Be Prepared - for Anything

Rule one is don't fuck up.

*

Author's note: It feels like way too long since I did a cyperpunk tentacle monster story.

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Rule one is always: Don't be the one to fuck up. Don't skimp on preparation. If you're training, don't skimp on training. If you're buying equipment, don't skimp. If you can't afford, or can't access, the equipment you require: Don't go on that mission yet.

Rule two is: Ensure that everybody you work with follows rule one. What's rule one? If you can't answer that, you can't work with me.

Rule three is: Minimise all risk factors. In this case, that includes having nobody work with me at all.

I'm hurrying along the edges of the warehouse district with my hands in my coat pockets. I look like anyone else: Long waterproof coat, high collar. Solid boots. Nothing to see here. Nobody can see that under my coat I'm wearing a second, waist-length leather jacket, or that instead of jeans I've got skin-tight, stretch Kevlar pants. Nobody needs to see that, because it might make them suspicious.

There is a difference between tough, durable, sensible, safe clothing, and clothing that looks like you are aiming to misbehave.

My hair is in the current spiky fashion and coloured with slashes of dark red, but the dye is a little special. Thanks to dad's blood, I'm not too tall to attract attention, and thanks to mum's blood, my features are blended enough that I'm not obviously one ethnicity or another. My name is Kiku Noa, which should tell you a little about what I look like.

Rule four: Don't attract attention.

I'm damn fit but not so muscular it's obvious inside my coat, I'm not so busty I ever have trouble concealing it although I can get damn good cleavage with a little support.

In the lamp-lit darkness and the steady drizzling rain, nobody has any reason to give me a second look.

My target is a large, active warehouse. That means well-maintained, and full security.

It also means that it's placed where walking past won't attract attention but, then again, hiding will be harder.

That's why I prepared.

I'm not after anything, this time. This is purely reconnaissance. Information about the inside of this warehouse is just as valuable, right now, as any information or thing that might be in it, and that's what I've been hired to get.

Since quantum computing made encryption that much harder, security went back to physical measures a lot more and ditched the swipe cards and retinal scanners. It just meant that the skillset for people like me changed again.

In this particular case, the skillset I have already employed included getting security details off an employee of the company that's about to lose the security contract for this warehouse. The timing made this easier. I then had to use some social engineering and some personal touches to convince someone with enough of a grudge to want to sabotage something, but enough to consider it seriously, to spill some beans. Torturers know that you can make a man say a lot when you have his balls in your hands. It's more effective to have your mouth on his cock at the same time.

He was a pedestrian fuck, but a useful fount of information.

I cache my coat, pull on a gas mask, and change my hair colour to dark blue by passing a magnetic wand over my head. I avoid both sets of external cameras—visible and hidden—and don't even need half of my seven second window to unlock the door, get inside, and close it quietly behind me.

The other side is a cargo area with only the most rudimentary of security cameras, and since my source's company operated those, I had already fixed an old-fashioned vision overlay for them.

I have thirty seconds.

My source could tell me absolutely nothing about the inside of the warehouse past this cargo bay. That company has nothing to do with internal patrols. But analysis of the warehouse comings and goings suggested that no guards enter, ever, of any sort. A lot of shipments go in and out, including enough food to feed a small army, but they are in biotech so the food might not be for humans.

Which is an interesting thought.

No, the only humans who enter each day come out at the end of it. The key researchers sometimes stay late, but that's all.

So unless their guards were smuggled in in boxes, or live their entire lives inside, there's nobody home.

I just have to prepare for the possibility that they do have massively augmented, no-longer-human guards who really do live their entire lives inside.

There are three doors into the warehouse proper: Huge double doors for shipments, a postern door set into them, and a second-story door off a railing. I choose the railing, not least because it lets me hide from the camera sweeps. I have fifteen second windows, five seconds apart, to operate in.

I have most of the night, so provided I don't get caught, there's no hurry.

I time the movements of the security camera carefully, and set up a notification as a visual overlay.

First job: Examine the door. It's solid, but not sealed. There are the regular gaps, with a bit of weather sealing but not proper insulation.

