I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. The sounds of the city washed over me, and then faded. From far below, neon bled up into the sky. Streets and holograms ran around the city like overactive arteries. The chaos was beautiful in a way that always took me off guard when I looked at it from afar.

This was it—the calm before the storm. Once I gave the word, the heist would officially start. It wasn’t just me this time around either. All three of the stooges were gathered, and set up in various places.

Saint was on standby close to the headquarters of Artoras Construction just in case. Mira hung out on a Roughrider up far above. If I needed her, she was ready to Drop Chute in before I could even finish the call for backup. And then there was Luna… I glanced at my HUD. She was still in the speakeasy.

Something cold and wet pressed up against my back. A shiver went down my spine, and I turned back to see the newest member of the team. Vox was covered in snow, and looked a little like a drowned rat. Her sleek nose pressed against my back, and her large eyes squinted up at me.

”What do you want?” I grumbled. My cool, collected focus was totally ruined by the intrusive robot.

”Yip!” Vox barked softly, and her metallic tail wagged around behind her back. She pranced around the back of my Roughrider like an excited puppy. The heavy electro magnets built into her paws kept her from falling off the flying vehicle entirely.

I dropped a hand onto her fluffy head. Despite the snow, the artificial fibers I used were relatively dry and soft to the touch. Warmth radiated from her power cell and the complex mechanisms hidden inside her frame.

Vox immediately went still and rubbed up into my hand. Her silver eyes crinkled into halfmoons. “What’d you code her with, anyway?”

“Um… I reworked the a-affection protocols a bit,” Luna mumbled.

“Just a bit?” I didn’t remember CJ ever being so… emotive? Was that the right word? He was great, don’t get me wrong, but he was definitely still a robot.

”Y-yeah, just a bit.” Luna coughed lightly. “I ran out of room on the subroutine core thanks to all the tech instructions I had to squeeze in.”

There was a lot of tech slammed into her tiny body. Like, more than a borg and definitely more than a jaeger. The robot needed knowledge and a guide for each and every one of them. “Should I have gone a little lighter on the tech?”

Vox tilted her head to the side and then looked away. She curiously dropped her mechanical nose to the side of the Roughrider and walked around—going completely horizontal as she hung above the drop into the city using her magnetic paws. Her ears perked up, and she looked back up at me.

Vox’s eyes glowed a soft blue, and her head turned sharply downward to the city far below us. “I-I think I’m going to be sick.”

”You better not puke all over my floor. I just cleaned it.” I sighed and adjusted my poncho. I connected up to my mask and toggled on the holograms. In the rearview mirror of my bike, the holo design I made specifically for Nightshade reflected back.

A sleek, holographic panther’s head covered my face and obscured the details. I’d modified the projectors slightly to make them much more dim. The resultant hologram wasn't nearly as bright as the ads of the far below, and blended in fairly well against the cloudy sky above. A soft purple glow lit up the eyes and ran down the face of the panther in streaks. I thought about doing a crow, but they already claimed I was a serial killer. Why not lean into that with Panther?

I wiped a mound of snow off my bike and watched it fall down onto the city far below. I huddled back under my poncho immediately for that sweet warmth. I was way up higher than most flyers would go, which meant I was also exposed to the cold. This body suit Mira put me in? As it turned out, surprisingly good at holding in body warmth.

A Spectral Flock crow appeared in my hand with just a thought. I carefully set it up on the console of my bike just behind the windshield. The building was far enough below that it’d be out of range all the way up here, but Luna could fix that by taking control of the bike.

“Everyone in position?” I asked even though I knew the answer. Aside from the Packheart Rings, Luna had a mini-map with everyone’s locations pinged on it.

“Ready when you are, Skunkstripe.” Mira’s voice practically radiated a smirk.

”What did I say about that name?” Seriously, there were a thousand other things to call me, so why that one?

“I dunno…” Mira dragged the word out. ”How about Eclipse of Archangel? Nightshade of Aythryn? CEO of Cold Moon? Short of Height?”

“That last one was uncalled for.” I groaned and twisted around on the bike to stretch out and limber up for the job. “Did we ever decide on Archangel?”

”That’s what I put up on the stream,” Saint said. “Haven’t done anything with it since, though.”

”Chek, well, it’s not like gigs just fall into our laps, do they?” Recently all the stuff I’d been working on was for myself—aside from Lavender and the stolen armor. Even this one was still for me and Mira.

Saint’s voice twisted with confusion. ”Do you want that to change? I thought we were taking a short break. I can put contact information up if you want?”

“It’s whatever.” I wasn’t particularly bothered by it. I mean, I had a potential source of income now. I wasn’t living off of one gig to the next like I used to. “Maybe if it's something interesting.”

“I’ll keep an ear out.” Saint coughed lightly. “How about we focus on tonight, though?”

”Right.” I took one more breath and checked back on Vox. The metal fox hopped up onto my shoulder and made herself comfortable. “Let’s do this thing.”

