Holt got out of the truck, slamming the door behind him.
“Y’alright?” Trevor called out the driver’s window, his head halfway outside the truck itself.
“I’m good,” Holt returned, stretching out his limbs once he was outside. “Just been a long day. You good to drive me away once I’m done?”
“Nah, I’ve got to go pick up some shit,” Trevor shook his head. “Don’t think I’ll be back in time.”
Holt sighed. He originally had someone else lined up for this, but they’d canceled on him. Trevor had already been doing a solid giving him a ride, he couldn’t really blame the guy for having other things going on.
“D’you think anyone else might be able to?” he grumbled, unable to mentally pull up anyone who’d be willing to drive here on such short notice.
“Sorry, man.” Trevor ran his hand through his hair as he spoke. “I can try and come back after I’m done, if it helps.”
His genuine tone managed to cool Holt’s irritation for a bit. “It’s alright,” he waved him off. “It’s just a quick in and out thing, so I’ll be fine. See you for drinks later.”
Trevor nodded. “Be safe,” he waved Holt off before rolling up his window and driving off. Holt watched him drive away for a bit before turning back to the building he was going to have to get into.
First thing first, he took that comm connector or whatever it was out of his pocket (he forgot what C actually called it) and attached it to his ear. It beeped twice once it was in its place, so he knew it was working. Next, Holt pulled on his motorcycle helmet. C had once told him that he should get a mask instead, but he hadn’t listened. It worked to obscure his face, for one, and they barely even stepped out of their apartment as-is, so they didn’t know shit. A helmet was better than a stupid mask.
On top of absolutely dropping communication with him for a while, C had also neglected to so much as inform him of how he was supposed to get in to this building. Normally they’d give him more of a description of the place, and how he was supposed to go about doing whatever it was they needed him to do, perhaps even talking about it with him in order to come up with a plan together, but no. The great Cyphen couldn’t care less about communication, or him, apparently. No actual communication, just ‘see you in a few days,’ as if that was anything helpful.
He exhaled, focusing more on the present issue. He’d deal with C later.
The building itself was unassuming. It was a large, unlabeled, single-story concrete building with very few doors or windows. He had no idea what the security was, if there was any, or anything, so he kept a good distance as he looked for any entrance that wasn’t the doors to hopefully keep far enough away from any cameras.
He circled around counterclockwise to the southern side of the building, where he spotted a large window; large enough for him to fit in, possibly, if he could get it open. From what he could tell, it was his best bet. Unfortunately, like all the other windows, it was raised really high on the wall; too high for him to reach. Further down the wall, he spotted an AC unit. Not near enough for him to just step onto and climb up, but perhaps...
No sooner than the vague idea arrived in his head that he approached the building, not checking for security cameras as he got himself on top of the AC unit, which felt like it might crumple under his weight if he moved too much. From here, the window looked quite a lot further away, but he figured it was manageable. Not to mention that he wasn’t high enough for a fall to be dangerous at all.
Holt jumped as far as he could, reaching, and his talons just barely caught onto the edge. There wasn’t really a ledge, just that small sliver of space from where the window was inlaid. He huffed with the effort it took to pull himself up from there, not having enough of a grip to do anything other than get a good look at the window itself to see if he was lucky enough for it to be open.
His luck was not nearly that good, of course. The latch inside was very closed.
The room inside seemed empty from what he could see, and it had computers of some kind in there, so it would be a good place to go. The glass of the window didn’t seem that thick. His first idea was to ram his head in, using the helmet to break the glass, but he couldn’t lift himself high enough to try that. So, he went with a different one.
Holt dropped to the ground, rolling his shoulders to release the tension in his muscled before he backed up a good few feet from the wall. From there, he took off his helmet and threw it straight at the window.
The glass shattered, broken shards falling away to the inside of the building and leaving behind a gaping hole that cleared most of the opening for him. He didn’t even hear any alarms going off. Score.
He got his way to the AC unit again, jumping to grip the window opening again, this time cutting a few of his fingers on a broken shard of glass as he held on. He strained himself to hang there with only his left hand, using the other to slowly punch and push at the remaining glass to force it out of the frame. From there, he could get a better grip with that arm, which he used to pull himself up further.
From this new vantage point, he could say confidently that nobody was in the room. The space inside was open, with a few rows of what he could only assume to be servers of some kind, his helmet laid on the ground between a few of them, accompanied by many shards of glass that spread across the floor.
He grabbed further with his right arm, holding tight to get a better grip with his left hand before he leaned forwards, slowly pulling himself through until he could get his legs inside. From there, he jumped down feet-first, glass crunching beneath his boots. The first thing he did once inside was pick up his helmet, shake out any glass shards stuck inside, and pull it back on. After that, he reached inside his pockets to try and find the USB that C had given him however long ago, and finally found it. From what he remembered, there was some program or other on it that hacked into a system and installed a backdoor automatically. He couldn’t remember if he needed to plug it in to anything specific, so he just stuck it into the first port that looked like it would fit into.
