Tyla and Talia completed Operation "Chain-Link" successfully.

At the end, Madam Ophelia lost 5 million Neo Credits, while the fake one- Tyla left with 3 female slaves.

In a way, she just rescued 3 slaves.

The real Madam Ophelia Lost 350,000 more Neo Credits that morning because after rescuing slaves, it would look unnatural for Madam Ophelia to take them to her single room hotel apartment, so she booked a new hotel.

This time, she booked a luxurious suite with 5 rooms costing a whopping 350,000 Neo Credits for a single night!

At the same time, Talia became trapped in the inner ring with Tyla.

Afterall, after such a big purchase and after entering the interior of Big Joe’s hidden underground empire, they were 100% sure that Dante was keeping watch on them through their information channels.

To return to the outer ring to drop Talia, she would need a valid reason and since she didn’t have one for now, Talia was stuck with her.

But this didn’t catch them off-guard.

Afterall, they already brainstormed as a team and thought of this scenario before now and they had a solution for it.

...

In the outer ring, inside a local hotel apartment.

Sitting on the only chair within the apartment, Leon sat with a briefcase standing by the side of his leg.

He was quietly looking at the wall like he was waiting for something, and finally, it came.

DING!

[NEW! Encrypted Unread Message from Tyla!]

Due to the presence of the Omnicore Eye, Davis didn’t materialize as it sent the message straight to Leon’s implant.

In his head, he calmly clicked on the message to open it.

Click!

["Operation "Chain-Link" is a success."]

The moment Leon saw the message, he exhaled and stood up, then he picked up the briefcase and left his hotel room.

A few minutes later, a few blocks away from a certain café in the outer ring, he timed it perfectly and just as the CCTV cameras of the Omnicore Eye looked away, he took advantage of the blind spot and his ADE flared briefly.

Miniaturization!

BZZZ!

The briefcase was already open, and from inside, the basic robot that was toy-shaped previously enlarged to its normal size.

This was the first robot that Leon deliberately designed aesthetically to look like a female Synth, and it was perfect.

Leon created a Synth!

This was exactly what the Omnicore Federation flagged as code heresy. If the Omnicore Eye caught him, the entire Federation Army in Neo Solace would mobilize for Leon’s head, but they didn’t catch him.

The moment the robot enlarged to its real size, it bent and picked up the synthetic vest inside the briefcase and wore it.

Instantly, the Synth transformed.

It was now wearing a skin that was perfectly modelled to look like Talia. If Leon didn’t know Talia personally, it would be impossible for him to differentiate between this fake Talia and the real one.

She waved at him. "Hey Leon".

Leon shook his head. "Talia wouldn’t stand like that".

She chuckled, and then she stood straighter, her spine rigid like a man. She looked at Leon. "Better?"

"Better". Leon finally smiled. "Good".

He hesitated for one final moment., then he said. "Are you sure you can do this?"

Davis smiled through his new body. "You created me, you should know what I’m capable of best".

Leon nodded. "Yeah, you’re right. You can do it".

"Go".

"Yes master".

Davis turned around with his new body, and he became Talia’s substitute.

To avoid any suspicions that may or may not jeopardize the mission, Leon took his time to construct a body for Davis to replace Talia.

They were not taking any chances.

With his rich database of knowledge about the NetRunner and her history, including the role that she was playing previously in the café, the A.I would be able to impersonate her if not perfectly, then at least 85%.

For the café, that was enough.

As the fake Talia left, Leon disappeared like a ghost just before the CCTV camera panned back to this spot, erasing the blind spot.

...

24th September, Year 714 A.G.

It was already evening.

Officially, it was just 24 hours before Operation Killing Joe commenced, and nerves were finally beginning to set in.

The more they learned about Earl Joe and how big he was, including how much influence and power he had in this city, the more they realized the difficulty of the operation.

It was inevitable, they felt tense.

Unlike the others, Daren didn’t have time to be tense and anxious simply because unlike the rest of them, he never had the opportunity to be idle since becoming an inner member- guard of Bourdillon Hotel.

After the event yesterday, he became one of his boss’ favorite.

It was inevitable after his valiant performance against the thugs while the other guards cowered in fear, even the leader of the guards!

Afterall, who wouldn’t like a guard who was ready to lay down his life for you? Daren already proved himself to be such a guard and the CEO of the entertainment enterprise threw all his support behind him due to it.

And due to the backstory that he made up for himself, he rose to a position within the hotel’s security where he was now in charge of multiple guards.

He now answered only to CEO Hwang Luo.

Aside that, after his stand-out performance yesterday, the CEO finally realized the deficiencies in his guard force and he became desperate to train the rest of his guards to also be that brave.

He offered Daren extra money to tutor the other guards, and since fighting was something that Daren had natural passion for, he did it willingly.

This made him even closer to the CEO.

All of this effort was to infiltrate the enterprise deeper as he finally gave Leon direct access to the complete layout of Bourdillon Entertainment’s underground.

Within just a few hours of getting access to the underground of the entertainment enterprise, Leon infiltrated every nook and cranny of it, mapping out the layout and knowing them by heart in preparation for tomorrow’s showdown.

And of course, he didn’t keep this information with himself, he also shared it with the other members of the crew.

As for Lt. Colonel Umar Farouq, hidden between the cracks in the inner ring, he was busy doing everything possible to make sure that the Earl didn’t change his schedule at the last moment.

As for Brick, he was just floating beyond police radar like a true underground thug, keeping them busy enough to take their focus away from Bourdillon Hotel.

And as for Talia and Tyla, they were also busy as within a few hours, they broke down all the information that Talia hacked earlier in the day.

They now knew every single trafficking base under Joe, including the ones tied to him.

They were all over the world, and there were hundreds of them!

With this information, the 2nd phase of the core operation, the "Information Gathering" phase officially came to an end.

Nerves set in, but they all coped in their own unique way.

They quietly got prepared for battle.

...

Tick... Tock...

Time moved fast and hours later..., a new day came.

It was finally D-day.

25th September, Year 714 A.G.