Open Gen Post

[mundaati]

OPEN POST



-my muselist is here
-mention who you want in the subject line
-leave me a prompt/picture/whatever
-???
-profit

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calling all corporate scumbags

[neverknocks]

The thing about living under the radar is that you can't exactly hold down a job, and when you can't hold down a job, money becomes a problem. Jobs are kind of a problem, too, because they can be hard to come by and none too reliable -- or sometimes a little too reliable, to the point where you have an awful hard time getting out. So it's probably a good thing that York's not inclined toward traditional employment these days. But plenty of other people still are. If there's one constant out there in the universe, it's that corporate scumbags have most of the money, and if you want to make a little of your own, all you have to do is rob them blind.

Easier said than done when your corporate target is the Hyperion Corporation, but then again, most people don't have an AI jacked into their brains to access locked schematics and monitor security systems. Stealing a few valuables from the dragon's den shouldn't be any harder than some of the shit she had to do for Freelancer, and these days, information's worth its metaphorical weight in gold. She's pretty sure she can find a buyer for corporate data jacked from Hyperion's own secure servers.

HVAC systems are a tried and true entrance strategy, however trite, especially for a station of this size, even if they're a little small for York's taste. "Man, who the hell is in charge of custodial here?" she mutters, shimmying through what is a pretty off-putting amount of grime layered on the inside of the vents. "I've seen cleaner vents in prisons. Do these guys have any idea what's in the air they're breathing?"

Unlikely, says Delta in the back of her mind. There is a drop shaft two point three meters ahead.

York makes a face and wriggles the rest of the way, massaging the grate loose and sticking her head out to peer around in the dark. She shakes her hair out of her face and squints. "This doesn't look like the secure server room. This looks like a storage closet. Speaking of custodial."

The secure server room is adjacent to the back wall of this room. That wall is a security blind spot for maintenance purposes. If done carefully, damage to the wall should not trigger an alarm.

"Literal back door, huh? I like it." Grinning, York drops down from the ventilation shaft and pushes a stack of brooms aside, freeing up some space on the back wall. "Time me, D. Maybe I'll break a record today."

[atlaswhined]

Rhys shouldn't be here, it's well into the night cycle and while Helios never really sleeps the only people working this late are the ones who managed to piss off someone who could get them assigned to the graveyard shift. Not him, though. There was an eridium mine deal he knew he could get signed if he could only get the contract work done before anyone else clocked in for the morning shift and found out about the new vein that had been discovered. Sure, most of the miners would probably end up with slag poisoning or worse but that was the cost of doing business, right? Most of Pandora was populated by psychos and cannibals anyways.

Maybe if he kept saying it he'd be able to quash that weird guilty twinge.

It was worth it in the end, putting in the extra hours to grab the deal before anyone else can. Careers get made on nights like this, or that's what he tells himself as he gets the last of the signed paperwork transferred over the ECHOnet to his computer. That should have been it. All he needed to do was drop some physical copies of the paperwork in the right mailboxes and he could go home to his apartment and dig into a pint of rocky road to celebrate. That would have been it if not for the freaking copier exploding ink all over his shirt. "Perfect..." The shirt he didn't mind losing but his tie was a present from Vaughn and Yvette, pure silk and imported directly from Eden-6.

He remembers the supply closet having stuff that's supposed to be a life saver for stains. Plus he can kick a custodial bot towards the copy room to leave up that mess. Thankfully the halls are mostly empty, footsteps echoing enough to make Rhys feel like he's the only one on the station. Which is... actually kind of creepy. He pulls up his ECHO to call Vaughn, frowning as he gets booted to voicemail almost immediately. Rude.

"Hey, bro, you are not going to believe the deal I just made. I think this might be enough to get me that job in upper management." Where was that closet...? Oh, there. He's still talking as he pulls open the door, not even looking up from the screen projected from his palm. "I can't wait to see Vasquez's face when I steal that promotion right out from under him. Call me back, we need to party or something." Call ended, he finally noticed York in the back of the closet and froze. She did not look like one of the janitors.

There's no hiding that Deer in the Headlights look. Oh god, this isn't good. "Heh, wrong... wrong room." And then he's going to try and veeeery carefully close the door before bolting for the nearest security station.

[neverknocks]

Proximity alert, Delta says as someone starts to approach the closet door, but trapped in here, there's not a whole lot York can do in the two seconds before the hapless jackass opens the door. She could -- what, crawl back up into the vent? She's fast, but not that fast, and she's already half an inch deep into the wall with her drill. It's a small mercy that the guy's too busy chatting to his bro to notice her at first, because that means she has a chance to move before he does.

The deer in the headlights look would be more entertaining if York wasn't a walking security breach, and this guy looks like he might have his mouth surgically attached directly to his CEO's ass. Not super bribable. The loyal company man. Somehow, that's even worse than the exploitable ones.

"Ah, hell," York mutters, rolling her eyes skyward, and her hand shoots out before Rhys has a chance to back away, grabbing hold of his stained tie to yank him back in, using the momentum to throw him (gently) (sort of) into the stack of brooms while she kicks the door shut again.

"Sorry, pal, I don't think s-- oh, come on, what is this black stuff?" York's hand is now smeared in copy ink and she shakes it out with a grimace.

[atlaswhined]

There's time for nothing except a super manly and not at all shrill yelp as York drags him into the closet and throws him into a pile of brooms. His head knocks against the corner of the shelf and he collapses like a house cards along with what seems like eight thousand brooms. Ow ow ow...

"It's toner," Rhys mutters, rubbing at his head. Is it bleeding? It feels like it's bleeding and if he sees blood he's gonna barf. "The stupid copier exploded. I just wanted to-" Wait.

"Why am I explaining myself to you?! You're robbing us!" Who cared if his tie was probably a lost cause? If he helps catch a thief then he's definitely going to get a sweet ass promotion. Forget Henderson's office, this could send him to the big leagues. "That's... that's what you're doing, right?" He keeps babbling even as he pulls up his Echo eye's interface, trying to access the local security systems and send out a silent alarm.

[neverknocks]

York sort of hopes she didn't accidentally bash the guy's skull in -- corpses are a pain in the ass, a glaring sign that somebody's been here, and besides that she's not that into killing random passersby if she can help it. Delta brings up the guy's company profile almost immediately, and York feels just a little bit less bad about throwing him into the brooms.

"No, I'm from maintenance. You got a real bad leak back here," she drawls, wiping her hand on the thigh of her trousers. All that really happens is that now both her hand and her pants are covered in black, dusty ink. "Oh, come on. This stuff's never gonna come out. I'm taking this one out of your next paycheck, man."

Alert, says Delta in the back of her mind. Networked implant detected. He is attempting to send a security alert with our exact position.

"Well, then, do something about it, would you?" York says aloud, unholstering her pistol to aim at Rhys to discourage any notions of running away.

I already have, Delta says, with a near-undetectable touch of smugness. York rolls her eyes and levels her pistol at Rhys's head, then, after a moment's consideration, shifts her aim to his knee. "If you scream, I'm gonna shoot you."

She probably won't. She might just knock him out with a good blow to the head and have Delta scramble the hell out of his implant, but she doesn't think she'll have a hard time convincing this corporate slave to act in his best self-interest.