I slip a tiny camera under the door, then retreat to hide from the security cameras. My camera has a directional narrow-band transmitter, so I can safely examine it remotely.

The warehouse is lit dimly by a pleasant green light.

My vision this way is highly limited, but I can see across the second story. There are numerous walkways, a couple of platforms, but only one other closed space up here: what looks like a couple of offices, on the other end of the warehouse.

I can't see down.

I can see numerous monitoring cameras, but they're all pointing down and none of them are covering this door.

Time for camera two.

This one is a flat disc, thin enough to slide under doors, with an insectile hexapod leg system folded into it.

When it's operating, it transmits in a focused beam to camera one, still in place, so I can monitor it as well from my spot lying tight against the wall out of camera view.

I scan the ceiling and the walls around the door into the cargo bay, but I can't see any security cameras—just the big monitoring ones pointing into the warehouse interior.

Strange.

Strange is a big flashing red warning light, but so far, all it's doing is giving me another reason to be careful. And I'm already careful.

I can't detect any movement yet.

Turning the camera to scan the door tells me there's no special security system in place there, either. Just a really solid door and a very secure lock that I might need to pick in instalments.

Through all of this, I'm building a map of the warehouse both in my cracking kit hardware, and in my implants, so I can have a visual overlay if I need it.

It takes me fifteen minutes, but finally I'm convinced I can't find a single problematic security measure.

I walk camera two to the edge of the walkway and angle it down.

The inside of the warehouse is busy. I need a better-quality camera on all this, but it does for filling in my map. There are clearly delineated areas at the sides that appear to be research spaces, including some sealed areas, but the centre has a line of tanks surrounded by equipment. If I have to guess, I'd say that there's a hatchery at one end, with tanks for progressively larger stages of growth marching along the rest of the warehouse.

Just what the hell sort of biotech are they doing? Engineered animals are nothing new, but all of this looks like they're going for sea creatures, and that's still contentious research unless they're looking at farmed fish.

But I can't see any movement, or anything in any of the tanks.

On the other hand, the water is so murky there might be a shoal of fish and I won't be able to tell unless they disturb the surface. What's going on? Are they maybe going for micro-organisms? More yeast/bacteria research? I thought people had pretty much tapped that out, got bored, and moved onto more interesting large-animal research.

Ten minutes later, and I'm ready to open the door.

I don't need two goes at the lock. I need three.

But I'm still through and have the door shut in short order.

The lack of proper sealing on the door is reassuring that there's unlikely to be any funky atmosphere inside, but I'm still taking no chances. Some people still put aerosols into the atmosphere as a security measure. Sometimes anaesthetics, sometimes just an odour. On one verified occasion I've heard of, a highly illegal hallucinogenic.

My mask isn't finding anything except the usual gases and traces of moisture. As I move onto the catwalk it finds a detectable level of methane, but that's only to be expected in any large facility dealing in biologicals and with open tanks of I-don't-know-what-but-maybe-a-nutrient-soup.

I find a junction box, still out of sight of the monitoring cameras, which lets me crack into the system. I can't find any evidence of any sort of external link at all. Everything seems to be internal. That has me frowning. I triple check, but again find nothing.

Well, at least that makes life a little easier.

I stick to the catwalks for now, while heading for the offices at the other end of the warehouse. I have my implants scanning for thermal signatures and movement, but I'm still finding nothing except warm water in the tanks.

The office door is securely locked but not with anything special. There are a couple of workstations inside, and it's all clean and sterile, but I'm not here for data so I just get a 3D scan of the inside and move back out.

I still have no idea if there's any biotech creature in here with me, but absence of evidence is, if not evidence of absence, at least something to work with.

Ground level only serves to highlight how huge the tanks and equipment are.

I move fast, my boots looking big and chunky and loud but as silent as sneakers.

There are closed rooms along one wall of the warehouse, so I head for the first one. They each have doors raised a metre off the ground, but that isn't so unusual.

