Chapter 185: Piranhas.
As much as he hated to admit it, Shark wasn’t someone who could get into Blue Ember without looking suspicious. Being an overweight giant made it impossible for him to lie low, and with half of his diving equipment installed directly into his body, there is simply no way for him to get through the security checks unnoticed. That’s where the other members of the heist crew come in.
The chick with purple hair and the guy who likes suits were scheduled to enter the hotel sometime that evening. Once inside, they will connect their NIMs to the local network to access some of the features of the hotel. That would cause a hidden file to be sucked into it like a spec of dust falling into a whirlpool.
The file itself couldn’t be very large or complex, which is why they can’t just dive into the network from an inside connection, despite it appearing as the more logical choice. It only served as a beacon to guide the real diver who had a way to track it through the data ocean.
Having caught the scent of his hidden file, Shark began following it deeper into the coral formation. He still had to hide in the shadows from time to time so the local Divers wouldn’t catch him, but after a while, he made it into an area where very few of them were around.
At the center of the entire formation was a palace made from the most vibrant of the coral, separated from everything else with another translucent red dome. Several streams were flowing through it, going in and out of the palace’s openings, but unlike the streams outside, the ones down here weren’t invisible but instead were formed from countless specks of light.
The red thread was leading into the palace as well, but now that he had located it, Shark no longer needed the guidance of the thread. All he had left to do was infiltrate the palace, leave an imprint somewhere unnoticeable, then swim back to the surface and leave.
Messing around in the hotel’s main computer was far from a great idea, specifically because it’s the main AI’s territory. Though he was one of the best divers in the entire city, one thing the great blue Shark still couldn’t do was gain control over higher-level AI without exposing himself or outright destroying the AI.
’Alright...’ Taking a deep breath, Shark advanced. ’Here we go...’
Once again, he enveloped his body in the red aura and approached the barrier surrounding the coral palace. With not a single Diver in sight, the area looked safe enough for the infiltration. Shark avoided the white streams formed by the countless specks of light, finding an empty area with relatively more shadows than the rest. Anxiousness tortured him all the way through, and even once he got to the other side, he didn’t allow himself to relax, sticking to the shadows as he approached the coral palace.