Luna perked up over by our target's side. “I’m in.”

“Nova. You remember what we talked about?” I dropped my feet off the table and leaned forward over the desk.

“Purchase records… and transfer a hundred thousand rayn into a chip?” Luna paused typing and looked up to me. “That last one’s going to take a minute. I-I’ll need to spoof his access codes.”

The chip was for the heist. I wanted to set him up and get him in trouble with the law. Naturally, that meant falsifying evidence. What better evidence was there than a money trail? It’d lead right back to him, and set up for my plans to yoink the deed.

“Just do whatever you need to.” Unless it was related to robotics, I didn’t know all that much about coding. Not like we needed to know the details. They’d likely go over our heads, anyway. Well—maybe not Saint’s. He probably knew at least some stuff considering his job.

“Roger.” Luna focused on her deck and got back to clacking around.

”You guys have my bag?”

”Over there.” Mira hiked a thumb to the still open window and munched on another chip. “That thing weighs more than my chrome.”

”No it doesn’t.” Though I was starting to overload it more and more. I should look at making some better storage at some point. I rifled around through the bag and pulled out a couple rags and cleaning solution. “Help me wipe our traces.”

”Good call.” Saint grabbed a set from me and looked around the room. “Shiro and I get the entry, and you get the line of crumbs?”

”Not fair.” Mira tossed the bag of chips into my bag and winked at me. “For later. Not to mention Shiro also had a handful.”

”I only had, like, three of them. Doesn’t count.” I carefully scrubbed the locks of the drawer and everything else I touched since entering.

Between the three of us, we made short work of the place. Mira’s line of chip crumbs all over the room was a bit of a hassle to take care of, but everything else was easy to revert back to normal like we’d never been there. Once we were done, I sat back in the chair and spun around lightly in a significantly better mood. Squeaky Clean… it wouldn’t give me away, would it?

“Are you feeling alright, Shiro?” Mira stepped in front of the desk and leaned down on the other side from where I sat. She was careful to avoid touching anything this time around.

“What’s up with everyone asking me that?” I shot her an annoyed look and leaned back in my chair. “I’m perfectly fine.“

Mira scooted around the side of the desk and sat down on it just in front of me. The halo above her head pulsed lightly, and her chrome creaked as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Are you… are you drunk?”

”No! I wouldn’t get drunk off of just one shot!” I covered my mouth with a hand. That was so much louder than I intended to be. “S-sorry…”

”You totally are, aren’t you.” Mira poked my cheek with her finger. I tried to bite it, but she pulled back so quickly it made my vision blur. “Shiro, your cheeks are burning red.”

”Maybe… maybe I’m a little tipsy.” I pinched my fingers together and rolled back away from her. This hit me so much quicker than when I tried to drink in the past. “What’d they put in that thing, Saint?”

“I didn’t drink it.” Saint mimed the motion of taking a shot—only, he tossed it over his shoulder instead. Cheating bastard. “Have you eaten anything today?”

”Chek, I had a smoothie.” Though that meant my stomach was entirely devoid of food, as per usual. I rubbed at my temple and put the rest of it together. I also didn’t have any alcohol tolerance, and my short stature certainly didn’t help with blood alcohol levels…

Mira crossed her arms. “Maybe you should sit the rest of this out for tonight.”

”I—“ I almost broke into an argument, though pulled back right before I could start. “It’ll pass in a bit. ‘Sides, we’re almost done, anyway.”

I should heal through it shortly. I hadn’t tested alcohol against Perfect Donor, but it shouldn’t take too long for it to get out of my system. Drunkenness was all in the blood, wasn’t it? My blood was particularly strong now. It wouldn’t be a perfect donation if I was on a drug or alcohol, and the person I transfused got drunk or high alongside me. Or would it? Could that work?

“Uh-huh.” Mira eyed me. I could see the temptation to poke my cheeks one more time behind her worried look, but it slowly faded. “Let me know if you start having trouble walking.”

”I walked in here just fine.” It was just a little alchy—why was she acting like I was about to die? I watched Ligh do way more dangerous stuff while far more intoxicated. It’d totally be fine—

“Ah!” Luna shouted and jumped away from Mickey.

Mickey Mays shot upright with wide, dilated eyes. The veins all over his face bulged outward, and his face lit up with a deep red flush. He looked around the room, though it didn’t look like he was actually seeing much of anything. “Hot—who are—swimming.”

Mira vanished from my side and held the man down just before he could eat up fully. She easily manhandled him back into a laying down position. “What the hell happened?!”

“I-I don’t know!” Luna snatched her deck back and ripped connection jacks out of his neuroports. “H-his vitals just started to spike. Hold him down. I-I’ve gotta kill the Medtech emergency ping.”

“What do you think I’m doing?” Mira wrestled him down onto the bed and flopped onto his stomach to hold him there. “A little help?”

”Chek.” I shot out of my chair and slid over the desk to help her. Saint beat me to it and pinned the thrashing man to the bed just long enough for Luna to jack back into his neuroports.

”So hot!” Mickey wiggled around underneath the two of them like a worm. “Lemme go—why are you dancing?”

