Galactic High

Jack immediately dashed forward towards the ball as quickly as he could, as his teammates did the same, some aiming to intercept threats, while Nika and Kizzarith ran ahead to be open for a pass. Jack could sense more than see the other team as he got to the ball first, quickly grabbing it and turning around to protect himself from the inevitable collision of the goat-like being that rammed into him a second later. Jack then jumped up, looking for a pass as something fast and red tackled him from up high.

“I don’t think so Jack!” Luvia playfully taunted, trying to grab the ball out of Jack’s grip as he tried to get away…

“Jack! Up high!” Kizzarith called out, and Jack quickly threw towards the sound of the voice, botching the throw a little due to Luvia, but that wasn’t a problem for the Lleethux who quickly used his wings to dip to the side and caught the ball in his claws.

“After him!” Luvia ordered, letting go of Jack and flying after him. Recovering, Jack quickly ran after her, bowling over an opponent that looked similar to a hedgehog mixed with an owl, then pulling the goat-like being off of Vaal. Just as Luvia flew out of the far door, Jack caught up with her and managed to grab a red-scaled foot, yanking back and halting the dragon-girl’s momentum to excited cheers from the crowd of students gathering around to watch.

“You want some more, do you Jack? I’m down!” Luvia grinned as the dragon concentrated and beat her wings even harder to compensate, dragging Jack along as he held on for dear life, him skidding along the corridor floor like he was water skiing as Luvia began to gain ground on Kizzarith, who looked like he was flying for his life!

“Still holding on?” Luvia playfully called back as she quickly dipped from side to side, trying to shake Jack off.

Suddenly something brown, round and scaly came spinning at high speed across a connecting corridor and smashed into the dragon, putting Luvia off balance enough for her to clip the wall, sending both the dragon and the human tumbling to the ground to loud ‘Ooohs’, ‘Ahhhs’ and all sorts of alien reactions to the crash. Jack groaned as he landed on his back, with Luvia on top of him.

“Nice job, Jack!” Bentom called to him, having recovered from her tackle, as she tucked into a ball again and rolled off. “Keep her marked! Kizzarith and Nika have this one!”

“Sure!” Jack grunted as he tried to gently move Luvia off of him without hurting either of them.

Jack felt Luvia stir from on top of him, and she looked down at the human as she quickly manoeuvred herself and straddled him, pinning him to the ground as she licked her lips. “You know, Jack, I wouldn’t mind staying like this for a while!”

Jack had to admit that he wasn’t completely opposed to that idea as his hands rested on her hips, but he heard roars from the crowd towards the opponent’s goal. He couldn’t let his team down!

“You’re not hurt, are you?” Jack asked cautiously as he calmed his breathing. “That was a hell of a collision.”

“Oh that? That’s nothing! I can take much worse than that” Luvia snorted before looking down. “What about you?”

“I’m good.” Jack grinned slyly, before he quickly pushed Luvia’s knees out from under her while sharply twisting his body, completely throwing her off balance, easily enabling him to reverse the pin to Luvia’s shock, as she laid there looking at Jack while breathing heavily, with the subtle smell of brimstone in the air.

“Sorry, but we’ve still got a game to play!” Jack chuckled as he rolled off of the dragon. “Catch me if you can!”

Luvia stayed there wide-eyed for several seconds, giving out several deep, laboured breaths as she processed what just happened. That felt good!

Better catch up!

*****

“Keeper and Protectors up ahead!” Kizzarith called out to Nika as she quickly caught up to him from the side. “They’ve webbed the area up!”

“Stay low for now,” Nika told him as they watched their footing, trying not to get themselves tangled up. “They’ll expect us to try and go high!”

Several students watching from the sidelines tried their best to shove the referees and security bots out of the way, but for now, the barrier would hold. Some shots of gunfire rang out above them, but for the most part, they were in the clear. At least so far.

One of the Protectors up in front, a stocky boy with greenish skin, planted themselves and took in a deep breath from multiple holes on their body. Sacs on their back expanded with the air before the boy blew as hard as he could, catching Kizzarith midair and knocking him down into the webbing, but not before he quickly passed the ball to Nika, who caught up to the boy and successfully dodged around them, tripping them up with her tail and stopping them from attempting another gust of breath. Nika dashed forward without hesitation as the Keeper, a bulky student on six spindly legs, had finally noticed her in between shooting webs all along the walls and corridors nearby. This would be tricky….

