"Media used to portray hacking as this pulse pounding, rapid typing affair where a lone programmer raced against the system to input commands and bypass defenses when it was usually just social engineering. Then the Protectors came, and we got computers the size of peanuts in our brains that could break standard encryption that would have previously taken years in mere seconds. Who knew all those stupid hacker sequences would be more accurate now, not less."

  — Timothy Waters, Cascadian Technical Institute, Professor of Digital Security

  After getting his estimated arrival time of the day after tomorrow, Quinn hung up the call with Magus. She had been keeping the dread at bay via action until now, but the limits of her social stamina were rapidly approaching.

  The dread began to creep in. Was this her fault? Should she have seen this coming, got Jing Qi out of there before fucking around downtown? What if they couldn't find her? What if they did something…

  "Quinn darling, are you okay?"

  Quinn shook her head, not trusting her own ability to speak without breaking down.

  "Are you worried about Jing Qi?"

  Quinn nodded, that was close enough to the thoughts whirling around in her head.

  "I can understand that, but we'll get her back, together. I promise."

  Irys paused, then spoke up again in a slightly tentative tone.

  "Could I let Aisha and Elliot in? They've been wondering where you are."

  Quinn nodded again, still unable to speak without breaking down into tears.

  "Can I tell them about what's happened, since I assume you don't want to try to right now?"

  Another nod.

  There was a click, then a blur of motion as Quinn suddenly found herself being clutched by Aisha in a deep hug, twitching fox ears tickling her face. She took a deep breath, getting a scent of chamomile and roses. As much as the current situation was distressing her, she couldn't help but marvel in the feeling of Aisha's hair against her, feeling the silky lengths pushed against her chin in a detail she'd never thought possible.

  The sparking attraction of it, combined with the heart thumping realization that Aisha's head was somewhat buried in her chest, managed to tear her away from her train of thought. She leapt on the opportunity, dragging the spiral to a slow stop with hooks of better thoughts of the wonderful girl pressed against her.

  "Yabai" Quinn murmured to herself. "Koi No Yokan."

  "Hmm?" Aisha hummed in return.

  "Just a Japanese phrase, don't worry about it."

  Aisha released Quinn from the hug, moving far enough away to see her but still close.

  "Oh, you're part Japanese?"

  Quinn nodded, still finding words difficult.

  Aisha broke the tension with a brief giggle. "I feel like I should have known that already, but hey."

  That broke the dam for Quinn too, and she chuckled as well.

  "Thanks, I needed that."

  "Of course." Aisha nudged Quinn with an elbow. "So… wanna talk about it? Have a plan?"

  "Yeah." Quinn replied, voice still quiet.

  She talked about her conversation with Synapse, the semblance of a plan created, and her talk with Magus. Aisha listened along attentively.

  It was at this point Elliot pushed open the door and strode in, carrying a plastic bag. He gave Quinn a wonky smile that made her heart melt, then pulled out a triple set of coffees and breakfast sandwiches. Quinn repeated the story as she ate, mentally noting to return the favor somehow soon.

  "So, you get the help of these other few Samurai to figure out where she is, then we go in and take get her out fast and loud?"

  "Something like that." Quinn sat herself up straighter. "I still need to figure out if WatchDog will even help, though. Are you two willing to help?"

  "Of course we fucking are!" Aisha blurted out. "We got your back, like you got ours." She paused, composing herself a little. "Plus you wanna do this sorta stuff for your new corp, right?"

  Quinn chewed her lip. "I guess? Why do you ask about the corp though?"

  Aisha just rolled her eyes. "Because I want in, dummy. I'm not really planning to go be a corporate physicist, so I can at least be a consultant for ya."

  Ah, that made sense.

  "Quinn, Darling. If you're feeling better, maybe try giving Vanguard WatchDog a call now? If you can assemble your infiltration team they may begin their part at their leisure."

  "Sure, I guess we can try calling her."

  "I already confirmed with her AI that she is available."

  Quinn inhaled and exhaled. "Okay, make the call for me?"