The first one I come to has a properly sealed door. I investigate the seal thoroughly, but I'm beginning to worry about time if they'll all be like this, so I'm prepared to skip this room and move on if I have to.

I can't tell anything for sure, but there is enough missing information to be filled very neatly by anti-intrusion systems. I move away from the door, to the room's single window. I slide a camera over the glass. By cycling through light frequencies including non-visible, I can see enough to tell that the inside of the room has a pool in it, a little below the level of the door, with an uneven mound in the middle.

It's the first sign of anything in the warehouse, but it looks like no animal I've seen before. I find myself frowning inside my gas mask.

I take my attention off the camera display as I select and position a second camera.

I'm running before I've properly processed the flicker of vision from the camera screen.

The window explodes outwards while I'm still in range of flying glass. Something huge, heavy but oddly wet slams against the wall, making the room bong like a drum. The walls must be ridiculously strong to sound like that without breaking.

Something wraps around my arm with a grip like a steel rope.

As my body wants to keep going, my arm is yanked back. As I pivot around, I've already deployed the knuckle blades in my gloves, and I slash wildly. Those blades can cut thin steel cables. They go straight through what looks like an octopus tentacle. More tentacles are coming through the window, thin and thick, lashing out at me.

The tentacle on my arm hangs on even after it's severed, but at least I'm free.

I throw myself sideways, but I'm at a serious disadvantage against tentacles that are more numerous, lighter, and apparently stronger than me. I see a glimpse of an eye through the window, and use one of my four wrist darts in its direction.

I'm pretty sure I score a direct hit, but there's no pain reaction at all—unless it's already so pissed off it's just not noticing.

A big tentacle slams me back against the wall of the room hard enough to drive most of the breath from my body and make me temporarily cross-eyed, while smaller ones try to wrap around me again. I slash wildly as soon as I can focus, a matter of less than a second, but already there are two around my arm, one around my upper thigh, and a couple trying to get around my torso.

Just how fucking long are these things?

Then I feel a point thud into my leather jacket. Good luck, it's got multiple Kevlar weaves and a monomolecular aramid polymer in the lining and is dart-proof and knife-proof.

Another one tries at my leg, which hurts but doesn't get through either.

The next one slams into my neck hard enough to fucking hurt, and I feel the sharp pain of a long sting.

I barely have time to hope it didn't hit anything important, before numbness starts accelerating through my body from the point of impact.

Half my body is useless and I'm falling, the tentacles cocooning me, before I pass out.

* * *

I'm woken up by cold water being thrown at my face.

It's highly unpleasant and totally unnecessary, since I can tell from a fresh sting in my thigh that I've been given an antidote to the anaesthetic.

Even as I'm gasping and choking and trying to clear water from my nose and mouth and eyes, I'm running a personal scan.

Hanging from my arms, but shoulders not yet sore. Shackled at wrists and ankles, and snug but not stretched. Some free movement possible. Apparently uninjured, but bruised heavily in a couple of places, most notably my neck.

Alive. Oh yeah, don't skip over that one.

Naked. Oh, fuck.

My implant diagnostics are returning green as well, but with a recorded attempt (unsuccessful) at access. I assumed that would happen. In fact, there's a cable plugged into the socket behind my ear right now.

For which sick reason am I naked?

As soon as I manage to clear my eyes, they focus on a face staring at me with annoyance, not any form of sexual intent.

"Who are you?" He's a bit past middle-aged, dressed conservatively and messily, and looks as though he was rushed out of bed and is feeling his lack of sleep. He's not unattractive, but not interesting. He sounds cranky.

"A fly on your wall," I say.

I must be in one of the rooms along the wall of the warehouse. I'm hanging in what looks like the exact middle and there's a pool of murky water underneath me, which chills me for a moment, but I can't see any freaky monsters.

"Who are you?" he repeats, sounding as though he does not have the energy for my crap.

That's fine, I do. "You first."

"You're dead if you don't give me a reason to keep you alive," he says flatly. "Who are you?"

"As opposed to?" I shoot back.

He shrugs. "You have a point. So tell me who you are. I suppose this is where I say I'll kill you quickly, instead of slowly."

