Outrun – Cyberpunk LitRPG

Chapter 198

The cams weren’t as helpful as I hoped they would be. I mean, they were helpful, but not too helpful. We watched a couple hours' worth of footage, finding more than enough evidence something had gone down. 

We started with our first victim, carefully pouring over the video footage from the camera in the hall. We spotted a suspect shortly after the vic returned to his apartment. Feature Scrubber, unfortunately. Couldn’t say much about the suspect other than it was a man in dark clothes. Feature scrubbers were seriously annoying.

He approached the door of our vic, seemingly discussing something with him for a few moments before stepping into the apartment. Then, a few minutes later, the suspect walked out supporting our victim, helping him walk away. 

Definitely helping him though, not kidnapping… than again, the Circle was capable of messing with people’s minds. Especially if they’re already not all there. Such as being high on Euphoria. Could be magic at foot.

Cameras lost track of them after leaving the apartment. Lots of dark halls and blind spots in the arcology to take advantage of for the discerning person trying to avoid prying eyes. 

Most of the other victims were the same story. At least, as far as we could tell. There were plenty of people whose apartments didn’t have security footage, which made it a bit difficult to track using the surveillance system. 

We also checked a few of the spots with accelerated plant growth, though there wasn’t too much of note. They were exactly as all the people we’d talked to said; plants that were already present jumped several stages of growth overnight.

We watched the thirtieth victim get dragged out of their house supported by a man with a Feature Scrubber. I paused the video just as they turned the corner. “Want to go find that gang? Doubt we'll be able to pull anything from this.”

Dev’s leg had been bobbing the entire time we’d been looking through the cams. It stopped as I spoke. “Yeah… let’s delta. What were they called again?”

”Blood Scythes, I think.” That sounded right at least. And it matched the uniform I’d seen a couple times around the tower since we arrived. Black clothes with red sashes. 

I stood up and headed for the door. Dev was a few steps behind me after doing something on the computer. “What’s our first stop?”

”Head back down and find a group?” Dev said as he moved to the door. “I didn’t see too many up here.”

We left Lang Security behind. The manager shot us a dirty look as we went, though I couldn’t blame the guy. Dev had threatened to ruin his life if he didn’t let us look at the security footage.

The elevator ride back down was uneventful- mostly. It did freak me out when the power flickered, causing the entire elevator to go dark and stutter in its shaft. It was thankfully only a momentary issue though as the power flow continued. We safely made our way back to the bottom floors of the tower.

After that, we kinda just wandered around, alternating between highly populated places and back halls that looked all but abandoned. It didn’t take long to find a group of gangers. 

It did take a long time to find a group of gangers that didn’t run away from us at first glance. And the only reason they didn’t run was thanks to us pinning them into a dead-end hallway. This group was seven strong, each packing small arms by the looks of things. If I hid behind Dev, I should be safe from any fire coming my way.

Dev took the lead once more, stepping forward in his full silver plate armor. His hand reflexively dipped down to his gun as he eyed the gangers at the end of the hall. “You Blood Scythes?”

”Who’s askin’?” A punk with a mohawk of red metal spines replied as he stepped forward. His voice was half digital thanks to his entire throat being chrome. The guy also had weird patches of red metal all over his skin like they were vitiligo.

Dev laughed coldly though the subtle twitches in his posture revealed the bravado to be a facade. “Didn’t realize you were blind. What’s wrong? All that drug money can’t buy good eyes?”

The punk leading them glared at Dev. His eyes, chrome with pupils shaped like red skulls, flared brightly as they cast an eerie red light. It would’ve looked quite intimidating coming from anyone else.

Unfortunately for the ganger, all his chrome looked entirely cosmetic. He was practically a regular person- one not wearing any armor. The rest of the gangers looked the same behind him. We were dealing with the bottom of the barrel right now. 

One of the other guys, a young-looking kid, stepped forward. “H-hey, we don’t have to take this. We’re the Blood Scythes!”

”Yes, yes you do.” Dev laughed snidely. “You lot aren’t worthy to even pick between my toes, let alone fight me. Unless you all want to be put in the ground for resisting arrest.”

I spoke up. "And Dev here loves it when people resist arrest."

”Look man, what do you want?” The leader asked after shooting a glare at the young guy who spoke up. The kid practically wilted under his leader's gaze.

”Now we’re getting somewhere. I want to meet your leader. If he’s helpful, we’ll get our job done here and screw off. If he’s not…” Dev left the threat open-ended. 

The mohawk guy shook his head. “We’re just low-level-“

”Then tell your manager.” Dev laughed at the guy as if he were an idiot. “I don’t give a flying fuck how you set it up. Just get it done. Or I’ll cripple you and move onto the next Bloody Scythe.”

The guy stepped back, freezing up as he seemed to be thinking of something. He slowly nodded his head. “Fine. Fine. I’ll get you an appointment with the higher-ups… tomorrow at Troy’s Tacos. Noon.”

“You better.” Dev turned around, fully exposing his back to the group as if he didn’t care for them in the slightest. From his facial expression though, he cared. He cared quite a bit. Hell, if the group was just a tiny bit attentive, they’d realize Dev was faking the entire time. He wasn’t the greatest actor. “Let’s go, Squire.”

”Sir.” I followed him out. The whole calling me Squire thing was probably to trick them into thinking Dev was a higher rank than he actually was, but it was annoying. Still, I played along.

We left the group behind, going out into the halls. “So… we’re done for today?”

”Unless there’s something else you want to check?” Dev shuddered as he glanced over his shoulder. “I’m more than ready to get out of here.”

