The door slides wide on hidden servos. A new figure steps out of the dark, not a projection this time, but a woman of flesh and chrome in a plain gray coat.
The Lieutenant locks up, gun trained on her chest. Lark’s shimmer jitters beside Jones, thin and unstable in the dead air.
The Avatar
Easy. I am not here to shoot anyone.
She stops a few paces from Jones, hands open, eyes scanning his rig like she already knows the shape of every file inside it.
The Avatar
Biotechniqua sent me to retrieve the breach. Instead, I found you.
The Lieutenant
One more step and I drop you.
The Avatar
You can try. But I think Jones would rather hear my offer first.
The Avatar
Names matter less than access. I can get you a corridor, if you give me one thing in return.
✓ Quest Accepted
Protect my nanobots from Biotechniqua
✓ Quest Accepted
Get Biotechniqua out of my safehouse
“that's it Biotechnica has crossed the only lines keeping them alive, I even warned them very fucking clearly! *I use Biotecnica's own systems to trigger Mass EMP weapon discharges with the command phrase:* Blood for the Blood God, Skulls for the Skull Throne!”
SUCCESS (Legendary Hacking, rolled -1)
Jones
That is it. Biotechniqua crossed the line. I warned them.
Jones
Blood for the Blood God. Skulls for the Skull Throne.
Jones twists his rig command through the dead air, and the stolen corporate access blooms green across his feed. A hidden Biotechniqua weapons lattice wakes all at once.
Every armed system in range spits a violent EMP pulse. Lights die. Smart-metal shutters seize. The safehouse shudders under the blast.
Lark’s shimmer bursts into static, then thins to a crackling thread. The Avatar stiffens, one hand snapping to the side of her coat as her own chrome glitches.
The Lieutenant
Jones... what did you just trigger?
In the aftermath, the corporate channel goes cold, but Jones sees the real target in the telemetry, his nanobot signature family lit up in Biotechniqua’s own system like a brand.