I watched through the assault team’s body cam footage as they continued to inspect the dark and bloody room. Bodies were in their way, so they took a cautious approach.
With the tension strained, they all flinched at the sight of movement, pointing their weapons at the large figure that suddenly appeared. The person had blood all over them, but I immediately recognized the uniform despite the mess.
A familiar voice called out.
“Took you guys long enough.”
I let out an internal sigh of relief when the camera footage showed all my employees were still alive. The assault team didn’t linger, though. They all swiftly proceeded deeper into the base to continue their raid.
The fighting didn’t hold my interest, so I excused myself and exited from the virtual command center.
I returned to my workshop, where I opened up my terminal once again and got to work on my new project. It was exciting to think about, but the amount of coding I had been doing was excruciating.
I was completely absorbed in my work on the preliminary AI I was creating. I didn’t want to create one until I was sure I could make it top of the line, but it didn’t hurt getting a head start by creating the foundation. Once I leveled my software skills more, I would have to make another pass on it. However, it would be much quicker to upgrade than starting from scratch later when the time comes.
I only snapped out of my inspired state when my SAID alerted me to a priority matter that needed my attention. I read the message and quickly headed out to the meeting room.
The holographic displays came online all around me and I found myself once again in the West Coast Agroindustry Alliance’s meeting room.
It wasn’t hard to tell everything had been going well judging from the expressions of the others, but that didn’t prevent me from looking up the latest news that I had missed while busying away in my workshop.
The three assaults had all been successful, with moderate casualties, and Thorne was on his way home. Our holdings on the NNA continent were much less than the other corporations in the alliance, and I trusted Vin to take good care of the defenses for the few assets we had.
“Everyone, our attacks have been successful, and we have begun reaching out to our like-minded individuals from the High Gate Group who share our rational sentiment of wanting to put an end to this profitless battle. As planned, the three new bases we have taken control of will be our negotiating cards during negotiations. I would now like to hash out the terms and select our…”
As Joey began to delve deeper into the economic and political considerations that we may go over during our peace talks, I set my auditory implant on record while I went over other matters. Honestly, what they were discussing was too bland for me to focus on right now, especially when my mind was still honed in on the AI.
As they continued, I went over the company reports that had piled up while I was in my workshop. The one that drew my interest the most was the expansion of our properties. It was slated to be completed within this week, which meant I had to make some time in my calendar to tour the new area and watch over the installation of the new defensive emplacements throughout the premises.
When the meeting finally finished, I was summoned to yet another one immediately after.
“Rollo, you need to look over the new reports about that matter you asked us to look into and make a decision before shutting yourself in again.”
Claire immediately threw down a terminal before me as soon as I entered the room.
I swiftly skimmed over the spreadsheets on the terminal.
“We’re doing pretty well. I don’t think there’s a problem.”
“For now, maybe. But of course, the Argus is doing well when it is still new and all.”
I looked over the numbers again with the sales cycle in mind. Referencing the other products on the market and our experiences with the Shade, I could estimate how the Argus will do. It had a much wider target audience, so it was a given that it was doing well commercially.
“The transportation business is performing and steadily growing, too.”
“The income from logistics is stable, but it isn’t going to bring us a huge influx of money. It’s just enough to fuel a chunk of our expansions and pay the expenses.” Claire picked up the terminal before continuing. “With how things are, it’s risky to try to leapfrog into an E-Class corporation all of a sudden. Especially with this potentially becoming a money sink.”
She showed me the page for the financial performance of our communication app, EchoHalls.
“It has been doing well since its initial launch, but the one-time payment thing has started to burden its financial capabilities. With the frequent use of our existing user base and more and more users downloading it every day, the server costs are catching up to our profits. If we don’t do anything, it may start losing us money instead.”
“...Right, we initially did it for your intel department, and not for money making, but it is an issue when it can’t even pay for itself.”
“Look, your initial idea was great, and we have a healthy amount of users now, but unless you can break us into the Europa market and gain an influx of users, we’ll need to change up how we monetize the app.”
As much as I wanted to keep it cheap, things sure look different when you’re on the other end as the provider…At least as a former user, I know people will probably have to suck it up as long as the price increase isn’t too outrageous as most people didn’t like change.
“Fine, let’s start charging a monthly fee—no….limit their daily usage unless they enroll in the monthly subscription plans.”
“Right, I had already discussed it with the finance guys. As my former project, I’ll take care of it. Just needed your approval.”
I stamped the virtual file with my seal of approval before Claire sent me another file.
“Thanks. We can take our time with the promotion. We’ll wait until this war is over, and our businesses are on track, at the very least.”
I saved the documents pertaining to upgrading our consortium membership rank and set them aside.
“Anything else?”
“No. Remember to eat and don’t go out until Thorne is back. Got it?”
“...Yes Mom.”
