Outrun – Cyberpunk LitRPG

Chapter 106

Chapter 106The War Room sat in a basement level of the Blue Crusade Little Yukoto Department. It was a fairly wide room in a high-tech style with strips of white lights lining the walls. Brackets of metal supported the ceiling. A large lit-up table sat in the middle covered in holographic maps. The atmosphere was… heavy as I walked in.

Inquisitor Ligh stood around the table alongside two other Crusaders. Both Knights, if I had to guess. They both had the crossed swords symbol of Knights on their silver armor. One wore heavy-duty armor covering almost head to toe and the other wore extremely light armor that barely covered her vitals. Full helmets obscured their faces with sheer silver masks, a telltale sign of Blue Crusade higher-ups.

Four Squires stood around the two Knights, three of them partially covered in silver armor and the other one in just the normal ballistic vest and Blue Crusade trench coat. A noobie Squire, like me. Well, hopefully not ‘like’ me considering I was little better than a spy turned slave.

Hope stood at the Inquisitor's side. She flashed a tired smile at me, though it looked more like she was baring her teeth threateningly. Subtle Cues read as friendly though, I think. To be honest, I wasn’t quite sure why she was here since her arm was still broken.

Her movements drew the others’ attention to me. The heavy atmosphere turned to one of immense dread and guilt as all three of the silver-covered Crusaders turned to me. I barely held myself from flinching back as I saw myself reflected in all three of their face coverings. I flickered Cold-Blooded, giving myself a moment of ice-enforced calm as I continued my stride and approached the table.

Inquisitor Strumgard waved an arm to me. His voice was as unsettling as ever. It's icey cold with forced inflections like he was trying and failing to sound human. “If it isn’t the women- err, girl? Shquire of the hour! C’mon in. We were just discussing shtrategy.”

The heavy Knight spoke as I felt his eyes bore holes through me. His voice sounded even and calm. “I don’t believe we’ve met, yet.”

”S-Squire Zuku Ichima. I was just brought under Inquisitor Strumgard’s uh,  recently.” I answered as evenly as I could and glanced at the table for a distraction. It was projecting a small hologram of a blueprint- of the tower SPS resided in - as well as a map of the surrounding area.

The man nodded “Knight Zaval.” He pointed to two of the Squires in armor. “Those are my Squires: Squire Verlon and Squire Encis.”

“Greetings.” Squire Verlon bowed his head slightly, his dark blonde hair flopping into his face.

”Hello.” Squire Encis frowned at me, eyeing my arms for some reason. It’s not like he could see anything under my trench coat.

”Knight Amity.” The woman jacked a finger at the other armored one and the noobie. “Squire Cronch. Squire Sterling.”

The other one in armor eyed me for a moment but didn’t say anything. The noobie gave me a charismatic smile. “Nice to meet you.”

“Now that drivel ish done with, my Shquire here was the one infiltrating SPSh. The plan is to snatch the principal of the school… One Vio Boushly. A corporate drone who hadn’t done much with hish life until he was offered the principal position at Shentinel Private School. He took the position lasht year. Shuspected fake identity. What are we walking into?” The Inquisitor asked me.

I tried to think back to the security. “Uh, Sentinel armed guards are capable of pouring out if need be. The school itself has every hall and corner locked down by cameras and sensors. There are plenty of turrets everywhere and security gates capable of deploying from the ceilings.”

I paused for a moment, sending a look to the Inquisitor. He didn’t respond to it, but Hope flopped her head encouragingly. Or she was just passing out? Hard to tell. “The biggest threat is the plants all over the school. I’m not quite sure what’s going on with them, but they can affect the mental state of those exposed to them. I felt heightened emotions and increased drowsiness. I’m not aetherialy aligned, but I suspect magic.”

” you didn’t mention anything about magic, Inquisitor.” Knight Amity folded her arms as her two Squires shifted uncomfortably.

My Inquisitor shrugged. “I- uh- I thought I shent it in the file? No? Okay, the guy we’re after is known to use plant magic. Um… was there anyone else of note there, Shquire?”

”The assistant. From what I could see, she’s in on it.” I shrugged, trying not to flinch as all three of them turned back to me. Seriously intimidating. “I could only get so much information in a week.”

