Corpo Age

Chapter 45: Frightened

“Sir! Please help me.” I glanced down to find a man in a business suit grabbing onto me.

“Get off him. What are you doing?” Leo immediately stepped forward and tried to push him away. I spotted the security nearby was walking briskly past the crowd toward us as well.

“Sir, please, they have my son. They won’t give me him until I pay them. Please lend me some credits,” The man begged as he continued to resist Leo’s attempts at removing him.

While it was probably a lot easier for me to do it myself, seeing I was the one with cybernetic arms, I decided to see this one through.

“Why don’t you tell us your story inside over a drink?” I gestured to Leo to let go of him. “But Rollo! There’s no—”

I sent a quick text over to him, *As much as I trust your information-gathering abilities, might as well get some information from a local like him.*

The security soon reached us before he could respond, “Sir, is everything okay?” The bulky man looked at me as if waiting for my signal so he could inflict violence upon the man.

“Yes, everything is fine. He is just a little drunk.”

The security guard sighed with a look of disappointment and turned back.

I was grateful we didn’t form a scene like I had expected, so we were able to casually enter the casino without drawing any particular attention. We passed by a security scanner where more guards stood by. They didn’t comment on our firearms and let us proceed unobstructed.

The first thing that came into view were lines of vending machines that dispensed game chips. Card game tables could be seen further in, with crowds of dangerous-looking people gambling. In the middle of the room was a bar on a slightly elevated platform and a seating area surrounding it.

We headed straight toward the middle, where we found a small table that sat four. A server immediately came to us and took our order before leaving the three of us in an awkward silence.

“Leo, can you go get us some chips? It would be weird coming here without at least getting some.”

Taking the hint, he nodded and backtracked back toward the vending machines.

“So umm…”

“Garland, my name is Garland.”

“Garland, I’ll listen to your story, but in exchange, you’ll answer some of our questions. Sound fair?”

“Right, of course. Please, lend me some credits. I got ahead of myself and took a chance, but now my son has to pay for it. Please, it should be me who faces the consequences.”

He continued rambling nonstop about his life story, even when the server delivered our drinks. His story basically summed up to him having a bad time due to the passing of his wife but was forced to continue working. And to no one’s surprise, he soon made a mistake that resulted in him being fired from his corporation.

The corp made him pay back to compensate for the damages caused which didn’t leave him enough to pay for his daughter’s schooling, unwilling to put her in the public schools, he tried his chance at the casino that he could now visit due to not working for a corporation anymore.

“I can pay you for some useful information. How much do you know about the QGs around here, the corporations, and the local situation?”

I listened to him as I slowly drank from my cup. From the corner of my eye, I spotted Leo stroll by. He finished shortly after I was done with my drink, providing me a basic overview and some bits of information from a corpo’s perspective. It wasn’t anything exciting, but it was nice to have a new perspective.

In the end, I decided to pay him his requested amount of five thousand credits with the promise of him leaving this city with his daughter. Mostly because I didn’t want to leave any easy trails to track me down if anything went wrong. It also wasn’t that much to me anymore, probably not a strikingly large sum for him either, if he was still on a corporation’s salary.

“Are you done with your charity yet?” A teasing voice came out of Leo as soon as he sat down, once the man was gone.

“It wasn’t charity, it was an additional source of information.”

“Find out anything useful then?”

“Mostly names of QGs that aren’t afraid to work against corporations.”

“Well yeah, most that operate here openly will fit that criteria. There’s an understanding to let these QGs operate as they are useful when they need to deal with rival corps.”

“Let’s go find one then. Shouldn’t be too hard since we’re dealing with a small-time corp.”

“Way ahead of you. While you had your chat, I set up a meeting already.”

We had a few hours until the meeting, so we killed some time making use of the chips I made Leo exchange. Surprisingly, the games played were like the ones I knew of from my world, a variation of baccarat.

Leo simply watched as I went on a roll. By the time we almost had to leave, I doubled the two thousand credits I started with.

The meeting took place in a normal-looking office on a different floor that contrasted heavily with the casino we were just at. There were people walking around the cubicles with the sound of conversations and the constant ringing of the phone filling the area. However, the moment we stepped into the meeting room, all the noise instantly ceased as soon as the door closed.

Sitting inside was an overweight man in a suit who gestured for us to take a seat in front of him with a smile.

“Welcome, the name’s Roger. How can I help you today?”

I glanced around the room to find it very bare, but from my knowledge of stealth technologies, I could spot several hidden spaces enough for turrets within the ceiling and walls.

“We’re looking to hire some people for a job. I heard you are well-acquainted with all the mercenaries in the city.”

