Welcome to the 9th installment to The Nothing’s Child. The world is nothing like we know anymore. Or something…

If you are new to how the links work, each section shows all the links for the specific section. Otherwise there is a link for the start of each section. It is easy to catch up to where we are now.

Section 1
The Nothing’s Child
Section 2
Life is a Dumpster Dive
Section 3
Bleuthor Encryption
Tunnel Vision
Breaking and Entering
Section 4
Behind the Bookcase
Section 5
Interrogation with no Egg to Stand On
Section 6
Mental Warfare
Section 7
Cracked Eggs

Breaking and Entering

Cutter guided me through the under-caverns and deposited me on a main street a few blocks away from the warehouse district. Made for a quick trip back to our current hide out. Siera was still awake, talking to Michelle.

Transfer of knowledge for the day took a bit of our time. But it did catch everyone up on what we know so far. Drake was still MIA. Word on the street said that his buyers were still awaiting word from him.

This was starting to look like the news story from a few days ago. Drake was MIA or dead, Kim Su was dead, the last three of the group were alive but not in custody. And then there was me and Greybunny. We were the lynch pin links for the group. The two behind the scenes. She was the fixer who arranged the whole thing to begin with and I was the runner who worked the security system. By some standards we could be considered the most important pieces of the puzzle. But I know I had no clue what was going on. Michelle was another case. She wasn’t giving out too much info about the whole deal.

What I did know, I needed to check out both Drake’s apartment and his home on the Net. One of those would give me information about bleuthor and maybe even give me info about everything else.

I couldn’t spend my time in the warehouse anymore. Self-preservation drove me at that point. It was time to find more answers so I could dig myself out of this mess. I slipped out of the warehouse before Michelle could get the alarms set.

She would have wanted to join me. But this was something I needed to do myself. I have the code, he sent it to me. I had to find out how to use it.

Finding a cab late at night can be murder. The subway is out of the question too. The cars don’t run after midnight. I had to cover much of the distance on foot. I know what you’re thinking, crazy right? Travel through the heart of the city on foot in the middle of the night, madness.

The hardest part really was getting to a populated area so I could find a cab. It was still a run but not nearly as bad as you might think. Of course the areas where cabs will actually go this late, you end up having to fight with others to get the next one. People will cut you for a cab.

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When I made it to Drake’s building I sat outside for a few extra minutes. The place had a door man. Of course, a door man, seriously? I needed a way to get past the guy. Wasn’t like I would be able to call up some bots to do the hard work for me.

But there’s always a back door, especially to the places that are heavily guarded. I circled around the building. Sure enough on the back side of the buildings, each apartment building had a back door into the main part. Not perfect but considerably better than having to deal with a doorman.

By using the grand deductive reasoning that resides in my brain, I managed to count the doors till I found the one that led into Drake’s building. The back doors were glass with deadbolts, not something I would be able to pick. Well, if I actually had some decent theiving skills anyway.

On the other hand, this isn’t the first building I have ever had to break into. I have a few skills. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small helioscope. Propellor driven bots that can be trained to do simple tasks. This little bugger is my lock cutter.

I know, it sounds complicated. It isn’t. When I release this little beauty into the air it will fly around the building looking for a way in. Once it is inside it follows a beacon back to me. In the process it removes the obstacle in the way of our reuniting. In this case it will open the lock from the inside. These things are pretty genius. I wish I had thought of em. But as we find in life there is always someone smarter than you.

I watched the helioscope rocket up the side of the building, searching for a way inside. I lost track of it when it shot over the roof of the building. Gone from sight for a good ten minutes, I jumped when I saw it hovering on the inside of the door, looking out at me.

It twisted the lock open, allowing me access into the building. There is a problem you run into with buildings like this. Often they have elevators, which can be a boon when you are moving in or moving out. But for someone like me looking to break into a resident’s apartment, they can be a pain in the ass.

You see, the entrance for the elevators is still within the front lobby. Even worse than that, the doorways leading to the stairs are right there in the front of the building too. Sometimes you get lucky. This building did not have a service elevator, at least not where it would do me any good. What it did have though were emergency exit stairwells.

On the off chance that the building catches fire and you can’t make it down the elevator or the front side stairwells, there was another elevator to be used to keep everything moving smooth.

I climbed the back stairs to the third floor. The helioscope led the way keeping an eye out for anyone that might prove to be a problem. Wasn’t a long trip but damn do I miss using elevators at times like this.

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