”Didn’t you hit him with a roofie?” Mira pinned the man’s hands over his head and barely dodged a glob of saliva he spat up at her.

“I did! It was one of those white baggies the Scavs had.” I changed directions and headed for my bag. I pulled out a roll of duck tape and tossed it to Saint. “Here.”

“Got it.” Saint snatched the tape out of the air and quickly sealed Mickey’s mouth with it before he could scream for help from the guards. Our target flopped around under him like a sardine having a stroke. ”Do you have another dose?”

“‘Course I do.” I brought three of them just in case the first didn’t do anything. I slung my bag over my shoulders, rooted around in my purse, and pulled out two other white bags.

Mira held his trembling hands away, and then proceeded to sit on him. I knew from experience how much she weighed with the Shift ExoCore. Mickey wouldn’t be getting up any time soon. “Pass it.”

”Chek.” I handed over one of them and dropped my bag onto the bed to look around for my Jade Dagger. They hadn’t treated my bag kindly, and everything inside was all jostled around.

“You idiot! This isn’t a roofie, it’s Suna!” Mira tossed the bag back at me. I barely caught it before it hit the ground. “He’s definitely ODing with how much you drugged him with.”

“Th-this…” I was about to say this so wasn’t my fault, but it was. Entirely. Who would’ve thought not doing drugs would come to bite me in the ass one day? I knew the difference—in effects, at least. They looked way too similar. Why the hell would scavs keep uppers and downers together like that?

There it is. Unfortunately, several things went wrong at the exact same time I found the jade piece. Mira, destabilized slightly from inspecting the drug, was finally bucked off of the man in a feat of freakish strength. His chrome arm whirled sharply and pushed Saint to the side.

“Mmm!” Mikey shot up to his feet and slammed Saint over the side of the head with his foot. Saint flopped off the bed toward me entirely unconscious. Insight flared across my side. I Flash Stepped away to avoid being knocked on my ass by the falling reporter. That also meant I had to abandon my bag, though.

”Agh!” The blinding flash of my Perk caught all three of the other people in the room. Mira tripped over the unconscious body of Saint, and slammed into Luna. Our runner’s jacks were brutally ripped out of Mickey’s neck in a spray of blood from his broke ports.

Mickey, on the other hand, seemed perfectly fine with the blinding light. He flinched, tore off his shirt, and exposed a half-chrome chest while letting out a psychotic scream that was blocked by the tape, “m-mmph!”

The tape over his face miraculously survived the chaos. I flicked on Fear the Reaper to get him to stop and channeled out a bolt of fully charged electricity. “Shit!” 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

As it turned out, people drugged out of their mind were hard to predict. When external factors like extreme fear were added to that, Mickey became even harder to figure out. Instead of freezing like I expected him too, he darted for his bedroom door.

TZZT!

The bolt of electricity slammed into him just before he could reach for the door handle, and his entire body locked up. His momentum stayed though. Mickey slammed face first through his bedroom door. It splintered around him in a spray of wood shards, and he noisily crashed out into the hall covered in fresh wounds.

“MmpphhH!” The man recovered just as quickly and darted down the hall before I could send another bolt after him.

”Damn it!” I grabbed my bag and helped Luna to her feet. “Get the Roughriders down here, now. We need to ghost yesterday.”

”A-already on it.” Luna rubbed at her wrist. Blood welled up around the slot where she jacked into the deck. Mickey wasn’t the only one to suffer from the sudden detachment. I tossed her my jacket to wrap around it so she wouldn’t bleed all over the place.

The Roughriders dropped into a low hover just off the side of the private balcony. There were only two of them—Mira’s and mine. It was more than enough for the four of us, though. Or, it would’ve been if all four of us were conscious.

“So much for a flawless plan.” Mira got to her feet and hauled Saint up onto her shoulders. “I’ll take care of him. What now, Shiro? You have a plan for this, too?”

”Why would I?” I rubbed a hand against the side of my head and watched through the eyes of my Dragonflies. I quickly moved around the room and cleaned up all of our traces. For added effect, I tossed the empty bag from my purse as well as the other two bags onto his desk.

On my HUD, I watched Mickey Mays charge out into the part while screaming incoherently. The two Jade Fang Enforcers chased after him in full sprints, but couldn’t catch up with the energetic man through the crowd. Screams erupted from just down the hall, and the music ground to a halt once more. This time around, the DJ just watched in a stupor as Mickey tore through the party.

Mickey slammed into a group of partygoers, and the tape disappeared by the time he got back to his feet. “WHERE’S MY AC—THIS PARTY SUCKS!”

Before anyone could stop him, Mickey broke out onto the balcony and made one last move to go swimming. Only, he missed his balcony pool entirely and dove off the side of the building while screaming incoherently.

I watched him disappear over the ledge… My new resolution not to kill anyone… It was over within the hour since I made it. I knew it wouldn’t last long, ‘course, but I really did want to tone down how often I got my hands dirty. That thought settled in the back of my mind as my team rapidly moved for the Roughriders on the private balcony.

I could think about it later when we weren’t in the middle of a crime scene. I grabbed Luna’s discarded deck and headed to the waiting Roughriders.