though, he was only able to tell by having the nanite construct miniature drones that could actually fit through the pipes and toilet bowl.
If the team was going to come this way they'd probably need to destroy it, which meant further difficulty in executing the heist.
Shaking his head and deciding to get out of the shit, he makes his way back to Rebecca, collects her, and then returns to New Caesar's Palace to relay what he'd learned with the others... After having a long shower and buying some new clothes, of course...
----------------
"Hey, somethin' smell funny to you guys?" Pilar wonders aloud in the lounge as everyone gathers to speak of what they found with respect to the gig.
"Yeah, I had to climb through some sewer pipes... I'd rather hear what you guys found before I tell you about it though," he shrugs, "It'll make me feel a lot better if you got nothing." Ori states, glancing at Rebecca who'd sat some distance away.
"Yeah your stank is crazy, clean up again or you're sleeping on the couch..." she says scrunching up her nose in revulsion.
"Always knew you'd support me, even after sending me into the sewers alone to keep your boots clean." he grumbles tiredly.
Maine drops onto a chair with a beer, gesturing at Lucy, "Give 'em what we got."
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