By the time we'd found our likely culprits, it was getting late, and neither of us were in any mood to be taking a trip to the second district. Isia promised she'd make some calls and see if she could find some alternatives, and I… well, spent some extra time doing research on the "Red Panda" gang.

It was not a fun experience learning about the "lower levels" of the second and first districts.

If New Francisco were considered a mountain, then the third district would be the slopes leading inside, and the second district… while it had the high ridges leading to the peak, the place where all the big-shot middle managers lived, there were also the caves underneath. Buried in layers upon layers of roads and suspended gardens, hiding away all the critical infrastructure such as the water filtration, the pumps, the heating, and cables.

It'd been thanks to my time looking for the smugglers that I'd become passingly familiar with the district. Though, to be more exact, the places I'd visited and moved through had been a hundred or two levels further up. The Red Pandas operated deeper than that, being one of four gangs that ruled the lower levels of the second and first districts.

Violently so.

In short, they looked like the sort of gang I'd expected the Sewer Saints to be back when I'd met them.

How was I supposed to approach that?

"...and the hunt for the Shush Monster continues, as the number of debunked sightings keeps growing, experts suspect there's yet to be any new evidence…"

Ignoring the television in the Internet Shop's lobby, I made my way back to the motel, thoughts steeped in the scope of what we'd stumbled upon. It wasn't like we could just call the police either, according to Isia, the NFPD would not raise a finger if it didn't think it had something to gain out of the whole ordeal. Worse, at least according to her, the NFPD could very well try to get in our way if it meant getting some favors out of the Red Pandas down the road.

It was as if we were going up against a corporation, except worse in every sense. At least with a corporation, you could be sure that the only thing that mattered on the table were the credits and the company stock value.

"Good late-afternoon, Axel Garcia!" Grills greeted cheerfully as I entered.

"Hello Grills… wait, what happened?" I asked, noting her arm was missing. Wait, no that, wasn't the only change. The neck section of her body looked newer, shinier and more polished, and she could speak now… "You repaired your voice-box?"

"I underwent some upgrades." She proclaimed. "Please disregard the automotive inefficacy, as I am still undergoing maintenance."

"Mhm." I frowned, remembering the little epiphany I had earlier in the day. "Would it be possible for you to do some transactions in my name?" I pulled out one of my cred-chips.

The android twitched, turbines revving up and blowing out hot air through her chassis for several seconds. They then paused. "Yes, that would be covered by hotel staff."

"Then I'd need you to use the money here to buy some android components." I instructed.

"Yes." She paused. "What make and model?"

"I would like to get whatever pieces you might need for maintenance. But for my own personal use, of course." I couldn't readily trust her system wouldn't potentially flag down any attempt to get her to buy the pieces for herself, but if I bought them and then donated them to the motel… Well, fingers crossed.

"Certainly! Is there a budget limit?"

"Whatever's in the cred-chip. Make sure to prioritize components you would find most immediately crucial." I'd set them aside from the start, just in case the opportunity to pay for my room emerged. I still had a small emergency fund, but with this… yeah, I only had "food money" left and a sliver of savings for public transport for the foreseeable future.

Good thing Isia was rolling me around the city, otherwise I'd be toast.

My thoughts ground to a halt when Grills shut off.

I blinked, staring at the android as it slumped slightly.

"Well… um… best of luck, Grills." I waved as I walked past the reception-desk, attentive in case the shot-gun came out again.

It was time to get some shut-eye.

Tomorrow was going to be a very long day.

"I know for a fact you went to sleep later than I did. How the fuck do you not look like shit?" Isia's question came alongside a glare as I hopped into the car. There were bags under her eyes, and a slight redness too.

"Looks are deceiving." I replied with a grumble of my own. I had not slept at all. I just figured my body's durability made it harder for it to show. "I've been wracking my brain all night trying to figure out how we're going to approach this, and I got a possible lead, but I need to find a very specific food stand."

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Isia sighed, nodding. "Just let me get some shut-eye. I'm way too out of it right now."

Without another word, she reclined her seat, curled up, and hit the autopilot. I felt a little envious at how easily she'd gone from awake to sleeping, then she started snoring and I realized I was going to be locked in this box for the next three hours like this.

It was still better than her driving without the autopilot though.

"What can I do you for?" The greasy cook called out. We had found a hole-in-the-wall hotdog burrito place, "Deez Weiners" to be exact. The same place I'd visited back during my first day in New Francisco.

Without missing a beat, Isia plonked her gun on the counter, giving the man a thousand-watt smile. The clients were making a run for it before she'd even uttered a single word.

The cook's demeanor changed immediately, slowly raising his robotic and fleshy hands up into the air. "If you're looking for credits, I use a one-way transfer. I can't give you more than a hundred even if I wanted."

"We're looking for the idiots you sent to me last time." I waved, enjoying a little how the cook's face turned a shade paler. "Got some work for them."

"Work." The cook looked down at Isia's gun, tone holding the bare edges of disbelief.

