Ghost in the City

I opened my eyes in the net. My lobby was still blank…

I really needed to spend some time building this up. A lobby could be a really useful tool if prepared correctly.

But I shook that away and dived into the city.

I did plan on talking to Yoko today, but first there was something I wanted to explore myself.

I wanted to find more Scavs.

What? My Bank account was looking a little thin, and it was better to find another den to raid sooner rather than later. Ichi still had to pay rent after all.

So I needed information, and I wasn’t going to accept going to see Yoko and just having it handed to me.

A netrunner was all about finding information.

So I was going to gather it myself this time. I wasn’t a detective, but I had seen plenty of cop shows!

So first step was the NCPD Criminal database.

It was easy enough to find the location of, I jumped to the NCPD City-Net page, and instantly I was in front of a prison of a building. Gates, and fences, digital barbed wire, and Daemons shaped like dogs walking around the walls.

I scoffed though. For all of its look of security, that’s all it was. I walked right up to the gate and requested access.

The gate opened and I was allowed to access the ‘public’ pages. You would think that would mean if I wanted the private stuff I would have stronger security, but that wasn’t true.

I walked past the gate. Past the guard Daemons. Past the security, into the lobby of a building, and then once I was in. I just turned away from the lobby room, that looked like I was visiting the DMV. Instead I found the visual door that had “Secure. NCPD Only” On it.

Like I said. They already let me in past all the security. In this case I was pretty sure it was intentional. The NCPD didn’t care if someone went looking for their criminal database after all. I mean I already had access to it through my Kiroshi. The access that Vik had set up for me was super common, and so it was child's play to just walk through the secure door into a file room.

The door lock on the door was flimsy and I breached it within a few moments.

Like I said someone wanted people to be able to access at least this set of files. Inside was a storage room, nearly infinitely long filled with old storage cabinets. I walked over to the first one and popped it open. Inside was files on a recent Grand Theft Auto. I closed the drawer.

I needed something else.

So with a bit of a mental command, I inputted a search function for all files relating to kidnapping.

The room rumbled. Like I was in the matrix, and thousands of the cabinets vanished as the whole space rearranged itself.

Then when the shifting room still left me with millions of cabinets, I narrowed it more. Within the last four months. It rumbled and shifted again. There were still a ton of files, but at least now I could start.

First just to see I added “Scav” into the search to see what would happen. The room didn’t alter in any way that I could see.

I pulled open the first file closest to me.

Violet Espinosa. Age 27. Reported missing 4.17. Deceased. SCAV.

Peter Franklin Age 36. Reported missing 5.2. Deceased. SCAV.

The reports were all like that. Sure there was more information on each one, the police reports had a lot of information including the missing persons criminal history and such.

But that bit was the most interesting point.

Why was SCAV on all these files?

Why was Deceased? Did the NCPD know something? I couldn’t find any information on why they were listed that way.

In the end, I didn’t get an answer, but the more recent kidnappings at least had locations for last seen.

So I started collecting the data. Opening a file and just dumping the last location into a map of Night City. Slowly more and more dots grew across the file. There were hundreds of kidnapping reports, and I was just dumping them all into the file to see what would happen.

In the end, there were definitely hot spots on the map, but it didn’t really give me enough information to know for sure.

But, I knew where to look now.

So I found the most recent kidnapping report that was closest to the hotspots, and pulled those files saving them to my own server and took my new hotspot map. Then I walked out of the NCPD server.

—--

Markus Leon. Went missing yesterday. Age 30. His wife made the report. Markus had been last seen walking to work from his apartment building by his wife.

His work was three blocks down the street. He never made it to work.

But I had a general time he had left. And this was a modern city.

It had cameras everywhere.

So first I walked to the apartment complex that Markus lived in. The Server was old. It didn’t have the security to really stop me as I accessed the system, breached past its defenses and accessed the few security cameras still working.

Most were broken, but the elevator one worked.

I checked the time, and watched.

6:37 AM.

I found him. Markus steps onto the elevator from the third floor. Heads down, and walks out.

I jump out of the camera. The lobby camera was broken, but there was an outside camera looking down at the entrance. It was a few floors up, which is the only reason It wasn’t broken.

6:38 AM.

Markus walked out of the complex, turned left down the street and continued his path.

Okay. I checked the net for buildings along the road he had gone down.

The next building over was a hotel. The security was tighter, but still easily bypassed especially since I was in the net.

Its cameras were active. Protected by bullet proof domes so they wouldn’t get destroyed.

6:38 AM.

