Corpo Age

Chapter 101: Endorsement

A few weeks after the cybernetics expo, I finally finished the premium variant of the Argus for the dungeon delving market.

We had spoken with several businesses interested in carrying out new products, but a lot of them gave lopsided deals where our margins became unacceptably low. We eventually decided to go with Qilin Corporation for the Eurasia market while we would be expanding into the American market ourselves, albeit slowly.

We picked Qilin Corp as they had access to exclusive markets and their experienced dungeon delving team could effectively endorse our product. While we could form our own or contract a team, it wasn’t worth investing so much time and money to do so when the dangers of dungeons were so great.

With the completion of all the commercial models of the Argus, we now had to proceed with the more mundane matter of producing them. I would have to return to NLA soon to oversee the expansion of our production facilities, which would allow me to grind out some experience points in the wasteland as well.

For now, we could still make several copies of the Argus a day, and that was enough to send a few units to Qilin Corporation’s mercenary team who would be endorsing it. I spent half the afternoon putting together those implants and handed them over to one of Claire’s assistants to ship them.

When I was done, I exited my workshop and went over the non-urgent messages that my SAID had blocked. Many of them simply needed a quick reply and affirmation while one stood out to me. That was because it was from the intelligence department that had been monitoring any suspicious activities since our product launch.

I went into the elevator and made my way to the third floor where the intelligence department was and stepped into the tidy office, where several employees sat by their terminals. There weren’t any private offices here, and I made my way toward the end of the room where our head of intelligence sat.

“Hey Lucy, you sent me a message about something that needed my attention?”

Her eyes blinked as she focused her gaze on me before she immediately shot up from her seat and saluted like the security officers.

“Just now. You can relax.” I said and gestured for her to sit back down. ”So, what did you guys find?”

Her eyes took on the characteristic glow when its user focused on the screen directly on her optics. A brief moment later, I received a small file.

“We’ve received reports of a few corporations preparing to analyze our product. Most concerning of all, one of them is from the High Gate Group, which is hostile to the West Coast Agroindustry Alliance we are part of.”

I went over the list of corporations she gave me and searched them up on the web whenever an unfamiliar name popped up. All of them were from small corporations that were E-Class or below.

It made sense, as I ensured our advanced version of the Argus was at the standard of what medium-sized corporations kept to themselves. They would have similar tech and their priority to analyze ours wouldn’t be high. They could stand to wait until it was released to purchase a copy for their R&D department.

The corporations on the list must have wanted to gain the new tech to strengthen themselves while the one from High Gate wanted to study it to prepare for any future hostilities that broke out with us.

They all seemed to think we pulled out one of our trump cards for financial gain. I wondered if they considered we would have a more advanced version we kept to ourselves. They could analyze it all they want, it wouldn’t be so simple to reverse-engineer the Argus without it becoming deadly for the user. There was a delicate balance to ensure the use of powerful sensor systems could be safely used.

As for our adversary at High Gate, the scanning technology itself that they would likely be studying wasn’t anything new. The key advantage our in-house version would have was how hard it was to detect our active scans.

With both the Nye and the Argus, we would have superior detecting capabilities. The main challenge in stealth devices was to ensure it was undetectable physically and on sensors. Most stealth solutions would have a weakness towards one or the other. The addition of the Argus gave me an easier time detecting the spec ops of other corporations.

It was my response after the wake-up call from having fought a foe that made use of stealth tech like we did during the fight with QuickLinks. After all, we couldn’t always rely on being able to hit them with EMPs.

Ozsus - Mercenary

A thin man of average height released a heavy sigh upon exiting a lavish building. He could still hear the loud music and cheers of gamblers who were having the time of their lives behind him.

He waited by the curb for several minutes as he lit up a cigarette. He completely ignored all the people who walked past him. As he released yet another sigh toward the pavement beneath him, a large minivan pulled up.

The doors slid open and unveiled its occupants, a young skinny woman at the wheel, a similarly aged boy sitting beside her, and a large muscular man who had to crouch down so his head wouldn’t hit the ceiling of the car.

The driver put an arm around the adjacent seat and leaned back to peek out at Ozsus.

“Get in already, old man. We don’t want to grow old sitting here doing nothing.”

Ozsus let out yet another sigh before flicking his cigarette away and taking the seat next to the giant, who did not appear comfortable being in a vehicle that was too small for him. Still, he flashed a smile at Ozsus as he got on and leaked out a surprisingly high-pitched voice.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Did you lose everything again?”

Ozsus scoffed at him, leaned back into the seat, and crossed his legs.

“D..Do you need to s…stay over at my place, again?” The boy sitting in the front glanced back and asked.

“...No. Why are you acting so nervous about it? Are you that against hosting me for a few days again?”

“I…I—”

“No shit, he’s against it! Every time you stay over at his place, you make a heck of a mess and bring your dumb cos over like you own the place! Don’t let him bully you into saying yes again, Kevin.” The girl at the wheel glared down hard at both parties.

“Okay, okay. Don’t worry, our employer messaged me about an easy payday for the gig today. On that note, did Pecs install the implant they sent over last night, yet?” He turned to the giant man.

“Yes. It’s in here, all right.” The man replied in his high-pitched voice while patting his chest.

“Good, let’s go to our usual haunt, and get paid already!”