"Are you going to call them over or are we going to find out how tough that prosthetic is?" Her extremely happy tone was a lot more threatening than I anticipated it to be. There was just something manic about the way her finger caressed the trigger-guard as if itching to squeeze down on something. "And, in case there are any doubts, if you call in a hit on us, I'm making sure your skull's the first to pop when the bullets start flying."

"I'm just a spotter, if I don't throw something their way every now and then, they'll burn my place down." He hurriedly explained. "B-but I called them over, they're on their way."

I felt a bit bad for the guy, but not really enough to insist that we didn't plan to hurt anyone. So we waited, half-expecting an ambush and ready to make a run for it if anything felt off. To be more precise, Isia had just up and vanished, claiming she'd have a nice good line of sight on the area. Frankly I preferred it that way, I might not be bullet-proof, but if either of us got shot, I had way better odds of making it out alive.

After ten or so minutes of waiting, I spotted him, recognizing the face almost immediately.

Gun-idiot. The kid that tried to mug me with a plastic revolver.

It had been a little over a week or two since that fateful encounter, but the guy looked slightly different than I remembered him to be. Nothing specific, more like a confidence that hadn't been there before.

The moment he saw me, he flinched, but pushed onward. "You have a job?" He asked without missing a beat.

"I'm kind of surprised you showed up." I replied, cocking my head a little.

"I said I wouldn't forget what you'd done," Gun-idiot said in a deadpan, brows furrowed. "What's the job?"

My tablet dinged with a notification.

*Isia: He has two friends, but they're just hanging around the edge of the plaza

That… was scary. Not that gun-idiot had brought others with him, but that for the life of me I didn't know where Isia had hidden herself. And I should've had an advantage seeing how we were in an open space and I wasn't left half-blinded by ads or other neuralink-only projected decorations and flourishes.

"I… need to find someone." I opted to move the conversation onward. "A friend of mine got robbed. They put their money into a credit-handling service run from somewhere inside Red Panda territory."

"Oh." The way his face dropped was a story in itself, suspicion crossing his face. "I can't help you."

"You know who we're looking for."

"Yeah, everyone in the sub-levels would." He was looking around, nervous. "They're big trouble."

The tablet's screen lit up.

*Isia: The gonks are moving in.

"I'd suggest you don't do anything stupid," I spoke calmly, eyes locked on gun-idiot. "I just want to speak to them."

"You take me for an idiot? If I do anything and shit goes south, they'll find out. And we'll be made into fertilizer." He nervously looked around as he moved to stand up.

He was acting as if he knew someone were watching him. "Find out how?"

"Doesn't matter, they always do." He stood up. "I shouldn't have come."

"All I'm asking is for a name, an address, anything." I noted the way he kept looking off to the side. "I'm not looking for a fight. You should know that."

Gun-idiot flinched, lips curled as he lowered his gaze. "I… they call themselves The Banker. They're not part of the Red Pandas, but the two are close. Look for BlingBling, it's a nightclub."

"Thank you."

"Don't mention it… seriously." He walked off in a hurry.

*Isia: OMW.

The notification came right as gun-idiot had vanished off, and I had to figure she'd caught on to something. Either that, there wasn't much of a need to get her up to date since she'd been listening in on the audio-stream I'd set up with the tablet. So I sat back and waited for her to come back from whatever perch she'd been using.

"What's the situation?" I asked as soon as she plopped sat down next to me.

"I think the Banker gonk is either a netrunner, or has one on call." She made a gesture to leave, and I followed. "Place's chock-full with ads, so there's tons of footage of us already. This is just another reason why I hate the inner districts."

"Fair point."

It was one of those things that "everyone knew", but rarely thought about. Ads needed to confirm levels of engagement, and though there were many ways to do this, cameras were the less invasive approach. Really, it was just another reason why the fourth district was better all around, the fact that it was littered with graffiti and wasn't a 3D maze were the other reasons.

"Anyway, I doubt this BlingBling place's going to be open at this ungodly early hour." Isia hooked her arm with mine, dragging me up to my feet. "And heading back to fourth would just be a massive waste of time."

"Uh… sure?" I acknowledged. "We could scope the place, do some research on this 'Banker' person, and-"

"And it's going to be really, really important to be able to fit in! Wouldn't want to be walking into a nightclub wearing… this." She gestured at me, wrinkled nose, as if I'd just come out of a trash bin.

I wanted to feel insulted, but I wasn't about to deny the claim that I might be a bit too under-dressed for a meeting with someone that called themselves 'Banker'. Sighing, I rubbed my neck in defeat. "I guess we could temp-buy some clothes."

Isia perked up. "What's that?"

"It's… a trick in marketing to reduce expenses. Buy the clothes, keep the receipts and tags, use them, and once you're done, send them to a dry-cleaner and refund. We'd only need a tag-gun to make it look like they weren't worn."

Her face lit-up as if she'd just been given overtime.

"Oh, this is going to be fun."

A wave of dread washed over me.

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