Corpo Age - Chapter 118: Assault for Peace (Patreon)

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Lucy - Halls Corporation

While Rollo was at Ferrumus Station

Right in front of one of the bustling megabuildings in Elevate City, a woman wearing the uniform from Urban Crave, marking her as one of the many employees of the popular fast-food chain, exited from an alleyway and swiftly blended in with the crowd.

She walked past the big screen ads, low-level corpos, and the less savory members of society who were frolicking around the front of the megabuilding. It was a common sight to see so many people with different values together, as they were forced to share living space due to their economic conditions.

Everyone ignored the woman as her uniform instantly conveyed she was on a delivery, and there was nothing interesting about that at all.

She confidently strode into the elevator where several men were menacingly laughing while waving their guns at each other in a playful manner. The people living here had established unspoken rules for living in harmony, which meant, for the most part, they wouldn’t interfere with each other if they could help it.

The doors of the elevator opened, and one of the men exited.

“See ya later cos,” he said as he held up two pistols and pretended to shoot them alternatively at his friends while backing away.

“Fuck you, Jonas!”

A loud gunshot abruptly rang out, making the delivery woman flinch.

She jumped and turned to find one of the men remaining in the elevator with her had discharged his weapon to scare away his friend.

“Hey co, chill. It’s crowded around here.”

“It’s fine. I made sure to aim where there wasn’t anyone.”

Lucy watched the man who had exited the elevator holding his middle up to his acquaintances while the two on the elevator continued to bicker with each other as she waited for her floor.

Much to her relief, her stop was next, and she promptly hopped off and left the unruly bunch behind her.

The navigation app in her optics materialized a line for her to follow. It didn’t take long before she found herself in front of a door of one of the residential units.

She took a second to compose herself before knocking.

“Hello, delivery from Urban Crave.”

The sound of heavy footsteps grew closer before someone replied.

“We didn’t order anything. Get lost.”

“...Sir, this is unit 3761 of the Bear megabuilding, correct? My order says this is the address, no mistakes. Would you like me to leave it outside your door?”

“...Hey you guys, anyone order food?” A muffled yell leaked through the door.

More voices could be heard, but Lucy couldn’t make out what the distant speakers were saying when the door suddenly opened.

“Come in and drop it off at the table over there.” A large man with a black cybernetic hand pointed at the table several steps behind him.

I faked the order and they’re letting me in…

All her danger senses blared out at full force within Lucy’s head, as she only had a split second to decide how to proceed.

“Um…sorry sir. It’s against company policy to come inside.”

“Don’t worry about that. I just wanted to grab a tip for you, so come in while I go fetch my wallet,” the man said while holding his door wide open and standing off to the side, gesturing Lucy in.

“I apologize, sir. I really can’t. The company will fire me.”

“Come on, no one really cares. It’s not like anyone is watching.”

The two went back and forth for several more minutes, and the man seemed unrelenting. He began to get angry and grabbed Lucy by the arm.

“Just get in here!”

The force of the cybernetic hand wasn’t something Lucy could ever contend with, and she was swept off her feet and dragged inside. The door was slammed shut behind her.

“Fellas, tie her up in the back.” The man called out as he stepped into the living room.

He threw Lucy down towards the living room before turning to the table on the side and picking up a half-eaten burrito. He took a bite and chewed several times, swallowed, and paused.

“Fellas! You Listening? Anyone here?”

He finally leaned into the living room to take a peek, only to find his ‘fellas’ all lying on the ground, restrained, right next to the girl he had thrown down.

“What the fuck!” He turned to Lucy and lunged at her collar. “Is this your—”

Something suddenly choked him from behind, cutting him off as he struggled for breath. The metal wire tightened around him and he quickly slumped to the ground.

“Ma’am, we’re having the nerds at cy-sec breach into their terminal, but we overheard them talking about their trip up to Aegis when we entered, so we’re pretty sure we got the right people.” A voice called out from above where the unconscious man was.

I’m so glad the invisible people are on my side now.

In Lucy’s vision, she could clearly make out the outline of the person there. She rubbed her wrist to lessen the pain from being gripped so tightly and narrowed her eyes at the man who was responsible.

“Good work. Let’s have them transported back ASAP.”

-----

As I closed the door to my room behind me, I instantly opened my status menu and spent my newly earned points.

Status

Level:

24

EXP:

20/2400

Musculoskeletal:

211

Neural Reflex:

65

Visuomotor Coordination:

87

Endurance:

59

Sensory Perception:

127

Upgrade Points:

0

Upgrades:

• Stealth +7
• Hacking +5
• Cybernetic Engineering +10
• Stealth Technology +10
• Software Engineering +10
• Electrical Engineering +10

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

The familiar rush of knowledge heightened the activity in my brain. It only lasted a split second, but it felt much longer than that due to all the new information being crammed in.

