Lonely Thieves

Act V, Part VII

"Er, sorry. I just got here. It's such a drag, though! They've blocked off my apartment building! How am I supposed to get back in?"

Megumi sighed, but she didn't expect to hit gold on her first try. She continued to ask other bystanders, targeting those who seemed to be alone or with at least one other person to avoid garnering too much attention. Daryl and Hikaru did the same, though they did not have much luck either.

As Megumi looked around for someone else to speak to, she suddenly felt someone's hand grab her arm. She turned around to see a young woman who barely looked older than she did.

"What the hell are you doing? Are you trying to get caught or something?"

Megumi glanced at the woman's face and tried to recall if she had met her before. "I'm sorry, do I know you or something?"

"Er, do you not remember me? I was one of the sweepers working with Norah. Do you remember?"

Megumi immediately remembered seeing a girl like her when she was cornered in the sewers. She immediately tried to pull her arm away, but the sweeper girl kept her grip on her firm.

"Don't run away! I'm not trying to hunt you down anymore. That job's over and done with."

Megumi remained apprehensive. "Then what do you want? You shouldn't have business with me, right?"

"Come on, don't play dumb. You want to know what's going on with that building right now, don't you?"

"...Do you know?"

"Bits and pieces. Listen, let's move away from here for now. Are you with anyone else?"

"Yeah." Megumi looked around and found Daryl and Hikaru each talking to a different member of the crowd. She quickly pulled them away and followed the female sweeper down to an empty alley.

"Right, thanks for following me. Name's Maize, by the way."

"Megumi. Though you should have known that already."

"In any case, how much do you know about the situation so far?"

"Not much at all. In fact, the only reason we came out here was because we wanted to figure out what was going on."

"I see. Well, to be honest, I'm not that much ahead of you. Can't get in with all the police standing around, after all." Maize sighed. "Still, you're right to be worried. We caught sight of Innocenti Special Soldiers breaking into the building earlier."

"Innocenti Special Soldiers?" Megumi was shocked. "And you didn't do anything about it?"

"Chill!" Maize raised a finger to her lips to hush her. "Kolya already infiltrated the building to try to stop them. You know him, right?"

"I do. You're working with him now?"

"It's a long story. That Norah said she wanted to help you too."

Megumi was surprised to hear that, though considering Norah's mental state after their encounter in the sewers, she wondered if she had anything to do with that. Could she even believe that in the first place? No, there was no time to worry about that right now.

"In any case, all this means is that we need to get into the Florencia building now. How did Kolya get into the building? I'll do the same."

"Whoa, hold on!" Maize quickly blocked the alley heading back to the building. "Don't get hasty. What are you going to do if you get caught trying to get in?"

"Well, I can't do nothing," Megumi growled. "There are important people in that building! I need to make sure they're okay!"

"How do you they haven't already escaped when this all started?"

"I would have seen them!" Megumi shot back. "I wouldn't be this frantic otherwise!"

Maize sighed. "Listen, it's not just the Overman Foundation you need to deal with. Innocenti Special Soldiers have also infiltrated the building, and they're no joke. Even if you're going to be reckless and say you'll go in anyway, it's too late to do what Kolya did to get in either."

Megumi wanted to argue back, but she knew she couldn't. Maize was right, but she didn't want to admit that she couldn't do anything about it. Maize, having seen the look on Megumi's face, sighed sympathetically.

"Look. I'm not saying you have to stand around and wait for everything to blow over. But don't you think there's more you can do besides trying to get into that building?"

"Like what?" Megumi was confused.

"Look, do you know how Overman special agent deployments work?"

"No. Why would I?"

"Well, let's put it like this. Overman tech is super advanced, right? So how come none of it has ever appeared on the black market?"

"I don't know. I always figured Overman was good at keeping that stuff under wraps."

"And you'd be right. However, there's another reason; the cybernetics that are used in Overman agents are so aggressively advanced that using them puts a strain on the user's brain. That's why Overman agents don't actually consciously use the gear. Instead, they are put into an unconscious state while an AI manipulates their brain patterns to move in certain ways."

"Is that for real? Doesn't that make them no better than robots?"

"It's not like they're completely unconscious, but 99% of decision-making is done by the AI. So if we can get to this AI..."

"...we can get the Overman agents to retreat," Megumi reasoned, finally understanding what Maize was trying to say. "You want us to do that?"

"It's better than trying to take them head-on, right? And once they're gone, it'll be easier to find a way into that building."

Megumi's brow furrowed as she pondered her options. She couldn't deny that Maize was right, and she couldn't come up with anything else to do, either. Not to mention that the more time she spent deliberating, the more likely it was the Overman agents would end up breaking into the building. She turned to Daryl and Hikaru to see what they thought.

"I don't think it's a bad idea," Hikaru remarked. "Though I can't say whether or not we'll actually be able to pull it off."

"It's not like we can do anything else, right?" Daryl concurred. "I'd rather do this than try to take on that building, that's for sure."

Megumi nodded and turned to Maize. "All right, we'll take a shot at it."