The people who were in some sort of active camouflage continued to trail us as we moved inside towards the hallways of the building, away from where the spectator stands were. The only people who could be around us were going to the restroom, so I had my Argus perform another scan in that direction to ensure no one would get caught up in our little squabble.

As Thorne and I turned the corner, we both activated our own active camouflage at the same time and readied ourselves to meet our foes. We had our scanners running as fast as they could, scanning once every one-and-a-half second, allowing us to see our pursers’ outlines.

I readied my railgun pistol as there was no need to be quiet here, alerting the building security was only to our advantage. Just as our foes turned the corner after us, we immediately sprang into action as soon as our next scan detected them.

I pulled the trigger while Thorne lunged forward at superhuman speed and plunged his blade straight through his target.

My shot clearly hit something as sparks flew out of the area I had shot and the figure of a person soon materialized as their stealth device malfunctioned. It was the type most corporations hit teams used in offensive operations, a suit-type that allowed them to add some armor to it and prolong its uptime with larger batteries and heat sinks.

It was a good option when you didn’t need the discretion of being able to catch your opponents off guard by suddenly going stealth that the Shade gave. The wearer even survived my attack, only being knocked onto the ground, though it didn’t matter as I pulled the trigger several more times.

+10 EXP

I turned around to find Thorne had already neutralized his target, having skewered his foe and was just flinging the blood off his blade.

“Let’s go get in the car first. That was targeted, and I’m not staying around for any follow-up attack,” I said.

Just as we got moving, a priority call via our company comms came in. I planned to call them once I got to a safe place, so didn’t waste any time and answered immediately. The voice of Lucy, our intelligence director, rang out.

“Boss, you need to immediately head back to where it’s safe. The High Gate Group has started actively attacking various members of our West Coast Agroindustry Alliance.”

“Yeah, we already know that. A little busy right now. I’ll call you again later.” Not waiting for her answer, I hung up.

I instantly turned to Thorne in time to see a slew of text scrolling across his optics fade. We both swiftly made our way back to the parking garage. Thorne cautiously navigated through each corner by using our Argus to scan frequently, as we expected more enemies at any moment.

We walked past one of the corpos who had just arrived at the race course, surrounded by her bodyguards, walking out of the parking garage. Both Thorne and I were on edge as they drew close, with our hands hovering over our weapons. The opposition easily noticed us as well, and we glared at each other briefly before they left to keep up with their charge, who was unaware of our little confrontation at all.

Thankfully, the parking garage was clear, and we quickly activated our car’s auto-drive to come fetch us. We thoroughly scanned the Wraith before boarding it, where I immediately felt a sense of safety being inside an armored vehicle.

Before we drove out of the garage, our comms rang out once more, with it displaying ‘Vin’ on the caller ID.

“Rollo! We have a rapid response team coming to escort you. Stay put and wait for them. The racetrack’s security should hold back any frontal assault teams, so mainly keep an eye out for any assassins.”

“...Roger that.”

It didn’t even take five minutes before our scanners picked up our allies entering the area and escorted us back to our NLA office. It felt weird being the bossy corpo this time who took up the road with over two dozen vehicles, but I couldn’t complain when our lives were at stake.

After a tense yet uneventful ride, I met Vin in the main meeting room of our office, where a secure connection was already established with our Elevate City headquarters.

I had reworked the encryption when I had leveled my software engineer recently. It was at a level where I felt confident that it would take at least months to decipher, which was enough for most non-sensitive communications.

Through the holographic projection, I nodded to each of the people being projected, which consisted of Claire, Lucy, and Leo on their side. After curt greetings, we all turned our gaze toward Lucy, the head of our intelligence department.

“What’s the situation?” I asked.

“We’re still liaising with our partners in the alliance for more details, but they have confirmed several corporations among them have been attacked and they are confident the High Gate Group is responsible.”

Several screens materialized in front of me, showcasing several reports of the alleged attacks. There were photos and videos of the incidents captured by the cameras or optics that displayed various offices, storages, and warehouses being assaulted.

“How do our allies know these men are from High Gate?” Thorne asked.

“They don’t know for sure. It’s just that a coordinated attack on this scale across the entire continent against our alliance doesn’t leave many suspects with the resources and motive to do so. Our own information network from our communication app has also seen an upward trend of High Gate Group-affiliated corporations bolstering their defenses.”

“What about our own assets?” I asked immediately after Lucy finished.

“...We’ve lost contact with our people in Can Sauce City where several of our allies had already been targeted. One of our convoys that was headed there from Miles High had already received our warnings and turned straight back into the wasteland.”

A map appeared in front of us, highlighting the locations of the attacks and where our people were. We all silently examined it for a brief moment before I turned to our expert in military affairs, Vin.

“How do you think we should react?”

He furrowed his brows and his eyes took on a glow for several moments before he responded.

“The scale and quality of the forces involved aren’t something we can handle. This isn’t like the small fights between individual small corporations we are used to. This is a full-on war between two big interest groups.” He glanced around to check if we all understood the weight of what he said before continuing. “We’ll have to coordinate with the rest of our alliance and formulate a response plan together.”

At the end of the day, it meant we weren’t powerful enough to become a player in this war. We were one of the chess pieces for the West Coast Agroindustry Alliance, or in fact, the entire alliance may be a chess piece itself played by people higher up on the ladder as well. This was what I feared when we decided to join a group, but I had begun to learn that it was an inevitable part of stepping into the corporate world.