Shortly after, he heard a long beep from the comm connector in his ear. Finally.
“C, I got in here through a window. There’s not really a way to get out,” he said into the open air, the microphone in his ear managing to catch his words.
“As in, you cannot get out through the window you got in from?” C’s response came through the tiny speaker. At least they were talking like a person now.
“No,” he answered, looking back at the window. He wasn’t able to jump high enough to reach the window from inside. “Do you know how else to get out?”
“I can get that for you.”
Holt waited for any more input, standing against the wall idly.
“Did anyone hear you when you broke in?” C piped up again.
“I don’t think so,” Holt replied, eyeing the door. Surely, they would’ve ran in here sooner if they’d heard.
The line went dead as he could only assume they were doing something on their computer. He walked the perimeter of the room as he waited, the walls uninteresting, with no sound coming from anywhere in the building. As far as he knew, the place was empty other than the computers around him.
“Okay, they have some security cameras. I’ll tell you where to go to get out.” C said.
“Sounds good,” Holt said, though as he walked to the door, he looked back at the room of servers around him. “You’re sure that’s all I needed to do?” It felt weird to just plug a stick into a computer and leave. Had it even worked?
“Yeah, I’m sure,” C answered. “Head to the right.”
Holt sighed, then left the server room to head down a lengthy hallway.The whole building was cheap carpet, blank walls, and a suffocating silence. He couldn’t hear his own footsteps. The only real discernable sounds were that of the air conditioning, which was still running despite him having likely damaged something with it, and the buzzing fluorescent lights.
“Wasn’t this meant to be all complicated and stuff?” He asked, unable to shake the feeling that he wasn’t being given the full picture. They’d stressed for months about this, cut communication due to issues with whatever complicated AI they’d needed for it. “All I did was plug in a USB somewhere.”
“Complicated for me, not for you. I just needed a backdoor.” C replied.
Holt blinked several times, unable to really express how much he didn’t really grasp that. “And that’s all the USB was for?”
“Correct. Turn left at the end of the hall.” C directed him just as he was getting there, and he turned left into another hallway that looked the exact same, for all intents and purposes. He couldn’t imagine working here.
“Is it a data gathering thing..?” He asked confusedly, keeping an eye out. He still didn’t see or hear anyone, but that didn’t guarantee anything. The hallways didn’t provide that much visibility. “I didn’t think you needed an inside person for that.”
“No, it’s not just that. We need to take down everything here, for as long as possible. That’s what the AI is for. At the same time, I’m looking for useful stuff.” C explained, their voice unaccompanied by the usual keyboard typing.
All of this would’ve been far better to know before he was walking around inside the place. “What’s useful, in this case?” he asked, still walking.
“Information.” He could hear some typing as they spoke this time. “They wanted to know something specific, so I’m grabbing things that could be useful and sending them back to my own database to analyze later.”
“Okay,” Holt sighed. He shouldn’t have expected anything but vague answers. He arrived at a crossroads with another hallway, and looked briefly down each direction. “Where from here?” he asked.
“Oh, right.” C’s response was delayed, as if they’d completely forgotten that they were supposed to be guiding him out of here. “Just keep going straight, take the second left. And be quiet, there’s someone a good distance away. They can’t see you, but they might hear you.”
Holt nodded though they couldn’t see him, taking in that information as he kept walking. As if anyone could hear him. This place had surprisingly good sound insulation for what it was. “Alright.”
He kept walking, reaching a second intersection between the current hallway and another, taking that left. “So, you just needed me to get you a backdoor, and now you’re doing everything else?” He repeated again.
He rolled his eyes at their response. Their tone sounded so condescending right now. They’d been stressed and double-checking everything and also been completely silent about everything for so long and now they thought he just didn’t understand? They hadn’t told him shit!
“Additionally,” C’s voice interrupted his thoughts, “don’t break into a window next time. If someone had heard you, it would have jeopardized the mission.”
His hands turned to fists at his sides as he picked up the pace. Now they were stating the obvious as if he didn’t know a damn thing. “Right, yeah,” he sarcastically returned. “Could you give me clear instructions on what to do next time, then?”
He stopped as he arrived at another intersection, waiting for their response. None came. “C?”
The delay was longer than he would’ve liked before he heard only one word. “...Shit.”
That was not good. His anger was quieted by concern. “C? What is it?”
“Nothing. Just an issue. I’m fixing it.” C’s tone was clipped, accompanied by frantic typing.