Markus walks past the entrance. I watch for a minute after he goes past.

No one seemed to be following him or anything.

So I pulled out of the security of the building and moved on.

I continued down the street. Any building that didn’t have cameras. I would jump across the street and see if there were cameras facing outward enough to catch across the street.

Down we went. Until I crossed a street and Markus didn’t appear.

I went back, and saw him reach the crosswalk through a diner's camera, and then nothing.

I jumped around, checking all the corners of the street trying to find something.

6:41 AM.

I spotted it.

Markus didn’t cross the street, the path he should take to go to work.

No, he turned left and continued walking down the street.

Interesting.

I continued to follow his path as he headed away from his workplace.

What was Markus up to?

Not that I was interested if the guy had just bailed. I was looking for scavs.

Down the street we went, only a few times I had to skip a few buildings and wait for him to walk into frame.

Then suddenly I jumped to the next camera and he never appeared.

I checked all the cameras in the area, I could confirm he disappeared.

After a few minutes of checking, I realized there was only one place he could have gone.

An apartment building.

So he was in the apartments? I mean Scavs often set up there, but this wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. Where were the group of scavs beating him unconscious or drugging him and dragging him into a rape van or something?

The apartment complex was run down, didn’t have any security cameras inside.

Probably on purpose.

But it did have a server still, everything had a net channel after all, had to, to have TV.

So I started sneaking in. Something weird was going on.

The server as I slipped in was dark and run down, plenty of slow down spots.

I wouldn’t be surprised if the TV reception in the place sucked.

But the security might as well have been a broken lock. I popped in, and checked the apartment listings.

Markus Leon wasn’t on the registry of course.

But I did find something interesting.

An entire section of the complex that had everyone stop paying rent as one. Consistent rent payments by some of the people and then suddenly nothing. This started months ago.

But more interesting? The server data was modified.

It wasn’t anything amazing, but it wouldn’t be sending any alerts to the owner to let them know there was a late payment.

Services would shut off still, but the owner wouldn’t know he needed to bring in more people.

Interesting.

Second floor, rooms 220-230 were all non paying.

There was a temptation to back out and check it out in person but…

I was a netrunner. This was the sort of thing I was meant to do.

So I started poking around.

Someone capable of hacking into the register to shut off alerts would want internet access.

If they had access, they had opened a path.

So I started pinging the area around the building.

The virtual datascape around me flared up and traffic glowed a brighter color than the rest.

There.

I smirked. There was a side channel that had been rather roughly built into the side of the server.

To my eyes it looked like someone had laid a long wire from the access point between the internet and the building server, up into the building. I pinged it, making sure to keep the touch as light as I could.

It blazed through the wire, showing me a spider web of systems. Cameras. And computers all together.

I smirked as I slipped through. Yes there was security. Yes they had some good ICE.

Yes they had expected it to keep someone out.

Not good enough.

I breached through the ICE, and as I did, a monster slipped out of my avatar.

A Daemon.

I smiled at it, as its legs skittered into the server. It looked like a cross between a spider and a facehugger.

I loved it instantly.

I watched it slip into the server and its actions spread out to anything connected to the system.

I slipped in after. Traveling through the wire into a low fidelity server.

There wasn’t much inside. The server was just a computer system setup to run everything, but I could poke around.

I easily snuck right past the Guard Daemon. It was shaped like a robotic dog searching endlessly for intruders.

But it had my giant spider wrapped around its face, a single large eye the only thing that could see, and as it ‘looked’ at me, it just seemed to ignore my presence.

I had already been sure it couldn’t see me. The Daemon was perfect for bypassing low level security Daemons. Instantly I accessed the cameras connected to the system.

I had seen a lot of scav dens.

I had grown rather used to the sights of them.

This wasn’t a scav den.

It was a drug den.

I scowled. What the fuck? There were drugs being cooked up, and drugs being used. One side of the apartments was set up to manufacture something.

The other side was a drug den. Couches and beds littered the area. Plenty of people passed out among the mess and detritus.

Okay something was up.

I was on the tail end of a kidnapping…

Oh no. It was just a missing person. I scowled, searching the cameras for any sign of Markus. If he was here, then he really wasn’t missing.

And there he was.

Fuck. I shook my digital head pulling free of the camera systems.

This wasn’t my target. A complete bust.

I headed out of the hidden server. I considered sending a tip to the NCPD, but…

It could be useful knowledge. I would keep it for now. Just marking down the info. It wasn’t like I couldn’t access their little server again in the future. My second Daemon would take care of that. Wall Breaking left a Daemon behind giving me access after all.

