4. The Storage Mess

It’s a relatively new phenomenon, y’know, but some places do it. You keep your lock relatively easy to pick, almost like you want to invite people to come in and see what’s up. But you keep track of who enters your secret room. You know instantly if someone has entered and you know who they are.

That’s the kinda lock the Warlords seem to have installed at the door of their server room at the warehouse. Honestly, it makes sense. That kind of idiot bravado, that kind of deathwish, that desire for confrontation.

Anyway, whatever plan the guys had to infiltrate this place was doomed to fail the moment Four-Fours picked that lock. The fact that he didn’t notice this isn’t important, the signal would’ve been sent out, and the watcher (whoever it might be) would’ve found out.

But even before that, they didn’t explore much of the warehouse. At least, that’s what I’ve heard. They got to see the storage mess at the back, where they keep all kinds of weird shit. Including a couple of vending machines they always keep stocked. Kinda weird considering… Anyhow.

Inside the server room, they came across Zayne. Now Zayne, Zayne… I know I’ve heard that name before. It was like around new year, I think. There was a small heist happening in Kreutzberg, full of old factories. I don’t remember which fixer was leading the charge, but I remember a call-out for skilled netrunners, offering big cash. I don’t care about how the heist turned out, but I heard their netrunner was lost. I assumed they were just being euphemistic about the whole thing y’know? Which is bizarre for our line of work. So maybe Zayne was this runner. How do you get lost netrunning though?

So when Edge saw Zayne, he was wearing this weird visor. Four-Fours later took a look at that thing, and 1) it was nothing like he’d ever seen before 2) had nothing to do with server maintenance, and 3) was operated remotely. While the visor was operating, Zayne seemed to be in some sort of fugue state. When Edge took it off of him, Zayne seized up, but soon came back to himself. Last thing he remembered was seeing some bizarre Black ICE and next thing he knew he was here, looking at Edge pointing his katana at his neck. Must’ve been quite a shock for the poor fella.

From what I’ve gathered, multiple things happen at once at this point. Four-fours sets up a pipe-bomb and plants it under the server room, under the floor plates covering all the cablework. Then Edge demands that he hack into the terminal to see what the hell the Warlords are hiding in those servers. Turns out, mostly really boring cloud computing stuff. But, there was an encrypted directory titled NZSM, which Four-fours claims to have downloaded to… something? The server records show no such download has taken place. And besides, even the Warlords aren’t dumb enough to keep only one copy of their encrypted directories in a single place.

It’s around this point that Zaela Dragonmaw and three of her Dragonriders approach the back entrance from which my guys infiltrated the warehouse. Conveniently for Zaela, no one was watching. Zaela being Zaela, she probably taunted them to come out. But it doesn’t seem like the fighting started immediately. Did she try talking to them? What did she want I wonder… Zaela wouldn’t negotiate normally. She prefers seeing blood pour out of bullet holes on people’s bodies, not words. Maybe she’s following orders.

At any rate, the shooting starts soon after. There are a couple of shotgun holes on the walls of the server room. But no one seems to have died on the corridor. Well… There’s a large puddle of blood right outside the server room door, which I assume is where Alvin got shot three times and almost died. But the blood trail goes outside and there are bullet casings on the floor. Did he shoot up? I never know how that guy might react, he kinda spooks me, not gonna lie.

My theory is this: A couple of the guys, probably Edge and Kush, forced Zaela and her grunts back outside with suppressing fire. This would allow the others to either position themselves better or maybe even run away to the front entrance of the warehouse. But that wouldn’t have made sense, because I heard from Jamil that they did detonate the “distraction” bomb up front. So the grunts there would be on high alert.

As such, their only option would have been to push forward and get out the way they came in. I suppose that’s why one of Four-fours bombs was used to clear the way. But, from how the place looks, it seems like Alvin may have been caught in the fire. Did they… Did they really almost sacrifice Alvin to kill a bunch of Warlords? Jesus christ. But no, I don’t think Zaela died at that moment.

I think Zaela attempted one final bluff, expecting that the guys wouldn’t just let Alvin die a terrible death. So maybe she placed her boot on top of his throat and attempted one final gambit. And maybe that stopped the guys from shooting.

And maybe that’s how they found out about the Tokugawas.

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5. The Rising Moon

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