Nika suddenly ducked as a blunt spike of mud suddenly jutted out of the wall, the Kizun barely reacting in time as she skidded underneath. She spotted the culprit ahead, a timid-looking yellow-skinned biped who had summoned some shimmering brown robes and was hiding behind a pillar just in front of the keeper.

Clever!

Nika steeled herself as she rushed in, the mud mage quickly casting barriers to try and stop her and Kizzarith, who had now caught up, the two passing the ball between each other as they got closer. Kizzarith went to intercept the mud mage while Nika took the ball, aiming for the Keeper. The bulky being had her dead to rights as it readied another blast of web…

Before something bulky smacked into its side, dropping several bodies into a heap on the ground next to the open goal. Nika wasted no time, dashing in close and touching the ball to the scoring ground before the rest of Luvia’s team could stop her.

The buzzer blared loudly down the corridors to the cheers and cries of the crowd. The bodies groaned on the ground. Both Jack and Luvia were in a heap on top of the poor keeper who was flailing with her thin legs writhing in the air. Jack got up first, stiff from his multiple collisions with various walls, ceilings and people in the crowd. Offering a hand to Luvia, the dragon took it and was blown away by Jack’s strength as he yanked her to her feet.

“You alright? Need a hand as well?” Jack asked the keeper.

“Yes….please….” they weakly hissed.

“You’re not done, are you?” Kizzarith grinned. “Now we’ve got 3 balls to work with - the game has just begun!”

Jack sighed.

*****

“Alright! We’ve done a good job so far!” Vaal grinned as the team huddled in their changing room during half time. “We’re winning 8-5, but that can easily change, so don’t get complacent. Luviannestixxx is probably mustering her team to get meaner so they’re gonna try harder.”

“They’ve been fighting hard to hold the chokepoints,” Kritch warned. “Trying to funnel us through this corridor here until it’s time for theirs to make a run for the goal from these corridors they have. Super annoying.”

“Very annoying,” Plooderoo agreed. “You guys managed to intercept a few, but others got past. Luviannestixxx got me really hard on the last one! My plates are still sore!”

“Sorry about that!” Jack spoke up. “I’ve been trying to mark her when I can, but a bunch of them keep mobbing me. That earth mage of theirs that keeps trying to magically hold me down is a pain in the arse!”

“Hey! Don’t say that! She’s cute!” Kizzarith retorted with a playful wink. “On the plus side, that frees the rest of us up a bit more, except your dragon girlfriend is too good at intercepting our plays.”

“She’s not-!” Jack, Nika and Sephy began to reply at the same time, but stopped on seeing the chuckles of the rest of the team.

“Alright enough messing around, we need a gameplan,” Vaal interjected.

“Fewer players able to stop us, we just need a new route,” Nika argued.

“What about there?” Jack pointed to a spot on the map. It was labelled as a janitor room where various cleaning supplies and spare droids would be kept and took up a reasonable amount of space. It also had access to several maintenance corridors which snaked around the field of play.

“Yeah, I checked those earlier,” Sephy replied, sounding a little unsure and confused. “For some reason they seem to be manually locked. No remote access for me.”

“Kritch?” Vaal asked expectantly.

“I tried to access them earlier, but the lock is either hidden, or it’s locked from the inside.”

“That’s weird,” Bentom noted, to several affirming nods from the rest of the team.

“Perhaps the school simply did not want that area damaged?” Arlox pointed out.

“Yeah, probably.” Vaal sighed. “Though why the hell would they allow the field of play to be here?”

A loud buzzer sounded in the distance signalling just a few minutes until they were expected back on the pitch.

“Shit, not much time!” Vaal cursed. “Alright. Here’s what I think we should do….”

*****

Standing on the left flank, the buzzer blared once again and Jack wasted no time in charging in, grabbing one of the balls and shoving the two marking him, an unfortunate lizard-like Xarak and an unknown bat-like alien with goggles. Jack immediately turned, not to the door like Luvia was trying to with her ball, but to the distracted cluster going for the middle ball. It was a true scrum, with most of the rest of the players fighting for the central ball, giving both Jack and Luvia some token resistances, but he could just about see the ball being kicked around under their feet.