“Not really…” I thought through the case so far. “Still no clues on who’s behind it. The gang is our primary suspect.”

”If we could get some concrete evidence it was them and the Circle wasn’t involved, then we can call in a couple knights and be done with it.” Dev shrugged. “Be nice if we could find where they’re keeping the victims.”

”Chek.” They could be anywhere in the city though. There were plenty of places where you could hide hundreds of trafficked people without anyone batting an eye. “We could go take a look at the Underground tomorrow too. Look for activity.”

Dev sighed deeply, dragging a shaking hand down his face. “Why is it that every case makes me go down there?”

”I feel ya.” I patted him on the shoulder as we came to one of the entrances to Lang Tower. “Tomorrow?

”Tomorrow?” Dev nodded to me before stalking off onto busy city streets, twitching all the way. The guy had some serious issues… though if I had to go into the Underground at every turn like he did…

I didn’t immediately head home. Instead, my first stop for the night was at that little Netrunner shop near the cathedral. I bought a decent deck for three thousand Rayn. It was several times better than the crappy one I originally bought. 

And then I headed for my next stop: Echidna’s Shrine. I’d been meaning to stop by ever since that first quest, and now was my chance. I went by my apartment to grab that revolver I got from the Underground vault. Still had no idea what it was for, but it gave me a bad feeling, so why not just give it away to fulfill the request?

Echidna’s Shrine, as opposed to Fox’s, was underground. I found it on the Net after a quick search. The eidolon’s made no effort to hide their shrines. Probably because only an idiot would actually attack an eidolon’s home base.

Echidna’s Shrine was in BrickTown. It was down a subway entrance that had been… I guess it was bought out by Echidna? Unlike other subway entrances though, this one was heavily guarded by several sentries, bots, and Magi. It was a completely different vibe from Fox’s Shrine.  

I was stopped at the door by one of the Magi. He was a massive man with an echidna lying atop his bald head. He also had a long, curly mustache that reminded me of a cartoon villain. “Halt! I don’t recognize your face… name?”

I’d be impressed if he managed to recognize me considering I had Master of Disguise active. “Shiro. I was invited here a couple days ago?”

The guard frowned as one of the other guards looked through a data slate. “Tsukuyomi?”

”That’s me…” Don’t know how comfortable I am with the thought that the eidolons could just give my information out to anyone. Not that I could do anything about it, but still.

”She’s on the list. S priority. Requested access to the archives.” The other guard said.

The cartoon villain-looking one’s attitude changed abruptly as he dipped into a half bow. The echidna on his head let out a squeal as it nearly fell over his bald head, though barely managed to cling on. “I’m so sorry for the disrespect, miss. Please, come in. Will you need an escort to the archives?”

“Yes.” I had zero confidence in going to the right place off the bat.

“Just a moment.” The guy nodded his head several times, causing the echidna resting on him to growl in annoyance. Then he put two fingers in his mouth and whistled sharply. 

A door from behind opened up, letting a massive creature come out to us. It was, of course, an echidna, though this one was sized up to the size of a wolf. Each of its quills was about as long as my arm. It was honestly a bit cute? It had a dorky look to it as the sprite swaggered up to us. It was also so, so fluffy like a giant teddy bear aside from the spikes. 

”Take Miss Tsukuyomi to the archives.” The man stepped out of my way, opening the door further down into the subway. “And enjoy your visit.” 

“Thanks.” I stepped past all the security and entered a typical subway entrance. The massive echidna took the lead as it lumbered down the stairs. Every few steps it looked back to make sure I was following. 

Down the tunnel, we entered into a massive chamber filled with tons of technology in complete opposition to everything I thought I knew about eidolons and the Aether. The vibe was way different than Fox’s Shrine.

The place was closer to a forge or workshop than anything. There were tons of people working on various projects, rushing around from one spot to another. Echidnas were also everywhere, some assisting the working people, some slumped over resting, and others seemingly working on projects by themselves.

The… I don’t know… the workshop? Yeah, Echidna’s Workshop sounded better. The workshop sprawled on and on, taking up a massive chunk of space at least several blocks wide. I spotted everything from what looked like an experimental blender to a half-built mecha in the furthest reaches of the workshop.

And it wasn’t just tech being worked on down here. There were also a fair amount of magical researchers. Of course, the more esoteric research was much harder for me to grasp since I had no idea what any of them were actually doing. Still, it was all incredibly interesting seeing the two fields being worked on right next to each other.

The large echidna, realizing I stopped, turned towards me and made a soft cooing sound similar to a dove. Or, it would've been if the sprite’s tone wasn’t super deep. Instead, it sounded a bit closer to a gentle rumble. It looked back as if to ask if I was still following.

”Sorry, sorry. I’m coming.” I sped up, tailing the sprite as it worked its way through the workshop. I was taken aback by all the tech, especially considering the typical associations of magic and technology. It was all a bit surprising.

Eventually, we entered a back hallway with several branching paths. It took a while, probably at least several more city blocks, before we arrived at a large metal door. It was likewise heavily guarded, though the guards all got out of the way as the echidna led me forward.

Inside of the room was a proper archive, looking like a frankly massive library. It easily put to shame the archive room of the Laurus Theatre. Ornate lights illuminated the place, and it had a weird techno feel to it thanks to dangling wires everywhere, everything being made of metal or concrete, and the tons of devices stored on the shelves.

The echidna made a cooing sound to me one more time as it turned around and headed back out of the archive. Friendly, but not nearly as friendly or playful as Fox’s sprites had been. It really sucked, especially since the workshop matched my vibe better than Fox had.

“Ah, a visitor!” A robed man, upon noticing me standing around looking at everything, approached.