  Watchdog didn't take long to pick up, and her avatar materialized into the air in the corner of the room. Maybe uncharitably Quinn had expected someone… nerdier in appearance, but Watchdog blew that assumption out of the water. She was a tall woman, with blond hair and flawless pearl skin. Her makeup was tastefully done, more than a natural look, with sweeping wings of eyeliner highlighting excited green eyes and lashes Quinn would consider killing for. She wore a revealing crop top jacket and baggy cargo pants, and damn did she pull it off.

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  "Oh Hi! Mobile Suit Maiden, right? Synapse told me you'd be giving me a call, though he was light on the details of why."

  "Yeah." Quinn started. "Wait, you know Synapse?"

  Watchdog snorted in response. "Yeah, course, he and I get on like a house on fire. Shame he's masc teebeehaich. If you ever need to understand something from the old internet, chances are he knows about it."

  She spoke at a mile a minute, and Quinn struggled to keep up, latching on to one of the earlier points. "Synapse is masc, you mean he's a guy?"

  Watchdog giggled. "Nah, ask him about his opinion on gender sometime, he's a riot to talk to on wierd topics like that. Anyways, you need my help with something? What's the job and what's the pay?"

  Shit, she hadn't even thought about payment. What did Samurai even want for that, she barely had money and she'd spent basically all her points yesterday.

  "I didn't have a payment in mind, sorry. I'm kind of desperate because my friend got kidnapped and we don't know where she is."

  Watchdog's expression soured, and Quinn's heart sped up in anticipation of a blunt refusal.

  "Who the fuck is kidnapping the friends of our baby sams. Fuck it, you can owe me a favor, I'm in."

  Quinn's anxiety deflated, and she let out the breath she hadn't noticed she'd been holding. "Wait, you're in? I didn't even tell you about it?"

  Watchdog shrugged her shoulders. "I assume it involves my hacking skills and not like, storming a fortified facility right?" Quinn shook her head. "Yeah it'll be good, but what is the job?"

  Quinn glanced side to side, finding Aisha and Elliot smiling at her. She refocused on the conversation. "So we don't actually know where she is, the thought was another Samurai we've already talked to, Magus Mortis, would sneak in what you need to hack their servers and figure out where she is. Boyscout, Vixinertia and I." She pointed out each in turn. "Will then go get her. We're just."

  "…Not Subtle?"

  Quinn shook her head.

  Elliot gasped next to her. "I can be subtle!"

  She glanced at him to find him smiling mischievously, and gave him a brief glare to make it clear what she thought about it.

  "Yeah we're not really able to do the sneaky part. So that sound like something you can do?"

  Watchdog bobbed her head up and down enthusiastically. "If you've got someone to deliver a Goober in, I can find out where they are."

  Aisha interjected. "What's a Goober?"

  "uuuuh…" Watchdog tapped her cheek. "Its slang for any sort of hacker device type thing." she paused, then cocked her head to the side. "No idea where it comes from actually. But yeah, I might fuck around with them a bit myself while I'm in there."

  "We are aiming to leave no evidence of an intrusion, to allow the element of surprise in the extraction." Irys chimed in.

  "Oh, don't worry about that." Watchdog grinned. "I was just going to fuck with their data a bit, just enough to make their records a clusterfuck."

  Irys actually chortled. "Oh that is Devious, I highly approve, Darling."

  "Well, anyway." Watchdog continued after a few moments. "Just let me know where to send the goober and when I need to be doing my thing and I'll be there. Digitally I mean." She glanced between the three Samurai on Quinn's side. "Anything else I need to know?"

  "I'll send over a package with the kidnappee's personal details, so she can be found."

  "Cool, if that's all I actually gotta run. Catch you later!"

  The call ended and Quinn jumped up from the bed, pacing back and forth.

  "Okay, we need to figure out where to even start. What facility do we need Watchdog and Magus to infiltrate?"

  Aisha jumped up and grabbed Quinn's hand. "Girl, chill. I have a hacking module, I can break into the guy who sent you the threat and figure out where this project they mentioned is being done."

  Quinn started to jerk away, but thought better and forced herself to stop moving. "What if they figure out we're going after them."

  Vyshnu's calming baritone spoke up through her augs. "I assure you, I am more competent than that."

  Aisha narrowed her eyes. "I thought I'd bought a hacking AI."