Aiming for the goat-like being, Jack quickly joined his team in the scrum, tipping the balance of power in their favour as he tripped his target, which cascaded into the players all spilling onto the ground in a giant bundle. Desperately looking for the ball, he was relieved when he saw that Kritch had the presence of mind to stick a shaking hand from the middle of the pile with the ball in hand, which Jack quickly grabbed with his other hand, now carrying two balls at once.

He must have hesitated for too long out of concern for all within the pile because Vaal yelled, “Run, Jack!”

He did so, dashing through the door as the two opponents he’d first knocked down got to their feet and started chasing him while he tried his best not to lose his grip of both balls as he legged it down the corridor. The spectators were going wild as a few finally managed to break free of the droids and referees holding them back. They rushed onto the field of play, with several large, tough and overconfident-looking students in particular coming after Jack.

“Fuck off!” Jack yelled at them while he sprinted as fast as he possibly could before he could get caught, as the big students dived at him, clearly looking to show how tough they were by messing with the infamous new student! His pursuers were not so lucky, however, the Xarak getting swamped by bodies, while the bat-like alien had something thrown at them that made an awful *clang* as it bounced off their head.

Jack barely had time to react as a strong gust of wind blared in his face as he kept running forward. One of the two protectors had spotted him and was desperately trying to shove him back before Nika drop kicked them in the head, while Kizzarith quickly intercepted the mud mage, who for her part just stared with wild, bulging eyes as the Lleethlux tried to awkwardly chat her up.

“Oh shit! No! Not again!” hissed the keeper, as she braced for impact, blasting web in Jack’s direction, unable to land a hit as he moved from side to side. “FU-”

Jack dropped at the last second, skidding under the keeper's spindly legs, before touching both balls to the scoring zone.

The students cheered as the buzzer went off as Jack gave a sigh of relief that their plan worked. They had increased their lead, though another buzzer sound in the distance told him that Luvia’s team were raring to catch up.

“Didn’t scare you, did I?” Jack grinned at the unharmed keeper, who was hyperventilating in panic.

“Maybe just a little…” the keeper hissed back with a nervous laugh.

“Guys we’ve gotta move!” Nika told her teammates as she untangled herself from the green-skinned protector. “New balls are already out and Luvia’s team has them!”

“Shit,” Jack cursed. “This must have been their gameplan!”

“Better run!” The green-skinned protector grinned while his two teammates looked at him in fear, not wanting to piss off the people attacking them.

“Agreed!” Kizzarith nodded as he zipped off. “This game isn’t over yet!”

*****

“Let’s pick up the pace, team!” Vaal yelled. “They’re catching up!”

“I still can’t kick them out of the system at that bottleneck!” Sephy called back.

“We’ve got the crowd causing trouble as well!” Kritch pointed out. “They all want a piece of Jack!”

“Want me to stand guard at the bottleneck?” Jack asked.

“No, that’s a waste!” Vaal pointed out. We’ve not got long and we’re still ahead - get balls and maintain possession for as long as you can! Score if you can, but if we deny them the opportunity to score themselves and time them out that’s a win for us!”

“Got it!” Jack nodded as he rushed forward. He had a ball, which Plooderoo had taken from one of the opposing chargers, which Kritch had managed to ferry to Jack by sneaking through a maintenance passage past the unsuspecting crowd that was now scattered all throughout the pitch, getting into fights with any referee or droid that tried to get rid of them!

He was just about two-thirds of the way down one of the main corridors towards the goal when suddenly a blast door came down right in front of him. Jack barely stopped in time, narrowly avoiding crashing into it, as another blast door went down behind him.

“Nothing personal!” the bat-like being called out from a classroom to the side. Jack quickly chased her into the adjacent open classroom, though he wasn’t quick enough as they closed the opposite door and triggered the emergency lock.

“We might lose one of the balls…” They smiled through their pants of breath on the other side. “But Luviannestixxx would rather have you out of action than stop us catching up! She uh…also wants me to send you the recordings of her prowess after the game since you won’t be able to see it in person!” They then ran away as Jack tried shoving his shoulder against the door, which held despite him making a dent in the metal.

Crap. Jack thought to himself. What do I do now?

He spent several moments thinking before he heard a buzzer in the distance, quickly followed by another. He was running out of time! The game would be over soon! He needed to get out!

Wait….this was next to that locked off maintenance area, right?

The moment the idea came into his mind was the moment he cursed himself for the stupid and painful-sounding thought.