As much as I wanted to open up my terminal to test out my new gains, I forced myself into bed.

The alarm then rang, as if I had set the timer to be only a minute, but several hours had passed. I swiftly finished morning preparations and donned a suit before heading to the meeting room.

I barely had time to take a sip from my cup before the holographic projectors came online and joined the virtual meeting room.

I could instantly see several familiar faces around the table. The majority of the people seemed weary, but had energetic eyes. Some chatted amongst their peers while others silently sat there like me.

Several minutes later, all the seats were filled, and the spotlight was centered around the bald man whom I had known for the longest among all the people present.

“Thank you, everyone, for taking the time to join us today. I know the fighting hasn’t been easy, but I’m glad you have all been staying strong. As many of you may already know, our negotiation with Ferrumus Corporation has succeeded. In exchange for charging them our production costs for our products and services, they will keep Virtue in check. That means we won’t have to worry about them directly intervening anymore.” He took a pregnant pause while directing his gaze at me. “Today, we’ll be discussing how to launch an alliance-wide counterattack so we may end this costly conflict at the earliest time possible.”

While I one hundred percent agreed with the sentiment of ending the war, I was doubtful about how we would achieve it. Even without support from a large corp, the High Gate Group was every bit our alliance’s equal. Completely destroying them didn’t seem possible, but there may be ways to make them admit defeat and bring them to the negotiating table if we hurt them enough to want it.

“After considerable deliberation, I would like to present my plan to you all. I believe it is the most efficient way to restore our peace, so we may go about creating profits once more.”

Joey sent out a file to everyone in attendance, and I received one as well. He didn’t give us the time to thoroughly read over it as he explained instead.

“My plan is simple. We target the influential corporations within High Gate so that they may sue for peace with us. For that, I will need everyone here to make some sacrifices as we concentrate our forces to attack Quantum Flavors, GrainScape Tech, and High Grains Corp.”

It wasn’t hard to spot several faces grimacing at the mention of sacrifices. I had access to many of the reports and many of our allies who are heavily invested in expensive facilities were taking the brunt of the damages. Their stationary farms and production facilities were too expansive to effectively move or defend.

My company thankfully doesn’t have many fixed assets in terms of large factory complexes, so we weren’t in the crosshairs.

“Mr. Moretti, this is a huge burden you ask of us. And who can say this really will result in peace talks?”

“I have done my research, Mr. Olopo. These three targets have considerable sway within each of their factions. If voices from three large factions are all touting the same thing, it would be much harder for the other members of their group to go against the flow.”

While several others continued to ask questions and state their points, I delved deeper into the documents and examined the concrete assault plan. Joey had somehow gotten schematics for the expansion facilities each of the three corps had. Even the one that was practically a bunker in all but name.

“Everyone, I know you all have your doubts, so let me share one more piece of news that I hope you will all keep to yourselves.” He took a glance around, holding eye contact with each person briefly. “I have a contact within High Gate Group who already wishes for peace like us. That is why I am so confident in the success of my plan. I can’t give you the details, but I hope you all believe in me.”

I could see many people around me muttering, but no sound reached my ears. They had all muted their mic as they fretted over the plan.

Thank god I’m not the one having to take any risks. I’d say I had done enough, so I’ll be able to get away with just sending a small force to join the attack.

Time was valuable for all parties involved, and a vote soon took place. It wasn’t even close as Joey’s plan went through with over 70% of the votes.

“Thank you everyone for believing in my plan. Now we simply have to finalize the details of the forces we will be deploying. The targets of Quantum Flavors and GrainScape Tech are quite simple, as we can effectively assault them with superior numbers, but the attack on the High Grains Corporation requires special attention.”

A 3D projection of the underground bunker base materialized above the table we all sat around.

“Due to the nature of this base, we won’t be able to simply overwhelm it with numbers. We’ll need to send in the elites of the elites.”

Despite Joey saying we couldn’t rely on numbers, we would be relying on overwhelming force from the quality of troops we would send. I wasn’t too worried about it because I could easily foist the task on my employees.

That was why I left them to discuss while I began to plan out my research projects. With now ten points in software engineering, many possibilities opened up. I would first do a pass on all our existing systems used in our company and vehicles. What came next was up for debate.

I could now even create my own AI given enough development time, even if I wasn’t confident it would be the most advanced in the world. That meant I wouldn’t create one right away and leave it to manage everything. It would be too easy for the other corps or another AI to notice the sudden change.

Still, I could use it in more discreet ways, such as my private research projects. That way, I could even complete experiment-heavy projects by offloading the tests to the AI.

“Rollo, did you hear me?” A voice suddenly woke up from my chain of thoughts.

“Sorry, what did you say?”

“Is it possible to have that cyborg bodyguard of yours lead the initial infiltration?”

“...”