I snort. "Not good at threats, are you? Ever had any prisoners before?"

He sighs. "I usually let security deal with intruders. You made it far too far for that, and now I have to deal with you because you interrupted classified research. Who are you?"

"I'm in door to door sales," I say, because I can't help myself.

A flash of tired, pissed-off annoyance passes across his face. "Since you have military-grade security in your implants, I very much doubt that," he says. "You will give me access to your implants, and save us both a lot of time."

I receive an access query from the cable plugged into my implants. How stupid does he think I am?

He sighs wearily.

"Where's my incentive to be nice?" I ask.

He pauses, to take a swig out of a mug of something. I think I can smell coffee over the wet, earthy/marshy smell of the room. "You're not dead yet," he says.

I laugh. "Not good at threats, are you?"

"Your incentive is that I don't have to kill you," he tells me impatiently. "Look. You're in here illegally, so I need to know what you've taken, and if you've sent it to anyone."

That's pretty much what I expect.

"I've searched your equipment," he says, "and I can't find anything physical, including inside your little computer, so all that remains is data. So you will give me access to your implants."

"You broke my kit?!" I yell at him.

"Of course I broke your kit!" he snaps, looking more and more sleep-deprived. "You're the criminal here, may I remind you."

"Not the only one," I say with a meaningful glance at each of my bonds in turn.

He shrugs. "I've discovered over the years that there are things I sometimes have to do."

"So you're going to have to kill me anyway," I say meaningfully.

"Don't be a fool, I always need experimental subjects."

I go cold (the air is quite warm, so it's not "colder", I feel a chill from just his words). "What the fuck sort of thing are you studying?"

"Science," he snaps, "which is susceptible to industrial espionage, so I need to make sure you're not hiding any information in your implants. So you will give me access."

"Not bloody likely." Assuming I get out of here (always assume that), I can afford to lose this contract, I can afford to lose all my possessions and my dignity, but I can absolutely not afford to lose my reputation for integrity.

I just might have to put up with a little torture first. That's no big deal, right?

He sighs, and rubs his temples. "You're electing the part where I use coercive techniques?"

"Try me."

I am well aware that he is prepared to burn out my implants to secure his secrecy. But that will kill me or turn me into a vegetable, and if he was prepared to do that, he already would have. We both know that this entire warehouse is just as much a radio black spot as any other and that I haven't already broadcast anything I might have found.

That's the main thing giving me the courage to sass someone from this position. He very obviously doesn't want to kill me.

Of course, it's possible he just wants to check what I may have been able to get access to, before he tops me...

He sighs again, this time sounding as though he's had enough, he doesn't care any more, and he's going to throw everything in a heap and go home.

"I do hate to inflict pain unnecessarily," he says.

I mentally brace myself.

"Luckily, there are other ways."

He steps backwards towards the door, then pulls some sort of device from his pocket and taps it a few times.

The murky water beneath me splashes.

My head moves so fast to let me look straight down that I nearly give myself whiplash.

A thin tentacle tip emerges from the water as if sniffing.

"What the fuck?!"

The tentacle quivers, then begins to rise towards me, still looking a little uncertain. Others join it, different thicknesses, some with flat diamond-shaped pads on the end, the rest with smooth-edged suckers along their lengths.

"You're going to let it eat me now?"

The tentacles freeze, quiver, then surge upwards, covering most of the distance towards me. Oh, fantastic. They respond to sound. Hadn't I seen an eye, earlier?

He chuckles. "Oh, no. My creatures don't eat humans. They have a distaste for human blood and flesh established in their genome. But I design creatures for many purposes."

I notice bitterly that the tentacles are not reacting at all to daddy's voice. They're rising almost directly underneath me, which means they're passing between my legs and headed, still blindly seeking but still rising, straight for my crotch.

"You met a guard," he says. "Designed and programmed to respond to all movement, attack it, and neutralise it. It has tranquillising venom. Once you stop struggling, it stops. I have to thank you for testing it for me. I hadn't reached trials yet, but it worked admirably."