But he couldn’t think of an alternative…

Taking one deep breath before yelling a battlecry, Jack charged at the nearby wall, tensing up in anticipation of the pain…

Before he burst through to the other side in an explosion of plaster!

Shaking the dust off, Jack looked around at his immediate surroundings, and his eyes almost bulged out of his sockets with what he saw.

Sitting around the room he found himself in, Jack saw several students in various states of chill and contentment as they passed some kind of bong along the line, taking a good hit before passing it on. He looked to his side and recognised the closest student as one of the ones reported missing from the posters!

“WHAT THE FUCK!” Jack yelled in disbelief. Were these people going missing for days on end just to get high!?

“Brooooooo,” he heard a voice call from the other end of the room. “You’re like….the guy!”

Jack looked around, and mentally groaned.

Having shed his wanabee Gandalf robe and fake beard that was picked up by the school’s cameras, Killer Kush looked surprisingly alert for a bounty hunter so obviously high off his tits.

“Um…” Jack began, completely caught off guard. “No! I’m not the guy! I’ll just be going now!”

“Nah bro…..you’re the guy! Where’s our food delivery, man? It's been like…3 days….”

“I…WHAT!?” Jack replied incredulously, completely mindfucked. “Why would a food delivery person come to a locked maintenance room in the middle of a school!?”

“Huh…” Killer Kush pondered as he stood up, staggering forward as Jack slowly made his way to the other end of the corridor. He didn’t want to make any sudden moves and anger this hunter when the two samurai swords strapped to his back looked every bit as potent in person as they did in their photo…

“Don’t worry,” Jack tried to calmly address the frog-looking hunter as they reached into one of their many pockets and snorted whatever they had pulled out. “I’ll try and get your delivery up here, but you’ve got to let these guys go…”

“Nah man…they’re cool. We’re just chillaxing bro…” Suddenly something in Killer Kush’s expression changed, and he looked at Jack sharply. “Shit, you’re worth a lot of money!”

“You’ve got the wrong guy!” Jack retorted, backing away much quicker now.

“OH YEAH! PAYDAY TIME!” the bounty hunter whooped as he quickly unsheathed his twin swords while Jack ran for it down the corridor, desperately hoping for an exit up ahead.

“WHOOO!” Killer Kush yelled as he quickly chased him. “YOU’RE FAST, BOY, BUT YOU AIN’T FAST ON DRUUUUUUGS!”

Jack quickly disengaged the manual lock on the nearest door and burst out into one of the side corridors where students cheered on seeing him emerge, with sounds of shock as Killer Kush burst out just moments later. He had been right, he was quicker than Jack, so he would have to be taken out!

As the Kermit-The-Frog looking hunter sped towards the human while flourishing his blades, Jack did the only thing he could think of in the heat of the moment - lobbing the ball at the nutjob as hard as he could. Clearly more focused on his blade display than he was on defence, it took Killer Kush completely by surprise as Jack wasted no time in closing the distance.

“GET!” he growled as he booted Killer Kush in the chest to knock him down dazed. “THE!” He grabbed his leg. “FUCK!” He whacked the frog against the wall. “OUT!” Jack roared, throwing Killer Kush as hard as he could through the nearest window with a loud smash, and Jack could have sworn he heard a “WOOOO!” from the crazy frog.

“Well that was anticlimactic.” Jack sighed as he absentmindedly picked up the ball. “Better not be seeing that twat again…”

“Jack! Where the hell have you been? Was that Killer Kush!?!” Nika called out as she spotted him. “BALL! GOAL! NOW!”

His mind still running on autopilot Jack hurried to obey without question, quickly running to where the Kizun was pointing, barely registering the failed attempts from opponents and spectators alike to stop him as the latter slowly chanted something.

Jack spotted the goal ahead and pelted towards it as swiftly as he could, barely registering whatever mud walls the mudmage cast in front of him as he just smashed through them…

“No! He’s running at me again!” the opposing keeper screamed in panic. “No! Please don’t kill me! FUUUUUU-”

Jack dove at the goal and scored, the buzzer sounding just as he realised the crowd was counting down.

“3…2…1…BEEEEEEEEEP!”

The game was over.

It didn’t take as long as he expected for Jack to find a referee who was still somehow conscious, but he quickly reported the location of the missing students and waited until medical droids arrived to check on them before he checked the final score.

13-12 to them. They had won!