Without any further hesitation, I jumped off the side of the Roughrider. For a sickening moment, I froze in midair. Everything twisted, and vertigo churned throughout me. Gravity abruptly reasserted itself and yanked me down alongside the dense snow. A moment passed—two—my breath came in slightly panicked through my mask like it always did during the moments of the fall.

Wind roared against my covered ears, and buffeted at my body. I dropped faster than the snow around me, causing everything to blur together in layers of white. The city quickly started to howl alongside the wind, and a wave of noise mixed together.

Falling like this—it wasn’t as simple as falling from a two story building. I checked my HUD to make sure I was still on target, and took a ragged breath through the filters of the mask. The spot I planned my fall through was deliberately void of flyers. The last thing I needed was to splat into a wayward one on my way down.

The dark expanse of the sky surrounding me mutated into bright lights and flashing advertisements. I slipped below the flyer traffic, and the small thrusters along the Drop Chutes whirled to life to help me adjust my fall. The moment before I could slam into the roof of my target and turn into Shiro Slurry, pinpricks of heat spread across my back and the Drop Chutes activated.

I touched down lightly on the slippery slope of the target building. It was a sheer mass of slick concrete that I immediately started to slide down. I slipped onto my hands and knees, and totally failed to find purchase. I scrambled to grab onto something, but it was a sheer slope. A tidal wave of snow moved around me and washed down the slide.

”Yip!” Vox jumped off my back and touched down on the concrete. Incredibly sharp claws poked out of her unassuming paws. They vibrated like a Crusade sword, and easily pierced into the concrete. Her tail whipped out to wrap my arm and stabilize me.

I abruptly jerked to a stop, though the small avalanche I caused kept moving without me. I watched the bundles of white tumble over the edge of the building and plummet down into the city below.

”Thanks,” I whispered with a shaky breath, and put away the dagger I’d drawn. I had the same idea, naturally. Just with a knife instead of claws. Having an assistant was already starting to pay off.

”You okay, Shiro?” Mira asked.

”Chek—chek, I’m nova.” I got my footing back and carefully crawled up the slope. Now that the initial momentum was gone, I wasn’t in dire straits. “The wind blew my landing off a bit.”

I was supposed to land up on the very top of the building where it was flat, not down here. Maybe it was time I reworked the Drop Chutes. They’d done me well, but the gliding aspect of them wasn’t super strong for precision drops like I wanted to pull off.

“You code her to do that, too?” I asked Luna. That was quite a bit more intelligence than I expected from the metal fox.

”N-no. I did show her how to climb, use her tail as a tool, and gave her advanced adaptive algorithms, though.”

Adaptive algorithms? When did she have time for all of this? No—actually, it could’ve already been done back when I ran Badger’s Code Scan through the code. Just because it told me issues in code didn’t mean it told me what everything did. “And that’s different from an AI?”

“Um… just enough for BosSpace not to God Rod us?” Luna sighed. “It’s the same grey line that the megacorps toe for their advanced robotics. We just need to wipe her data every once in a while.”

“We should… talk when I get back.” Just because the megacorps did that didn’t mean we should. Especially considering my corporation had—what, three employees total at the moment? 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

I shook my head and shuffled for an access ladder that ran down the side of the slope. The roof was slick, but it wasn’t that steep of a slope. Maybe… 30 degrees? Vox stayed right around me the entire time as extra support, and her claws left small imprints across the surface of the building.

A breath of relief left me once I felt the rungs under my hands. I settled back onto the ladder and glanced down the slope. If I’d fallen—well, it wouldn’t have been the end of the world, to be honest. I could just Drop Chute again before hitting the ground. Logic didn’t do anything against the psychological side of slipping down toward a massive fall off, though.

A harsh gale of wind slammed into me, and my poncho fluttered around my lithe form. My gloved hands tightened around the access ladder. I looked up the side of the roof and spotted a hatch. It was a bit off from the original plan, but the less time I had to spend up here, the better. ‘Sides, I’d nearly slipped down the edge. It was a long climb back up.

Vox jumped back onto my shoulders once I was resettled. Although there was a lot of tech and metal in her, I’d also incorporated a small gravitic chamber. She was as light as a feather and hardly weighed me down.

I climbed up the metal ladder embedded into the concrete and wiped a layer of snow off the hatch. It was padlocked shut. I reached down to my belt and pulled out my lock picks. I definitely needed to make a utility belt after this. It was already paying off. Pulling my bag off and sorting through it up here didn’t sound like a fun time.

The padlock clicked open, and I leaned forward to tap around the hatch with Technical Expertise. There were several alarms linked up into the thing, as well as a clamp hermetically sealing it. “Luna?”

Vox lifted her head, and her eyes glowed blue. “On it.”

After a few moments, the hatch popped open and a hiss of pressurized air shot out of it. I pried it open the rest of the way and slipped into a small access room. I pulled the hatch shut behind me. It sealed, and the rushing air abruptly settled around me. “We’re in.”