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Sweat would have been beading up on his forehead had he not had superior temperature regulation.
Text scrolled past his retinal display at lighting speed, but he didn’t miss a single character.
He had some time to spare, but he preferred to be early rather than on time.
The shipment would arrive soon enough, and they had to be fully prepared.
His fingers twitched at every required manual input, spurring another rush of information to flash before him.
The smell of asphalt had long since become a familiar friend.
Luckily, this alleyway was significantly cleaner than the usual slums he’d had to duck into.
In fact, this city was much cleaner in a general sense, and he was sure none of the high society folk who lived there would be caught dead creeping around behind buildings.
He was safe to do his work in a comfortable position:
laying upside down on his shoulders with his legs propped up against the wall.
To any Full Organics, he would have probably appeared to be malfunctioning.
Or, as some kind of social deviant.
While the later was true, no one would see him here.
Of that, he could be sure.
Even if they did, he’d likely need to be sure he was the last thing they ever saw.
“Brenig,”
a voice sounded over his earpiece.
“How’re you looking on the power core?”
Brenig was silent for a moment,
concentrating on finding a way through a tough firewall,
but soon brought a hand up to his ear and pushed the coms button.
“Only one more obstacle to get through,”
he answered plainly.
There was no hint of pride or excitement to his voice.
His mind was far too focused on decoding the next wave of text.
“We’re ahead of schedule, Captain,”
he added in a more reassuring tone.
He heard Iyakuum chuckle smugly over the coms.
By now, he must have been itching for some action.
Brenig smiled to himself absentmindedly.
“This is supposed to be a stealth mission, Captain,”
he reminded the other man, amused with the mental image of him writhing with excitement.
“I didn’t run any simulations that included combat scenarios.”
A long whining sound came through.
“You’re such a downer, Bren!”
Iyakuum teased lightly.
“I was really looking forward to sinking my teeth into something!”
He hissed a cruel laugh that Brenig found a strange comfort in.
Clearly, the Captain wasn’t worried.
Not that he usually was, of course, but knowing it made him feel more at ease.
“Hey,”
he began again in a more serious tone,
“I’ll need you to stay in constant communication during this one.”
“Of course, Captain,”
Brenig responded dutifully.
“I didn’t study the map very well, and I’ll need you to guide me,”
Iyakuum admitted.
Brenig didn’t find himself surprised.
The Captain had been quite busy with negotiations on this job to the point where they almost didn’t settle on a deal before it was time to act.
Luckily, he’d had the foresight to instruct Brenig to begin developing a plan well before then.
Brenig’s body shuddered as a surge of information came through, causing him to inhale sharply.
He’d finally accessed the city’s power core.
The systems were coded in an older language, but one he was somewhat familiar with.
It was outdated and would be easy to control from here.
“Alright, I’ve got it,”
he choked at last, the tingle of electricity causing his voice modulator to glitch a bit.
It was a euphoric feeling, and he reveled in it.
It was almost addictive, perhaps.
Iyakuum hummed pleasantly.
“Excellent! Now, don’t cream yourself just yet. I need you focused.”
Brenig stammered a few incomprehensible syllables before finally gritting his teeth and grumbling,
“Th-there’s no need to be so vulgar, Captain!”
His cheeks were flushed, and he was once again thankful that he was completely alone.
“Heh heh, don’t get your wires in a twist! I’m just ***’ with you!”
Iyakuum taunted jovially.
With a sigh, Brenig replied,
“I wish you wouldn’t do that…”
He rolled himself backwards, pushing off the wall he’d been leaning on, and flipped himself into an upright position.
It was harder to focus on the program data this way, but he wanted to give them as much time as possible.
Stalking down the dimly lit alleyways he’d already memorized, he made his way towards the tall company building just up ahead.
The closer he got, the more the inky shadows were swallowed up by the bright neon signs.
Tsisipa Na.
The direct translation from Kaedonian to Galactic Standard would have been something like ‘ChemPro Co.’
Brenig’s research had informed him that Tsisipa Na. had their hands in everything from medicine to chemical warfare, and was government contracted.
Their products were mostly used on-planet, but their supply came from wherever they could get it.
Iyakuum and himself been contracted to find proof of suspicious business, and, ordinarily, Brenig would have been more than pleased to do so.
However, their client wasn’t exactly who he’d consider a concerned citizen.
The owner of a competing company who’d been pushed out by Tsisipa Na. decades ago, Mr. Shoi had made it abundantly clear what he was planning to do with it.
War was a businessman’s best friend, he’d told them.
Brenig grimaced.
There were no angels in their line of work.
Mr. Shoi was just another leech who’d suck the life out of the people of this planet, no different from what he claimed their government was already doing.
Unfortunately, it was never his place to debate the morality of a job.
Only that he saw it done.
“I’m in position,”
he reported, two blocks away from the target.
“On your cue, I’ll initiate Operation: BLACKOUT.”
Iyakuum grunted into the coms, and Brenig presumed he was stretching his long limbs to prepare himself.
When he spoke, his voice was absolutely dripping with anticipation.
“*** all the *** politics. *** all the precautions and assurances. *** the money, even!”
There was a pause in his monologue for a foul cackle.
“THIS is the *** I live for!”
There was a long silence, and Brenig’s body tensed up.
Time seemed to stand still as he waited for the signal.
Iyakuum would give the command in three,
two
one…
“Cut the lights.”