Jack sighed as he staggered towards the sounds of the celebrating team to explain what had actually happened to Sephy and Nika. He really needed a drink after that, but at the back of his mind, he knew the night was far from over!

*****

“Hope you three have recovered!” Alora told Jack, Nika and Sephy as they quickly entered the house to an enthusiastic greeting from Dante. Alora quickly rushed to a few prepacked boxes and handed one to each member of the group, keeping one for herself and holding onto a smaller one for the team ‘dog’.

“Put these battleskins on as a base layer and make sure they fit. They should calibrate to be skin tight but need a bit of time to do that. Get them on first before we worry about everything else!”

“Base layer? They won’t make my boobs go saggy, will they? They’re not too big, but I’d like to keep them firm if it’s all the same to you!” Sephy asked, to laughter from the others.

“I’m pretty sure that’s not a problem!” Alora grinned. “Wear your gear for the run on top and get back here. How long do we have, Sephy?”

“Two hours until the meet. It’ll take us about 40 minutes to walk there.”

“Good, that gives me enough time to fix us up some food.” Alora exhaled, breathing slowly and heavily with anticipation. “Get all yours on first then we can fix Dante up.”

Jack quickly got to his room and opened the box. As he pulled out the various components it reminded him of a wetsuit from Earth that divers would wear, though the material was a little thinner. According to Alora, these were an early generation and rather pricey, but the armour was effective at dispersing the power of hits across the whole body instead of a single area. As he put his legs through the opening, he noted the itching sensation as the material tried to shrink and cling onto him tightly, and Jack really hoped it wouldn’t feel like this for the entire run.

Quickly pulling on the legs and pulling on the top over it, he felt the top and bottom parts seal and rapidly shrink and compress against his skin. It was only when Jack put on the gloves and got ready to fit on the socks did he notice a problem with this.

A rather major problem.

“GOD DAMMIT IT’S SQUEEZING MY BAAAAAAAALLS!” Jack yelled as he desperately tried to pull the fabric back away from his plums.

“Need one of us to kiss them better?” Nika called out from downstairs, as the house erupted in laughter.

“It’s just calibrating! It’ll be fine!” Alora called back. “Just grin and bear it! It happens to us as well! It’ll stop soon!”

“These better work!” Jack grunted back in a higher pitch than he’d intended, though eventually the pain subsided. He got the rest of the gear on and put a few clothes over them, going with his hoodie, some loose trousers and the tough walking boots Chiyo had bought him before he joined the others for some dinner Alora had quickly cooked up.

“A simple meal, but a big one, with leftovers for whenever we get back,” she told them, after having heated up a thick, starchy soup she had partially prepared earlier. “Eat up what you can while you can. We don’t know what time we’ll get home. Hurry up too, the sooner we gear up the better.”

They did so, wolfing down the food as he tried to put the strange feeling of the battleskin to the side. According to the others, it was worth the slight discomfort, working reasonably well against blunt trauma and minor gunfire, especially in conjunction with their shields, though cutting weapons could tear through and expose the flesh underneath. Jack had no idea what they might be facing, but they had worked well as a team during their previous run. This surely couldn’t possibly be much worse.

Could it?

They didn’t intend to take any hiking backpacks for what was intended to be a one-night run, or anything else that could unnecessarily overencumber them for the duration, with the exception of several scrunched up microfiber bags they could easily unfurl if they wanted to take anything with them. Both Jack and Sephy had learned not to forget them again after the Prefect’s Lockup!

Each member of the team instead wore a tactical rig each of varying sizes over their clothes and layers of protection, and between those and their pockets, they had enough room for the items they thought they would need, with the exception of the box of highly potent and pricey energy drinks Jack would initially carry, which would not be with them for long. Most of their loadouts did not differ too much from what they took on their last run to the Oracle, with the most notable exception being Nika, who had claimed Kralk’s gatling laser for herself and had it on full display as her primary weapon, attaching it to the spindly yet effective exoskeleton she wore to enhance her strength. Sephy had her new plasma rifle as her primary weapon, and had bought some new technical kit, while both Alora and Chiyo had stocked up on mystical gear and had practiced new spells and techniques in advance. Jack, of course, had his knives, his axe and his Dominator. His plasma rifle had been properly fixed up since their trip to the Oracle, with one specific addition…

“You like the sling I got you?” Nika grinned at him. “Should stop you from dropping it all the time!”

