“Like it?” Darsi’s smile told him that the only acceptable answer was yes.

“Fantastic.” Although Dex felt pressured, it was the truth. She had made him the absolute best breakfast burrito he’d ever tasted. “I like it hot.” ​​

“I’m not surprised,” Darsi took a seat next to his and started eating. She watched him for a moment as if making sure he really liked it. “Any progress on the Code for the Yuli job?”

Dex nodded. “Done. I was struggling for a few days, and then I had an epiphany that made cleared things up.”

“Hmmm… I love that word. Give me some details, Partner.” Darsi’s interest was disrupted suddenly by the opening of Dex’s front door. She noted that the new arrivals didn’t knock, something that her young partner didn’t appreciate. Nevertheless, her expression was carefully neutral as Gadget entered while escorting an unexpected guest.

“Nova?” Dex smiled at the newcomer. “What are you doing here?”

“Hey, Dex!” Nova offered a small wave; his presence immediately calmed her frayed nerves. The other Bottom Feeders may have been intimidating, but the Hive’s Fucking Da Vinci was not. “This your place?”

Dex nodded. “This is my partner, Quicksilver.”

Nova smiled at the blond; the warmth of Dextron’s greeting was instantly drained away by a cold arctic-blue stare. “Quicksilver…”

“Nova…” Darsi fixed turned her focus toward Gadget. “Something up?”

Gadget took a seat at the counter and motioned for Nova to join them. He brought up the counter’s hud display. “Something I need you to see.”

Without pausing, Nova opened her hud and synched it with the window Gadget opened. The image of a person slowly formed. At first glance, it appeared to have the normal physiological traits of a biological male. The goth hacker started separating the different overlays; first the epidermis, then the muscular system, the circulatory system, skeletal and finally the nervous system. The five windows rotated while the group studied them.

“Should that be there?” Dex spotted the anomaly right away. The nerves on the right wrist appeared to contain some sort of device.

Gadget should have been surprised that Dextron picked up the issue so quickly, but he wasn’t. “There are three separate nerves in the wrist; the ulnar, radial, and median. As a doctor, I can tell you that they aren’t normally connected.”

Darsi paused his narrative with a surprised glance. “You’re a doctor?”

Gadget nodded. “Among other things, but let’s stay on topic. Someone used cybernetics to combine these three separate nerves into a cluster.”

Darsi focused on the arm, using the hud to zoom in on the area in question. As clear as day, they could see a socket on the inside of the wrist. “That looks like some sort of data port. Where do these nerves go?”

“To the spinal column, via the shoulder,” Gadget answered. “That’s not all. Because it’s much smaller, I’m not surprised that you guys missed it.” He exchanged the zoomed-in wrist image for the cranium. A microport was inserted into the base of the skull. “To be honest, we are decades away from this sort of tech.”

Darsi studied the image for a long moment before turning back to Nova. “Where’d these images come from?”

“Anodyne Cybernetics,” Nova answered without hesitation.

“Details, please.” Darsi’s blue eyes warmed slightly. “How long have you been in their system, and who is paying you.”

“I’ve been in the system for three months; SMT paid me 30 million for the job.”

Dex whistled softly. Infiltration might be boring, but it certainly paid well. “SMT is Seminole Medical Team out of Florida?” He brought up the data while he spoke. “Oh… small world.”

Darsi didn’t have to look to understand. SMT was a former subsidiary of Gladis Corp. “Let’s not do any more work for these guys. Put the word out, pull the plug on anything remotely connected to Gladis Corporation.”

Although Darsi was studying the hud, Nova felt the statement was directed at her. “Fine with me; I’ve already been paid.”

Gadget used the comm function on his hud to page Stiletto, Mongoose, and Thumper. “Thank you for bringing this to our attention, Nova.”

From his tone, Nova understood that it was a dismissal. She smiled at Dextron and headed toward the exit without saying anything further.