  "You bought access to a hacking AI." He paused for dramatic effect. "Its me, I'm the hacking AI."

  Elliot threw him a side eye, via Aisha as proxy. "Why do we need to pay to get access to your doing it for us?"

  "Cuz we have limitations, silly!" Hylios piped in. "I mean the entire point of points is just to prove your responsible via actually doing your duty, so some purchases are just giving us more leeway to help you out."

  "Fair enough." Elliot shrugged. "I makes sense I guess, I kinda forget you guys have your own orders from higher up."

  "Of course, darling. We do our best to help with all the capabilities we're allowed to."

  Aisha squeezed Quinn's hand, giving her a look that asked 'Is this okay'. Quinn gave her a slight smile, not at all minding.

  "So, I'll work with Vyshnu on this, you two can chill unless you have anything you wanna do?"

  "Nah, I'm calling this a vacation." Elliot stood up and moved slightly towards the door. "But no offense to your new digs, we wanna go hang somewhere with some more sun?"

  They found a small park on campus to relax,complete with reasonably well made plastic plant life and all. For a while they just sat in companionable silence, Quinn mostly focused on catching up on various boards she'd been ignoring during the whole incursion situation. After an hour or so however, she was running out of things to check and getting bored. Aisha was working on something important, so she turned to Elliot.

  "Up to anything interesting?"

  He smiled at her and she nearly melted on the spot. "Planning."

  She narrowed her eyes at him. "Planning what?"

  "Oh, that. How's it going?" Aisha interjected, not looking away from where she was clearly working on her augs.

  "Its going well, I should be able ready, I'll send you the details you need."

  Quinn glanced between her two current dates, suspicious.

  "I'm guessing I don't get to know what this is?"

  "Nope!" He flashed her a shit eating grin. "Don't worry, its nothing bad."

  She sighed. "Fine. Well I'm bored, did you spend any of your points from yesterday?"

  He nodded. "Yup. A number of personal augmentations, nothing you'd notice usually. I gave some to the Aia for some more computing power, which will let me use my physics manipulation more. I'm working towards being able to do some of it myself though, so that'll mean I can do it all the time rather than just sometimes."

  She mused this. "So you'll eventually not need thing you're giving the Aia points for, then?"

  "Yup, though I'll kind of get a refund?" Elliot replied, shifting to put one leg under the other in an awkward looking sitting position. "The doing it myself kind of requires having a really powerful computer that I run that's kind of shunted inside me, with a connection to an implant I just bought. Once I feel like I'm ready to be entirely independent, apparently the Aia will give me the hardware its been buying with my points."

  Quinn gentle took his hand in hers, enjoying the feeling of his calloused hand. "So kind of like rent to own?"

  He chuckled. "Yeah, sort of. Frankly I thought it was too good of a deal to be true, but apparently this is literally as good of a deal as they're allowed to give me without it being considered against the samurai rules and they're a massive altruist." he shrugged a single shoulder slightly. "Guess I can't complain."

  She listened carefully, imagining what he might be able to do once he really had some points.

  "So what can you do now, anything new and cool?"

  "Oh yeah!" He cracked an excited smile. "I can manipulate density now, its pretty cool." he grabbed a plastic leaf off the plant and pulled it off. "Try tearing it."

  She tried, and found it utterly impossible to make so much as the tiniest rip. All of a sudden she jerked as she tore it in two like it was wet tissue paper. She looked up to see him stifling a giggle, and gave him a dirty look she didn't really mean.

  About twenty minutes later Aisha jerked up from where she'd been sitting.

  "I got it, your blackmail boy works out of an office in Jefferson City. Its not a readily advertised office either, so whatever's going on there is at least a little sus."

  Quinn glanced to Elliot, who was already standing up. "Okay, so what now?"

  "Now." He replied. "We go there and get a secure location to base out of, maybe scope the place out a little remotely. We should be close by in case our infil team needs support." He glanced over at Quinn. "We'll also need to transport Cassie discreetly, and store her somewhere we aren't going to get questioning eyes poking around.

  "Okay then, shall we get started?"

  "Yabai Koi No Yokan." - mostly literally translates to "Damn, premonition of love, but basically means - "Shit, I think I'm going to fall in love with you."