Jack rolled his eyes. “That only happened twice!” he sighed. “Big tentacle monster and a building blown up by a fireball. Am I really gonna keep getting crap about that?”

“Not if you have the sling!” Nika snorted with amusement. “Easy enough to quickly unclip should you need to.”

“Fine,” Jack replied with a stifled smile as he slung it over his shoulder. “And yeah, I like it. Thanks, Nika!”

******

“This is the place?” Alora asked Sephy as the group carefully walked up to the block of apartments Sephy’s slicer acquaintance had directed them to. “Isn’t it unusual for slicers to want to settle in corporate territory? Vandalee Inc is known to be quite strict!”

“It should be the place,” Sephy replied. “And that’s exactly why a slicer would want to move here, especially if they have the right contacts and the right bribes. Vandalee controlled territory is just big enough to be secure from outside threats, and small enough to not overly control what goes on under the surface.”

The group had every right to be there, having gone through the district entrances indicated by Sephy’s contact, the guards waving them past upon seeing them even with their obvious weapons. Nika had speculated that their contact likely called ahead to ensure there were no issues, because any self-respecting security should have buzzed them by now. Deciding not to push their luck, the group snuck up the stairs, Sephy taking point to make sure they weren’t disturbed before they eventually found themselves in front of a door to an unassuming apartment. Sephy subtly nudged Jack and pointed at the small and unassuming shadowmark of a circle with two parallel lines scratched on the wall next to the door as she sidled up, then slowly knocked in a pattern of 5 long, 3 short, 1 long, then 2 short.

They waited for several seconds, before hearing a set of clicks and snaps of locks being disengaged, before the door opened, and they were all silently beckoned inside before their host slammed the door shut.

On entering the apartment, Jack realised that it looked a lot bigger than expected, with thick wires snaking along the ground to various workbenches, monitors, turrets, several battlestations of computers with a few unassuming individuals sliced in and unresponsive to their presence, and even what looked like the barebones ribcage-like chassis of a shuttle which was having some work done. Several walls had clearly been broken down to accommodate all of this, and Jack could see that this complex covered several apartments rather than just one. He would hate to be the landlord…

“Do you have it?” an excited, hyperactive voice called from up ahead. Their host, an unusually tall Lizta, shook with excitement, though Jack suspected the shaking had other factors too, judging by their unusual smell, which Dante wrinkled his nose at.

“Course we have it!” Sephy grinned. “And we come bearing gifts!” She nodded at Jack to come forward with the case of energy drinks. The Lizta stared at the drinks in sheer lust, only jumping in shock when they realised who was carrying them, though didn’t say anything, seemingly too afraid to do so as he stared at Jack in fear, shakily pointing at a spot on a workbench and beckoning the others as Sephy took out the remains of Dubakuu’s cyberware.

“Can you backtrace the primary signal from this hardware and give us an exact location?” Sephy continued, showing the see-through bag to the slicer.

“Where the fuck did you pick this up?” he hissed in shock as he grabbed the bag and examined it.

“You know what it is?” Nika asked, tensing herself at the sudden movements of the contact.

“Yeah, this looks like Augmented shit,, but...”

“Augmented?” Alora asked, confused. “How are they involved? I didn’t think they had much of a presence on Hive Station Bastilla?”

“Hmm. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had some kind of vanguard lurking around, and they have their fair share of supporters who want to join. Oh well. None of my business.”

Their contact hooked up the device in a specialised machine within what looked to Jack like a Faraday cage as they began the process of isolating the parts that emitted and received a signal, an apparently simple process with the right special equipment.

“Alright,” their contact spoke up after several minutes. “I’ll need to disable the suppression field next to trace the signal. You’ve told me you’ve got to move quick, so I’ll take the rest of my payment now before I start.”

“Very well.” Alora nodded to Sephy to proceed with the handoff. “The rest of the credits as agreed, and you keep the cyberware.”

The contact checked the amount, and satisfied, they began the process. The group steeled themselves in anticipation for where they would need to go. Would the hacker have a safehouse in one of the city slums? Or perhaps they were operating from a corporate building?

It was worse. The group looked on in shock as the map pointer zoomed in on where the signal controlling Dubakuu came from, and even Jack reflexively inhaled a breath in panic.

It was the Pallid Pit. The hellhole of horrors where Jack arrived.