“I see. Is it for logistic security across the wasteland, if I may ask? I assure you of my confidentiality of anything you share with me, but of course, you can let me know as much or as little as you want. It’ll just be harder to find the perfect match for you.”

“No, it’ll be within the city. We’ll need someone with discretion and a tight lip.”

“Of course, though you’ll find that the prices are a little high at the moment. A lot of people are hiring short-term contractors for the moment due to the spacer war. The remaining operators are of higher quality or looking for lower-risk jobs, and I think that between the two, the former is what you’re looking for.”

“Yes, we’ll need enough to form two teams to sabotage secure locations.”

“Very well. I will contact you tomorrow,” Roger stood up and declared.

We then paid the deposit he asked for and returned to our hotel. I half expected to have someone following us, but we didn’t detect anything.

“Are you sure we can trust this, QG? The vibe he gave off was really different to the ones I worked with back in Elevate City.” I couldn’t help but voice my concern as we stepped into my room.

“Should be fine, just a different culture around here. My corporation used to debrief us about it when we went to new places. And it’s not like QuickLink is expecting us to be here and have a trap ready for us.”

We then discussed our scouting plan tomorrow before he returned to his room. True to my habit, I decided to gear up and take a stroll and see where Firebird needed my community cleaning services.

---

Lucy - Mercenary

Shit, this can’t be happening to me. It was supposed to be an easy delivery job.

She caught her breath as she hid in a dark alleyway behind a dumpster. She took stock of her weapons as she tried to ignore the pain from her ribs that were likely fractured.

I can’t believe Jo, Bartha, and Angel are all dead. How did those gangbangers know which route we took? Damn it, this isn’t the time to think. I have to get out alive, screw the job.

Her auditory implant picked up on the sound of a car door opening nearby, and then she heard several sets of footsteps running in her direction. She held her breath and tried to stay as quiet as possible as one drew close.

“Come on out and play. I promise we’ll be nicer to you than we were to your friends, little lady. That is, if you willingly hand over the package, of course,” A man yelled, followed by the sound of laughter from the people behind him.

They continued walking down the alley until they stood just in front of Lucy, but they didn’t spot her, thanks to several cardboard and garbage bags in the way. The man at the front repeated his message as he occasionally smacked his rifle into the metal pipes and dumpsters around to generate loud clanging noises.

Now that she had a chance to look them over, their outfit and tattoos gave away their affiliation, Gearheads, one of the larger gangs in Firebird.

Taking the chance once they walked by her, she got up and moved in the direction they had come from. Just as she pushed off the ground with her prosthetic arm, a groaning noise came from it as the joints locked up.

Damn junk must’ve taken some damage from the crash.

“Over here!” A voice rang out, followed by the footsteps that grew louder.

She got up and made a run for it now that she was exposed. She tried throwing anything she could find in the path behind her, hoping to buy some time. Deep down inside, she knew it was futile since there was a small chance their car had already left. She might’ve had a chance if she could sneak by, but that no longer was an option.

When she came out of the alley, she had her gun raised, ready to go down fighting. What greeted her instead was a parked van on the side of the road that was eerily quiet.

No way… Did they all get out of the car to chase me? Are they stupid enough to leave their car unattended?

Approaching the car with her weapon at the ready, she spotted two bodies slumped over in the front seat. She took a glance around but found no one around this side street. She tried to listen for any sounds, though for some reason, it had gotten completely quiet. Before she knew it, even the footsteps of her pursuers were entirely gone.

For some god-forsaken reason, she decided to backtrack down the alley she had just emerged from, only to find her pursuers all sprawled around on the ground.

Hell no! Whoever is responsible, I want no part of it.

“Leave me alone, I’m just the deliveryman, you can have it!” She threw down the package her team was supposed to deliver onto the ground and started running out of the alley as fast as she could.

Her mind was in a blur and before she knew it, she was driving the van from earlier down the street.

I’m done being a mercenary. I don’t care anymore even if I have to put up with some corpo asshole as a boss. As long as it’s a stable job, I’m fine even if it’s boring.

She quickly selected her QG from her contact list, “Lucy? Where’s Jo—-”

She didn’t have time for this anymore. She wanted to go home and be done with all of this, “They’re dead, the gig was a shitshow, we lost the package and I’m done! Goodbye.”

---

I leaned over to pick up what the woman had left behind. I felt a little sorry for scaring her, but she suddenly showed up behind me and screamed. Before I had the chance to say anything, she threw something down and hysterically ran away.

Opening the package, it contained a small data chip. I knew better than to plug in random chips into my network. Good thing I had Leo around.