That one looked like a giant eye that went and hid itself in the corner of the server room it would remain quiet and hidden until I needed to access the server again.

—--

So I went down the list.

Taking a small break to hit the bathroom in between.

Most of the missing reports went somewhat similar. People running away just to escape. Some ended up caught by rival gangs and flatlined. Some were even picked up by the NCPD despite the report of them potentially dead.

I realized that any time someone reported missing NCPD just filled out a missing persons report, listed them as deceased with a SCAV label for some reason.

Fuckers.

In the end it didn’t matter. I was going to search through the missing reports until I found my target. I had all day.

And in the end, following the same steps, just tracking people down through old camera recordings. I found them.

It was a report on Hannah Curtis. The forty year old Corpo woman. Who worked for a Biotechnica subsidiary. She went missing two days ago, she did have more protection than a normal worker, and likely would have been searched for, but her biomonitor confirmed a flatline.

So they gave up.

I didn’t.

She was harder to track. I ended up having to follow her car through the city, hacking cameras as I went, even losing track of her once, and only finding her by chance down a side street.

I couldn’t see exactly what went down, but I could guess.

Her car goes in the alley, and minutes pass. Then a truck drives into the alley. Her car drives out of the alley with a new driver and no Hannah.

A scan of the man's face told me what had happened.

Turns out Hannah had a drug addiction. She stopped in the alleyway to meet her dealer, and he stole her car. Probably knocked her out or killed her.

You would think that was the end, but the dealer, a Mr. Samuel Alexander Harrington. Had connections.

The truck leaving had a man driving that was wearing an imager displacer. Couldn’t get his face, but the image of the face with crossed out eyes was more than enough to confirm it was a scav.

So I followed along, with notes to follow up with Mr. Samuel sometime. That had been a nice car, and it would be a shame to let him keep it.

But I followed the truck.

In the end tracking them through the city was starting to become routine. Security existed, sure, but it wasn’t like I was in a rush. Any time I hit a place with security too heavy, I could skip it, try to find an easier camera to hack into, or if I absolutely needed that Camera to know where they went, I could just slowly breach in, take my time.

I wasn’t trying to rescue someone after all. I was hunting.

Considering how often I was breaching into systems I was earning a nice nestegg of Breaching XP as a bonus.

Then I just followed them home.

Sure the camera’s in the area they finally stopped were mostly broken down, or nonexistent. But when I narrowed the scavs down to a specific block area. It wasn’t hard to then start checking each building one at a time.

The people that were running non-scav business were given a mental apology for the intrusion and ignored.

Although I would have to keep an eye on that porn studio, there hadn’t been anyone ‘acting’ at the time I breached, but it looked sketchy, and if they were kidnapping people too? Well I would just clean them up as well.

But I found them.

What had once been a small office building, and that according to the records should be shut down, but had active internet and electricity flowing to it.

As I slipped into their net their cameras told me the full story.

Scav den.

I noted the address, and even started poking around their systems.

“I can’t believe how easy this is from the net.” I couldn’t help but admit to myself as I looked around the scavs, network lobby.

Sure their security was pretty good. Great even. They likely had a netrunner set it all up to start with.

But it wasn’t being monitored, and an automated system was easily bypassed in the end.

My Cyber Ninja perk meant when I breached into the system, their security Daemons had a hard time finding me. Plus it was also infecting the people attached to the network.

I was gonna have a lot of fun when I hit this place. Their network would already be mine long before I set foot in real life.

I stilled at that thought.

Netrunning wasn’t easy.

It wasn’t a game. I could die here. I was getting overconfident, and that is the sort of thing that kills. I wouldn’t just be able to pop a maxdoc if someone fried my brain.

I shook off the confidence, and mentally switched back to assuming I was being tracked. I doubled down on making sure everything was in place, that my ‘additions’ to the network. The backdoors and daemons wouldn’t be noted.

Then I backed out after gathering all the camera data I could.

—--

I had sent a text to my chooms after I got back to my body.

*Section 9 meeting tonight. Target located. Meet at Lizzies 6PM.*

Feeling cool for sending out a totally tactical message I went home.

The sun was coming up, which was funny because when I arrived at the apartment the sun had been coming up.

I had been in the net for nearly a whole day.

I didn’t feel too bad, but as I reached the street I jogged down to the parking lot instead of just calling the car here.

Even if my stats didn’t deteriorate, I still needed a bit of exercise, to stretch my legs.

I was already a basement dweller at this point…

I shook that annoying thought away and went home.

I wanted a shower.

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