Knight Amity rubbed the bottom of her helmet as she peered down at the map. “Are we going to have to worry about Sentinel forces?”

“No.” My Inquisitor shook his head. “I called in some favors. Still, arreshting him inshide the school is decidedly a bad idea conshidering it would essentially be attacking a bunker inside of a heavily guarded fortressh.”

Squire Sterling raised a hesitant hand. “Are we  him to fight back?”

The Inquisitor nodded. “He won’t come easily. His…

that put us onto his tracksh was a tough fight. Our besht bet is to hit him on the way to school early in the morning.” Light Strumgard messed with the hologram projector, manipulating it to a street right outside the school. “Shquire Hope here has been watching the principal and other VIPsh to get their schedule.”

Oh? Are we not informing them of the larger game at play here with this ‘circle’? Hmm… for a policing force, the Blue Crusade sure has a lot of trust issues. Back when I got that job with Iris, the Knight hadn’t wanted to call for help from other Crusaders either. The cloak-and-dagger approach worked for me all things considered, but still.

Hope stepped up, rubbing a tired hand at her eyes as she looked down at the hologram. “Our best bet is to hit him hard and fast. He lives about a block away from the school and walks every morning, meeting up with his assistant on the way. Our ideal ambush spot is here-” Hope struggled to manipulate the hologram with just one hand, but eventually got it. The projection showed the stoplight just outside of SPS’s tower. “We get him between locations. Tomorrow morning. Block the road and set up dummy traffic.”

“Are you sure you need us?” Knight Zaval asked.

“Yesh.” The Inquisitor motioned to Knight Amity. “We’ll be responsible for hitting him. You, on the other hand, need to head in and

It was, in part, my fault. After we checked the place, scaring off a group of homeless for the night, I cut the power to the lights. Outside of the messy homeless camp, there were signs that this place had been used as a dead drop or by gun dealers in the past, but the thick layer of debris and dust everywhere pointed towards it being out of use for a long time.

I checked the time. Almost midnight. Still had several minutes till it was time. Torren would call over the comm channel once Claire showed up, so I zoned out slightly and focused back on the notes pulled up onto my phone.

Dr. Carl Langstrum - a rich scientist interested in developing biotech organs and medical technology. Or at least that’s what I managed to find off the Net. He had an impressive amount of accolades and was credited for helping on several projects from Raijin to KairoTech Global. He was a rare free scientist not bound to a single corp.

He was also a very controversial figure. He was a leading developer of the ‘exo-womb’, an external womb for pregnant women who either couldn’t or didn’t want to carry their child to term. The device had a failure rate of fifty percent when it was first released. Many scream streams posed the guy as the next major mass murderer for developing and producing faulty tech. He won the slander lawsuit, though I suspected he bribed the judge.

The guy had an army of private security at his beck and call, and well-trained ones at that. There was a video clip floating around about an attempted assassination on the guy. The assassin didn’t get even a block before he was swarmed and killed by private security. They were closer to PMCs than anything, though they still had some signs of solo mercs.

Based on more current scream streams about the guy from smaller media companies, he’s been hitting auctions and markets mass-buying magical items and trinkets, of which there's been a massive inflow over the past couple of months. It didn’t take a genius to put two and two together- he’s shifted research to the Aether. If that assumption was right, it unfortunately meant the egg was in his research lab. His extremely well-guarded lab. 

Even the lab's blueprints weren’t obtainable by normal means. The city archives had the blueprints, but I recognized them as a simple apartment building rather than a lab. Probably paid someone to do a switcheroo.

Getting the egg wouldn’t be easy. I'd have to put it off along with most of my other requests for now. The reward was a Trait point, so I can’t imagine in any world where the Request would be simple considering how stingy the interface normally is. Hell, it has been over a week since I’ve gotten a Skill level up thanks to its dumb requirement for me to finish what I’m doing.

Seriously, why couldn’t I get stronger just by reading a dumb book like Torren-

As if he felt me thinking about him, Torren called across the comma. “She’s here.”

I sighed, dropping my phone as I pushed myself off the pillar. “Chek…”