Holt wasn’t sure what he’d expected. An actual answer? A way to help? He wasn’t going to get that from them anytime soon, if at all. “If you say so,” he sighed. “Where do I go from here?”
There was a resounding silence as he waited, growing more antsy as time went on. It was what felt like fifteen minutes in the suffocating silence before he prodded. “C?”
“Give me a second,” came their irritated tone almost immediately. Busy with something that they still didn’t care to inform him of.
Holt crossed his arms as he leaned against the wall, growing impatient. He knew how their issues were. All their coding stuff was rarely that time-sensitive. He’d seen them get up in the middle of very intense computer things, and from what he knew, ‘complex’ usually just meant that they’d spend more time working on it. They even had some fancy AI thing to help them this time! What was keeping them from doing something so simple as telling him where to go?
Fast-approaching footsteps tore him from his thoughts. He barely had the time to step away from the intersection before he was attacked by someone far taller than him who grabbed him by the arm to force him against the wall. With his arms restrained, Holt hit their head with his own, the helmet’s impact making them recoil for a moment that he used to moved away from the wall and reach for the concealed knife in his pocket. As soon as he moved to use it, however, they ripped it from his grasp, and turned it against him. He moved to the side before they could strike him, but he felt a sharp sting in his lower abdomen.
“SHIT!” he called out, the pain pulsing from the wound. He looked down to see that they’d hit him with their own weapon while he’d been attempting to dodge their other attack. His assailant reached for where the blade was embedded into his skin, but he struck them first, diverting the attack and then bringing his knee to hit them between the legs. He used the moment they recoiled to grab them and slam them against the wall. He heard C saying things, probably trying to catch his attention, but he couldn’t hear very well beyond the pounding of blood in his ears.
He managed to restrain their right arm, but they’d been holding his pocketknife in their left, and he barely managed to grab their hand, fighting their grip to try and get control of the weapon himself. “Oh fuck-” C’s voice came through the exact moment he managed to twist the knife out of their grip, but they struck his neck soon after, and he lost his grip on it. The pocketknife fell to the ground as he coughed, recovering, and they hooked a foot around his leg, knocking him off-balance, and then struck him with enough force to knock him backwards. “Shit, the cameras.” C started saying, as if he gave a fuck as the wind was knocked out of him again and he struggled to breathe.
“Holt, I need you to go back-” “SHUT UP!” he shouted with what little breath he had. They obliged for the moment, thank god. He had enough time to roll over, only for the weapon still lodged in his front to twist against the floor, the searing pain shooting through him and turning his breath ragged. He pushed himself back up, only to get kicked at his back, forcing him back down and forwards, the knife twisting further. He barely heard C’s voice at all, let alone what they said, as he tore the weapon out of his body, rolling to the side once more to get out of the way of their next kick. Their foot landed where he’d been moments before, and he struck the blood soaked knife he was now holding into the back of their knee, tearing through the muscle there. They cried out in pain, and he used the moment they were recovering to cut at the back of their foot and get back to his feet, holding the acquired knife in one hand and watching them. When they knelt to the ground, they didn’t get back up. Not yet, at least. He finally had time to get away.
He backed away a considerable distance before turning around and running. They didn’t give chase just yet, thank god. He had turned down what had been the left hallway and finding another place to turn soon after, looking behind himself to see if they were following all the while. He’d put quite a bit of distance between them and himself, and he hadn’t seen or heard a single sign of them. Believing himself to be safe enough, just for the time being, he caught his breath, gritting his teeth through the pain. He pressed his hand to the wound in his abdomen, and when he brought his hand away, it was stained dark. It’s then that he noticed C had been talking again.
“I DON’T CARE!” He shouted, not willing to listen to their bullshit. They needed him to do something? Now?
“What?” C’s voice was surprised by the outburst, and it only enraged him further.
“I said I don’t care!” He repeated himself, all but shouting at them. “You were meant to be directing me, and I just got fucking attacked by some guy- you didn’t say shit, C!”
“Like fuck you didn’t know, you just didn’t care! You never care, do you?” He had half a mind to tear that stupid piece of metal out of his ear and shout into the microphone, see if they could get a bit of this through their dense head. “You said you didn’t need me to do anything other than that stupid USB, you can handle the rest of it yourself!”
“Holt, I didn’t-” he rolled his eyes at their voice. Now they were sorry, only after he’d been stabbed and barely managed to get the small amount of distance he currently had. He applied pressure to his wound, hoping the bleeding would stop soon. “I needed to focus on something else,” C said, as if that was any excuse.
“You always fucking do,” he muttered, looking around to see if he could spot an exit himself. “Damnit, you-”
His eyes widened as he was only given a half-second before the sinner he’d seen down the hall shot their taser hit his chest. All he felt was the white-hot agony of an electric current throughout his body before he fell to the ground.