“Shut up. You don’t get to be so demanding, you dumb old man. You haven’t even told us about the gig. Spit it out already!”

The car sped up as the driver grumbled, and the band of mercenaries soon made their way out of Lion City. On the way to the nearby wasteland, Ozsus briefed his team about the endorsement gig.

After arguing a bit about how he informed them too late, not allowing them the chance to be more presentable for the recording they would be doing today, they arrived at their destination.

It was a location known to only a few mercenary teams, where a giant sand crater gave them access to an underground facility from the pre-apocalypse era several hundred years ago. Still, it wasn’t that old, as there were signs of people living there until a hundred or so years ago.

The team got out of the vehicle and made their way toward a hatch near the bottom of the sandpit. As soon as they entered, the team immediately got into their formation and took every step with caution.

The reason why the mercenaries tacitly allowed other teams to visit this place was because of the dangers that lurked about. Drones and robots patrolled around the bunker and would attack any intruders without warning. Potential traps and sentry turrets were lurking in every corner, and worse of all, all these defenses either repaired or replenished themselves every day with no set pattern.

Even the traps were different every time they came, and none of the security measures here were weak at all despite it being ancient. It substantiated the rumors of how this place was managed by an ancient AI. That was also why the mercenaries kept this to themselves, not wanting to have any corporation’s involvement.

“Connect your feed to us as always, Pecs. We’re starting the show.” Ozsus called out to the large man, who nodded in response. He then proceeded to start the recording as Pecs sent out the results from his sensors.

“I’ve set the new sensor to detect anything wooden…The range is pretty good, considering all the reinforced walls in this bunker.”

“...Are you sure that junk from some small-time corp actually works?” The only girl in the group asked the large man with undisguised skepticism.

“I tested it a bit after installing it. It should work like a charm.”

“I wouldn’t get too excited yet. We’ll see if it’s a hit or miss soon enough.”

The team made their way further in, sticking to the middle of the hallway, as far away from the metal walls as possible. They had fallen for traps multiple times previously, which was why they all wanted ample space to give them time to react. After hours of navigating through the maze-like bunker, Pecs alerted his teammates.

“And….there. It’s detected something three hundred meters out. Our usual scanner has less than half that range.”

The team kept talking to a minimum to avoid detection, but a few minutes after heading toward their new destination, the periodic scans Pecs pinged out detected something yet again.

“The sensors picked up something moving. Nothing organic was detected, it’s probably drones. Get ready.” The large man whispered back to his teammates in his squeaky voice.

They soon heard the sound of the door sliding open and a small army of red lights came into view. They were experienced enough to know that was the light coming off from the drones that defended this place.

“Pecs, do your thing! Everyone else, protect him!” Ozsus yelled out.

Contrary to appearance, Pecs wasn’t a frontline combatant, despite being a beefy cyborg. His body was mainly composed of cybernetics that played a supporting role, including an electronic countermeasure suite, sensors, and loads of processing power for cyber-security.

Pecs swiftly enabled the ECM suite implant he had and sent out a wave aimed at frying any electronics in its path. It was expensive equipment that wasn’t something mercenaries were commonly seen equipped with, but Pecs was able to afford thanks to the funds he had hidden before being dismissed from his old corporation. He had a small fortune set aside that was able to fund all his body replacement, as his old company was ruthless in its termination efforts.

Several leading drones were immediately fried as they were hit by Pecs’ attack. It wasn’t able to disable all of them, though, as several drones in the back began firing their weapons at the team. The lone girl on the team quickly stood in front of their cyborg and held up a tower shield, while the other two began firing back as well.

With their well-practiced teamwork, all the drones were soon destroyed as the cyborg released yet another wave that fried the remaining drones.

They then went the way the drones had come from and entered into a large warehouse area, where the ceiling reached over thirty feet. They followed the sensor and arrived in a corner of the warehouse, where nothing but a wall stood in their way.

“...So is it a dud, after all? There’s nothing there.” The girl complained.

“Let’s search around first. There may be a hidden room behind there. We’ll have to find the right place to enter from. Everyone be careful when touching the walls. The last thing we need is a steam pipe bursting on our faces,” Ozsus said, directing his team to begin their search.

In the meantime, the cyborg Pecs, and began doing several more scans with his new implant.

“There. I detected some electronic circuitry behind this wall that leads up there.” He pointed toward an old fire alarm switch.

It didn’t take long for the experienced team to find an old keypad hidden behind the alarm. With Pecs’ skill set as a hacker and ample processing power contained within him, they soon broke through the systems, and the walls began shifting.

Ozsus led the way into the new corridor that emerged. At the end of the path, he saw something that made his eyes gleam. A finely carved door made of ebony wood.

“Jackpot, this thing’s probably worth a good sum even with the corpos lowballing us.”

“Maybe enough to last you a month.” A voice chirped from behind.

Ozsus couldn’t even form a response to that. The corporations only bought from corporate-affiliated teams, which also allowed them to collectively press down the prices. The price tag of tens of millions Ozsus had heard of only applied to transactions between corpos. They would be lucky to even get a fraction of those prices.

They got to work removing the door despite his mood having dampened, but when they finished their work, they all couldn’t help but cheer as they saw what was within the room. A private office that was fully furnished with a wooden desk, chairs, and alcohol cabinets.

It was all surely worth a small fortune!