“Nova…” Darsi called her name when she opened the door to leave. “Move your stuff to the 8th floor. I’ll make sure your resource allocation reflects the promotion.”

Gadget grimaced slightly when the door closed. “What do you think, Darsi? This is more your realm than anyone elses.”

Dex waited for her answer. Unlike the rest of the Bottom Feeders, Darsi was also a second-story operative. In layman’s terms, it meant that she was equally comfortable with both virtual and real-world break-ins. Any kind of data port that was linked with human physiology would be tailored for that sort of work.

“A few years ago, there were some clinical trials that sought to rebuild human nerves with cybernetics. These trials ended with mixed results.” Darsi brought up a hud that showed the test results; she highlighted a specific case. “Temporary restoration of paralyzed limbs. This lasted for a few weeks before nerve degradation set in. The patient lost the use of their limbs and suffered from severe side effects.”

Gadget zoomed in on the test result. “The consulting physician is Dr. Janic Theodor.”

Any further discussion was preempted by the arrival of Thumper, Mongoose, and Stiletto.

A quick investigation showed that Janic Theodor had a personal server. Darsi decided to put the Bottom Feeder meeting on hold while she and Dex used the Tandem jumper to search for more information.

Dex took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “What’s the plan?”

“I expect only light resistance, you handle that while I start to mirror his server.” Darsi smiled at her partner, mirroring would be impossible if someone used real ICE, but amateurs barely ever used countmeasures on their personal servers.

“Understood…” Dex slipped on his virtual glove and held his fist out expectantly.

Darsi fistbumped him a moment later. “Let’s plan for 90 seconds… If the mirror doesn’t work we might have to adjust the time.”

Dex nodded. “In and out, like a cheap date.”

Darsi laughed at his words. “The hell? Where’d you here that?”

“Hmm… Mongoose said it when he and Gadget jumped.”

Darsi giggled uncharacteristically. “Don’t repeat what that yahoo says.” She favored him with a wide smile.

The world around the tandem jumper faded into the virtual as both jumpers dived into the data stream.

Dex weaved effortlessly into the wave. “I’ve identified the server address, testing it for safe entry.”

Darsi waited, to her eyes the two of them resembled glowing figures that floated in a constantly cycleing display of ones and zeroes. Their endless pathways consisted of addresses, both numerical and alphabetical in nature.

Dex pinged his partner to get her attention. “Small firewall barrier, but no ICE detected. Enter at E24, subset Zulu.”

Darsi noted to herself that the young hacker sounded rediculously sexy when speaking virtually. “I bet you say that to all the girls.”

Quicksilver started the mirroring task, a progress bar popped up in her pov with a timer on it. “Going to take a bit more than 90 seconds. This guy dumps everything here.”

Dex nodded to himself in agreement. With nothing to do while the server was being copied, he perused some of the most recent files. “Looks like your hunch is right. He’s involved with Anodyne Cybernetics, there’s a number of emails between him and their R & D Chief (research and development).

Darsi glanced at the progress bar, it was nearly done. “A leopard doesn’t change its spots. We’ll sift through this data back at the Hive.”

“Understood. Five seconds…” Dex waited until his partner extracted her mirroring code. “Closing the door behind us, putting up a smoke trail just in case.”

Darsi was suddenly curious as to what Dex’s smoke trail looked like. Nearly every hack left remenants behind; smoke trails were used disguise who had been there and what they did. Some people were better at it than others.

The Bottom Feeders were waiting when Dextron and Quicksilver returned. Without being asked, Darsi dividing the mirrored data into six separate files and sent one to each of their huds.

Gadget held up a hand to get everyone’s attention. “Send any medical data or schematics you find to me.”

Dex grabbed two water bottles from his fridge and handed one to Darsi before taking the seat next to hers.

Thumper’s dark eyes noticed the action. “What about the rest of us?”

Dex shrugged slightly. “Get your own.”

Darsi smiled at his response. “Look at my partner, fitting in so nicely.”