She pouted and turned to the side, and I took the chance to leave the room. There was so much to do before the AI was even remotely close to being done. I also had to procure a large amount of hardware to support it, but I’ll wait until I finalize the design of it first.
“Rollo, I just got back…Do we really have to go out tonight?”
I turned back to the cyborg, who was halfway into his power armor.
“No time better than now. There’s no reason not to when the fighting has stopped and we are in a state of a ceasefire while the peace talks are ongoing.”
“...And weren’t you going to work on your own model of power armor? Is this really going to be okay with where we’re going tonight?”
“We’ll be fine. If it works in space, it should work anywhere else. The original parts were from models that were specialized in atmospheric conditions, anyway.”
“...”
I finished getting into the power armor first, as Thorne hesitated. I didn’t wait for him and immediately entered the car. Seeing him still taking his time, I lowered the window and stuck my head out.
“I don’t mind going solo, you know?”
With an exaggerated sigh, he sped up his movements while I rested in the seat and brought up my status screen.
|
Status |
|
|
Level: |
24 |
|
EXP: |
20/2400 |
|
Musculoskeletal: |
211 |
|
Neural Reflex: |
65 |
|
Visuomotor Coordination: |
87 |
|
Endurance: |
59 |
|
Sensory Perception: |
127 |
|
Upgrade Points: |
0 |
|
Upgrades: |
|
|
Enhancements: |
SAID: Zenitech Sebastien v2 Bio-Coprocessor: SocialCorp Lightning II Optics: Mirage Tech Clear-Sights mk.12 Cyberarm (Left): Nova Tech Heracle Mk. 3 Cyberarm (Right): Nova Tech Heracle Mk. 3 Auditory: SocialCorp Echo IV Vocal: SocialCorp Orator III Cardiovascular: BioGen Lifepump 5 Sensory: Halls Corp Argus Elite Custom Additional Processing: Halls Corp Custom ST Miscellaneous: Halls Corp HSU Custom Shade |
I could feel him board the car as the entire vehicle slightly tilted to the side at the weight of the power armor. We then proceeded out of the garage and entered into the busy streets of Elevate City. Despite it being nighttime, numerous neon lights all shined brightly, resulting in the streets being as well-lit as it was during the daytime.
We drove straight toward the edge of the city, following the tracker to where we could look out into the expansive darkness. The sound of waves was strangely alluring in the dead of night. We parked beside the docks and discreetly walked out.
“You do know we don’t own any ships, right?” Thorne’s voice rang out inside my helmet.
“We can just ‘borrow’ one for the night. Come on.”
“...”
I activated my camo and went straight out onto the docks. This one in particular didn’t have the greatest security, as there were only old boats that catered to the middle-class folks.
We boarded the first motorboat we saw and immediately plugged into its systems. It only took me two minutes before I breached its systems and gained access to its controls.
Security would definitely notice the loud noise coming from the old antique, despite the noise of the waves covering most of it. There wasn’t anything we could do about that, so we simply drove the boat out. It wasn’t like this dock had the funds to hire professional guards who would pursue us out into the ocean.
I only adjusted the course occasionally to match that of the GPS and before long, we spotted a large ship off into the distance. It was heading toward us, or more accurately, to Elevate City, so we maneuvered our boat to place ourselves in its path.
Once we were on the large cargo ship’s route, we turned off the engines and waited.
The waves carried us slightly off course as the large ship sailed by, but it was still close enough.
With our active camouflage still on, we activated our customized jetpack on the power armor and leaped up onto the ship. It was quite ironic we would be using this modified jetpack in maritime conditions, as the original version was specially designed for naval combat.
Our metal feet landed firmly on the deck. However, the sound wasn’t muted, and anyone nearby would’ve easily noticed. Thankfully, no one was on deck. They were probably hanging out in the comfortable interior of the ship.
We weren’t as stealthy as I had thought when I heard the cabin doors slam open, and four armed men came walking out on full alert.
“Cap’n says a small boat was detected around us. Make sure no pests are buzzing around.”
The four men moved as a team, walking along the edge of the ship, glancing down its hull for any suspicious activity.
They were likely communicating with their allies frequently, so I opted to leave them alone and went further into the ship. I would come back for these thieves once we had secured the ship. They were all valuable experience points and also targets the QG wanted to be eliminated.
This gig smelt of corpo, but I didn’t really mind as it satisfied all my checkboxes. The good thing about corpo employers was that they rarely minded a few ‘missing’ or damaged goods once they got their shipment back.
Even so, the main reason I took this gig was that I currently didn’t have the leeway to head to NLA to grind experience points in the wasteland while the negotiation with the High Gate Group was still ongoing, so this would have to do for now.
As I walked into the ship with Thorne, I drew a vibro blade from the hip of the power armor while I watched his blade come out from his wrist.
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