Pushing the door back open, she rolled across the corridor, kicking the door shut with a flick of her foot as she did so. Pressing herself up against the wall, she waited for the camera to pan down to look at the other end of the corridor, then sprinted up to the next door on the same side as the janitor’s closet.

It was unlocked, so she stepped through. This room too was empty, although a steaming cup of char warned her that the inhabitant was sure to come back at some point. Looking around at the furniture, she saw that the owner was clearly high ranking in the faction.

Expensive bottles of rice wine and spirits sat proudly on glass counters backed by a shimmering mirror, whilst the chairs looked as though they’d never let you back up once you’d sat in them.

A state-of-the-art computer and holoprojector sat on the wooden – wooden! – desk, with an equally advanced full immersion chair behind it. There was a cough, a shuffling of feet, the only warning that someone was in the corridor. Spinning, Mai placed herself behind the door. She was barely in time, the door opening as she held her breath.

“Now, where the hell did I put it?” a woman walked into the room. She was the very vision of a scatter-brained scientist, all the way down to the white suit with black closing and wild hair.

“Perhaps I can help?” Mai stepped up behind the woman, planting a hand over her mouth and nudging the door shut with her hip. “Not a word or I kill you. Nod if you understand.”

The woman nodded, her nostrils flaring, hot air warming Mai’s hand as the scientist tried to breathe as quickly as possible.

“I need to get into the vault. Do you have access to the vault?”

The woman nodded. She tensed. Mai drove a fist into the scientist’s kidney, the woman screaming behind her hand.

“Don’t be stupid. It’s not worth it. All I want is a few crystals. Can. You. Get. Into. The. Vault?”

Nodding again, the woman cried at the pain in her back, the tears soaking Mai’s hand.

“Are we talking DNA scanner, retinal scanner and voice recognition?”

Another nod.

“Anything else? I’m going to take my hand from your mouth. If there is anything else, tell me. Try to call for help and it’ll be the last thing you do. Clear?”

Nod. Mai moved her hand away from the woman’s mouth.

“I have to key in a code as well.”

Mai cursed. All of this was going to take time. Time where the camera would be looking. She’d have to step under its line of sight, hope that the woman didn’t try to escape.

“Wait, it’s not on a time lock or anything is it?”

“No,” she shook her head, double-chin wobbling. “We need access constantly. We refine the crystals in the factory floor and store them up here.”

Mai nodded towards the door, indicating that the woman should lead her out into the corridor. As the scientist stepped back into the corridor, Mai glanced to see which way the camera was pointing. Right at her.

“Keep walking, whispered Mai, I’ll follow you as soon as the camera has turned away. Don’t try anything stupid, I can still aim and fire this pistol without having to look at you.”

“Please, just let me go?” begged the woman, turning to face Mai.

“Turn the fuck around now! Don’t let the security guards see you’re talking to someone!”

With a sob the woman turned away and walked towards the vault door. Mai kept her weapon pointed down the corridor, using her retinal monitor to watch as the camera slowly panned in the other direction. As soon as the shroud of the lens was pointing away from her she strode down the corridor, easily catching up with and then passing the scientist until she was once more stood under the camera.

“Nothing stupid now,” she said as the woman stood before the door. “Open the door, enter the vault, grab the crystals and bring them out. Walk to me and hand them to me, then continue to walk down the corridor. Enter the janitor’s closet. Understand?”

“Yes, the woman said weakly. Mai watched as the woman went through the sequence required to open the vault. Initially she’d been surprised at the lack of security on this floor, but then remembered that the faction clearly viewed an outward threat far more of a risk than an inward one.

They must be good to their people. Now that she thought about tit, the workers hadn’t seemed anywhere near as cowed or down trodden as the others she seen at the farm and the factory. Loyalty. Couldn’t be bought. Not with money. But it could with kindness, good jobs, fair working standards and any number of other ways which made people too comfortable to risk losing it all for a one-off, high-risk payment.

As the vault door hissed open, the woman glanced over at Mai, tears streaking her makeup.

“Promise you won’t kill me?”

“I promise that if you do what I ask, that I won’t kill you. Get a move on.”

Stepping into the vault, the woman disappeared from sight and Mai’s mouth dried at the thought that there might be some sort of alarm inside it. Nothing happened, and the scientist came back out with a small box no bigger than her hand.

“That’s it?” Mai narrowed her eyes in suspicion at the woman.

“Of course, each one is no bigger than the head of a pin. There are hundreds of thousands here.”

Mai gasped, jaw dropping open in shock.

Thrusting the box into Mai’s hand, the scientist walked down to the janitors closet and stepped in. Looking up, Mai checked the direction that the camera was pointing in, saw that she was clear and joined the woman.

“Right, I’m going to have to gag and tie you up. Someone will find you at some point. The Maggots don’t kill people if we don’t have to.” She was glad that she’d had the forethought to take the gang badges from her would-be ambushers. Just to make sure, she turned so that the woman got a good look at the badge.

Biting down on the need to smile at the thought of the gang who had ambushed her suddenly finding themselves being blamed for a theft they had nothing to do with, Mai created the rope and gag, then tied the woman up.

Then, placing her feet on the shelving, she climbed up to the hatch, grabbed hold of the lip and hauled herself over. As soon as she was back on the roof, she replaced the hatch, activated her STEALTH, SNEAK, LARCENY and CLIMB and crawled out onto the pedway, flipping herself over and onto the beam.

Seemingly in the middle of a lull, the base was quieter. No-one was rushing around screaming about intruders. From there it was a simple matter of repeating her entrance in reverse.

As she sprinted into the alleyway she’d left what seemed like a week ago, she smiled as klaxons blared and searchlights stabbed into life.

Mai smiled as she looked at the menu option for the tri-barrel energy SMG. It had a fire rate of one thousand beams a minute, each battery pack good for at least three thousand shots. Plenty of modification options as well. On top of that, the lack of recoil and therefore vertical climb and horizontal drift meant that it gave a ten per cent success bonus to SMG, whilst the energy beams conferred an additional thirty per cent damage bonus.

“Well, you certainly have delivered the goods this time,” Bob said as he finally got over his shock of being presented with so many crystals.

“How many do you need to create the tri-barrel laser?”

“Ten for each weapon. They last, don’t wear out, not in our lifetime anyway.”

“Let’s do a deal then. I’ll take a hundred of the weapons. That’s one thousand crystals. I’ll give you another two thousand crystals to make another two hundred weapons which you can sell. We get the first one hundred free. Not as if they’re costing you anything bar some nanites.”

Bob looked at her eyes goggling at the thought of the amount of money he could make from being able to sell two hundred of the top-end weapons. They were currently priced at over five thousand UC.

Mai quickly checked her SASS and smiled as she saw that her reputation with the locals had grown once more. She also saw that Bob was now more inclined to giving her a ten per cent discount on anything she bought.

Might as well make the most out of my fellow NPCs she thought bitterly. It must have shown on her face as the armourer stepped away, hands raised.

“Deal! It’s a deal!”

“Sorry, bad thoughts, nothing to do with you. You’re friend, Bob.”

Mopping his brown, Bob nodded.

“I’ll have the machine ready first thing tomorrow. First thing. Send some people. That bounty’s still on your head.”

“Anyone who tries killing me is going to end up regretting it,” she laughed as she left the shop.

She was still laughing as Bob quietly replied.

“That I can believe. That, I can believe.”