Chapter 113: [113]: The Rogue Code-Smith, Down the Hatch
The harsh streets of Outpost Rust were absolutely chaotic. But Sebastian and Gwen moved through the crowds like ghosts.
Nobody messed with them. When you are walking next to a guy completely covered in the black oil and synthetic blood of a Level 90 Syndicate enforcer, people tend to give you a wide berth. The local thugs and scavengers took one look at Sebastian’s deadpan silver-tinged eyes and immediately found somewhere else to be.
Sebastian wiped a smear of oil off his cheek and sighed heavily. "This coat is completely ruined. I’m going to have to loot a dry cleaner."
"Forget the coat Seattle," Gwen said. She walked briskly beside him with her heavy trench coat pulled tight. "Silas is going to lock down the entire outpost. The Onyx Syndicate controls the primary exit portals. We need to get out of the Juncture and into a real server before they put a bounty on us that actually attracts the big fish."
"Fine by me," Sebastian agreed. His joints felt loose and completely pain-free thanks to the Server Filter. "My base on Earth is basically a giant target right now. I need to get back and drop this Divine Shard into my Core before the Void sends something I can’t just punch. How do we get out?"
Gwen stopped at the edge of a massive rusted metal walkway. She looked over the railing and stared down into the absolute suffocating darkness below the floating shantytown.
"That’s the problem," Gwen explained. Her voice dropped into a harsh whisper. "You’re an Anomaly. Your base code is flagged by the System. If you step through a standard transit portal, the server’s firewall will instantly flag your IP and delete you. You can’t just walk into Server 112. You need a disguise for your data."
Sebastian frowned and stepped up to the railing. "Like a VPN?"
"Exactly," Gwen nodded. "You need a Server Spoofing Drive. It’s a piece of illegal hardware that forcefully masks your origin code. It makes the server think you’re just a standard boring NPC transferring between zones. But you can’t buy those at a corner store."
"So where do we get one?"
Gwen pointed straight down into the pitch-black abyss beneath the space leviathan’s skull.
"Down the hatch," she said grimly. "We need to visit a guy named Corbin. He’s a rogue code-smith. A total mad scientist. He hides out in the literal lower intestines of this dead beast."
Sebastian looked down into the dark. The stench wafting up from the depths was horrific. It smelled like rotting alien meat and burning plastic.
"You’re telling me I have to crawl through a giant space monster’s digestive tract to buy a router?" Sebastian sighed. He rubbed the bridge of his nose. "This apocalypse has zero glamour."
"Welcome to the real world buddy," Gwen smirked as she hopped over the railing. "Follow me. And try not to touch the glowing puddles. They’ll melt your boots to your feet."
The descent was absolutely miserable.
They left the relatively bright neon-lit slums behind and climbed down a series of precariously rusted ladders and jagged bone spurs. The deeper they went, the hotter and more toxic the environment became.
The lower intestines of the dead leviathan were a labyrinth of massive fleshy tunnels that had petrified into hard porous rock. Rivers of glowing green and highly irradiated sludge flowed sluggishly through the center of the caverns.
"Watch your step," Gwen warned as she drew one of her kinetic pistols. "The radiation down here mutates the local wildlife. It’s not friendly."
Right on cue, a horrific splashing sound echoed from the green sludge.
A massive multi-eyed amphibian mutant the size of a bear leaped out of the toxic river. Its jaws were wide open to snap at Gwen.
Sebastian didn’t even slow down. He just reached out and grabbed the mutant by its slimy throat. He casually hurled it directly into a solid rock wall with bone-shattering force!
SPLAT.
The creature burst like a water balloon. It slid down the wall in a messy pile of green goo.
"I really hate bugs," Sebastian muttered. He wiped his glove on a relatively clean patch of petrified intestine.
"Show-off," Gwen grunted and led him around a bend in the tunnel. "We’re here."
At the end of the cavern was a massive heavily reinforced steel bunker. It was completely out of place in the organic rotting environment. The walls were wrapped in thick layers of lead plating and intricate copper mesh.
"A Faraday cage," Sebastian noted. He was genuinely impressed. "He’s completely blocking all incoming and outgoing magical frequencies."
Gwen stepped up to the heavy blast door and banged the butt of her pistol against the metal in a complex rhythmic code.
Clang-clang. Clang. Clang-clang-clang.
For a long moment, nothing happened. Then a tiny heavily armored viewport slid open. A single bloodshot completely paranoid eye stared out at them.
"We’re closed!" a frantic raspy voice shouted through the thick metal. "Go away! The System is watching! The Senate hears everything!"
"Corbin, calm down, it’s Gwen," the smuggler sighed. "I brought a client. He needs a Spoofing Drive. Premium quality. And he has the capital to pay for it."
"No! Absolutely not!" Corbin shrieked. "I can’t build high-tier tech! The Senate put a collar on me! If I touch admin-level code, they’ll fry my brain! Tell your client to screw off!"
Sebastian didn’t have the patience for a paranoid hermit.
He stepped in front of Gwen and placed his hand flat against the heavy steel door. He didn’t use a spell. He just used the sheer ungodly physical strength of his thirty percent synchronization.
He pushed.
SCREEECH!
The heavy blast door violently warped inward. The massive locking mechanisms snapped like cheap plastic. Sebastian forcefully shoved the door completely open and stepped into the dimly lit smoke-filled bunker.
"Hi Corbin," Sebastian said. His voice was entirely deadpan. "I’m the client. Let’s talk about that collar."
The bunker was a chaotic mess of computer terminals, half-built cybernetics, and empty coffee cups. Standing in the center of the room was Corbin. He was a twitchy thin man wearing grease-stained overalls. A lit cigarette trembled in his lips.
Bolted directly into the base of Corbin’s neck was a glowing red metallic device. The System Tracker.
Corbin stared at the ruined blast door and then at Sebastian. The code-smith took a terrified step backward and raised his hands.
"Who the hell are you?!" Corbin panicked.
"I’m the IT guy," Sebastian smiled with a dark terrifying glint in his silver eyes. "And I’m here to fix your hardware problem."