We then tried to connect with our allies, who gave us up-to-date information on the situation, but they were too busy to formulate anything right now as the conflict was ongoing in many places.

I tried calling Joey as well, only to receive a similar response from one of his secretaries.

I could only watch through the live feed our allies provided at the battle unfolding somewhere while my company went into full alert and prepared for war.

It easily humbled me when I watched several flying vehicles speed through the city above with their thrusters, firing off their heavy machine guns and missiles onto a convoy of vehicles below. I may have started earning more recently, but it was still far from enough to fuel a well-armed force like the one I saw.

It gave me an urgency to supply my own forces with power armors and flying vehicles.

The various feeds we had access to showed non-stop fighting throughout the night. The fighting only began to die down as dawn approached.

The aftermath of the fighting wasn’t that devastating, though. There were many other corporations in each city, and it wasn’t in anyone’s interest to wreak havoc upon the city indiscriminately. Every battle was targeted and kept to a localized area.

Our intel department, after liaising with our alliance, got a clearer picture of how it went. Our group had defended most assets while a few were destroyed. The remnants were now gathering together to reinforce the intact bases.

When noon arrived, we finally began hearing back from our allies. An emergency meeting was to be held, and I quickly returned to my office, which was equipped to participate in the virtual meeting.

I was one of the last ones to join as I swept my gaze across the virtual meeting room. It didn’t take long before the old man, who previously had taken the role of the speaker, took charge once more.

“Everyone, it is clear the High Gate Group has launched a full-scale war on us. Their surprise attack may have bloodied our noses, but we convene to come up with a proper response plan. You may submit your proposals and we shall vote for it. The winner’s proposal will become the basis of our action plan.”

I’m not familiar enough with our capabilities versus High Gate’s, so I’m just going to end up as a spectator, aren’t I?

The West Coast Agroindustry Alliance’s discussion took up an entire day before they settled on an initial plan. They believed both parties had lost a decent amount of force, but it was just the beginning of the fight. They refused to just turtle up and allow our enemies to freely poke and prod our defenses, but they couldn’t strike back without careful consideration as it would risk exposing their defenses.

They settled on drawing a small elite force that would attack important targets one at a time while bolstering the defenses at the same time.

For our Halls Corporation, we sent out one elite team to participate, led by Andrew.

“I want you to focus on digging up why the High Gate Group felt comfortable launching this attack all of a sudden. Use any means you can, and hire mercenaries if you don’t have enough manpower…And…focus your search on spacer big shots who came by recently that had met with anyone from High Gate,” I said to Lucy’s projection.

“Understood, sir.”

Our allies had all insisted that the High Gate Group had been preparing for this battle for a long time, but I refused to believe they would go into total war all of a sudden. I wasn’t sure if finding out the reason would help, but it was the only thing I could do that made me feel like I was making an impact while the bigger corps fought.

I looked out the window at the sound of an airplane taking off.

Adding a private airplane to my wishlist. I’m tired of having to hunker down whenever something happens.

 

---

 

Andrew - Halls Corporations

“Be sure not to agree to anyone’s unreasonable demands. You represent our company through this joint endeavor.”

That was what Andrew’s superior, Thorne, had said before his team was shipped off toward the frontline of a corporate war.

That was a lot easier said than done, especially when it is obvious how outclassed we are.

Andrew observed his ally forces gather inside a base bordering the wasteland. The special strike forces that gathered comprised the elites of each corporation. The West Coast Agroindustry Alliance had a mix of small and medium corporations, and the forces from the stronger corporations stood out like a sore thumb.

Their squads of power armor that arrived in flying vehicles made Andrew feel like there was a high chance they would be treated as rank-and-file foot soldiers. That could easily mean they got to take the safer roles of securing the areas others had conquered or being treated as decoys and expendables.

Thankfully, the commander of this strike force had been briefed somewhat on the capability of each force.

“Team from Halls Corporation, step forward!”

“Sir.” Andrew stepped forward and saluted on behalf of his team.

“You’re being assigned as our scouts and saboteur force. Your callsign is Owl. Be sure to read over our codebook on how we will communicate.”

As the commander moved on to assign roles to other forces, Andrew quickly went over the data he had received. It didn’t take long before the commander was done and the forces set off for their first target.

They would be traveling using a mix of flying and traditional vehicles as they moved from city to city to strike at their enemies.

Andrew prepared himself as he knew they would only be attacking important targets that belonged to medium-sized corporations. They were much harder to deal with, and he needed to be much more careful if he wanted to sneak past their well-equipped facilities.

Their main strike force would come in through the air after them, which meant they had to slowly drive toward their target if they wanted to be unnoticed. Andrew silently hoped that their company would get stealth aircraft in the future.

He pulled up the map and double-checked if the unmarked building before him actually belonged to GrainScape Tech before giving the signal for his team to activate their Shades.

The team used their Argus to perform a scan first and found an entry point on the floors above. With a sigh, Andrew ordered his team to put on their gloves, which allowed them to scale up the building.

Let’s quickly get this over with. We still have to move on to the headquarters of Quantum Flavors and then hitch a flight to Can Sauce City before the sun rises.