Corpo Age

Chapter 16: Property

The thunderous loud noise rang out again, though it was quieter this time from inside my car. Seeing nothing but the junkyard around, I moved to a better vantage point to assess the situation.

Cautiously hugging the warehouse, I peeked around the corner to find two men wearing eye-catching red plate carriers in a maroon uniform underneath. They were both facing away from the warehouse, toward the scrap cars piled up. One of them had a hand raised, pointing it toward the rusty vehicles. The hand wasn’t a regular one but a prosthetic one that looked more like a gigantic gun barrel than a human limb.

Before I could get closer, the thunderous noise rang out again, much louder this time as I was in direct line of sight from the source. I watched the hand cannon fire, decimating the scrap metals in its way.

Assuming they were only doing target practice, I proceeded toward the clinic, albeit discreetly, trying not to draw their attention, just in case.

The door leading into the clinic was completely open, and I could see a small lobby area. There were a few people waiting in the lobby, all seeming to be the rough-looking mercenary type, with a few dressed in the same red uniform as the two outside.

Walking in, I spotted a lady behind the counter near the entrance smiling at me.

“Hi, I’m here to see Dr. Bennett.” I put an arm on the counter and leaned forward.

“Yes, take this, and please take a seat.” The lady ripped a queue ticket in a practiced motion and handed it to me.

I sat down and saw a screen displaying the queue. I patiently waited for my number to come up, spending the time surfing the web through my implants.

After almost an hour of waiting, I could finally see the doctor, an older man with a hunched back, wearing a monocle.

I repeated my sales pitch, which had been well practiced by now, to the doctor and handed him some samples for examination.

“Ahh, these are brand new, very good. How many of these do you have?” The doctor asked as he continued his examination.

“How much can you offer for these models?” I fired back. This was my last sale, and I didn’t want to sell too much for now. I only needed a bit more credits to hit my goal.

“Hmm… How about this price?” He sent over a small spreadsheet file with the models and offered prices directly to my SAID.

The prices were a lot lower than what I’d seen all day, which was around 35-50% of the retail price, while he offered a measly 25%.

“25% of the retail price is pretty low, I’ll need at least 40% or I’d rather try elsewhere.”

“Now, now. I am willing to buy in bulk, which I’m sure my colleagues wouldn’t. How about this? I can raise it to 30% at most.”

We spent another few minutes bargaining back and forth, but the doctor didn’t seem like he would budge any further. Being so close to my goal, I decided to take the hit and sell just enough to reach my goal.

With the transaction complete, I headed back home just as the sun started to set and texted my two employees.

Once I was home, I took in the now slightly more spacious living room, having sold off a few crates that were taking up space. I barely sold more than a tenth, but should now have enough to get the equipment I need and pay for the lease, considering I wasn’t looking for any prime locations.

Before long, Thorne arrived with Claire and began going over the result of her hard work.

“So, as you said, I went to look for the best potential spots for your clinic. Further narrowing down the options to the neighborhoods near District 10, there are three main types of properties listed here.”

Examining the file on the terminal placed on the table between us, I secretly looked up the address for each and left a marker on the minimap displayed directly in my eyes. Once everything was settled, I should really install a proper SAID and optics for these two.

“The first type is the street-level retail locations like these. Since we don’t have a license yet, we may not be able to openly operate, so this may not be the best option. The second one is these units inside various megabuildings and apartments. The third option is leasing properties from various complexes and plazas.”

Considering my primary target market for the foreseeable future was mercenaries, all the properties were near District 10, where Haven was located. All these options had their own pros and cons, but now that I had sufficient funds, I could go for the options that best fit my preferences. Which would be privacy in my situation.

“Let’s go for the commercial properties, something with privacy,” I said while tapping my finger on the table.

“Okay, in that case, these are the remaining options,” Claire started filtering the options on the terminal.

There were five options left, all similar in that they were separate buildings at a plaza, though two stood out to me. They were larger units that were a distance away from other buildings, being at the corner of the plaza. The road surrounded it on two sides and the parking lot on the other two.

Having made my decision, I gave the two each a look and stated, “Let’s go take a closer look at these two. Set up meetings so we can go take a tour.”

While I sat at a red light, I watched as the ECPD carried out body bags into a van while some old lady wearing a badge leaned against the car and smoked. It was awkward when the lady made eye contact with me, but thankfully, the light turned green.

Fighting the urge to steal a glance back at her, a timely call came in. The display showed the caller ID, Flo.

“Hey Rollo, you wanted to talk?”

“Yeah, I had a job for you guys to do. When do you think you guys are available?”

“Leo’s been recovering, so we haven’t taken any jobs recently, which means we’re free. What kind of job did you have in mind?”

“They’re some medical equipment I need, was hoping you could pull off a heist,” I said as I watched a group of ruffians, all armed and wearing matching green uniforms, march down the streets like they owned it.

“I thought stealing shit was more your thing. You expecting company?”

“The equipment I want is gonna take up a whole truck. I’d rather not sneak in a forklift.”

Honestly, I’d rather buy the equipment properly and save myself the trouble, but without a license to operate a clinic, the sales staff was giving me a hard time with how much they were increasing the price. I could’ve gotten a surrogate to buy it, but I didn’t know anyone I trusted enough with the money, and definitely had nothing to do with me wanting to get back at the sales staff.

“Hah, I’d love to see that.”

“I’ll be tagging along. Of course, I’ll need you guys to do the heavy lifting. Sending the detail to your SAID now.”

It only took a minute before Flo replied, “That’s some hardware alright. What do you need this for?”

“For my clinic. Didn’t I tell you? I’m starting a business.”

“Oh, is that why Fitel’s been bugging me about when you’re coming off hiatus?”

“I’ll get back to him once everything settles down. Anyway, I got to go. Let me know if your team has any issues with the plan. See you,” I said as the car pulled up and I gazed at the building in front of me.

“They’ll be good. Catch you later.”

Exiting the car, I immediately spotted Claire waiting at the door with some woman in a dull grey suit and skirt.

“Hey there Mr. Halls,” Claire cheerfully said while emphasizing the way she said mister, while winking at me.

“Nice to meet you, sir. I am Lea. Please feel free to ask me anything about the property.” The lady said while holding the door open and gesturing for me to enter.

We slowly toured the entire building. It wasn’t furnished at all, but was quite spacious and had two floors. The place seemed to be set up as more of an open retail space, though, so I would need to have walls built or dividers of some sort. It should have enough space to divide out six rooms and a lobby area on the first floor, and the second floor could be where I lived for now until everything was running smoothly.

We finished the tour after I had asked everything I needed regarding the potential work I needed done on the property and the details for the lease.

“Sir, we can definitely accommodate your needs. You only need to sign a one-year term lease with us.”

“I see. I’ll look over the details and get back to you. Thank you for your time,” I quickly departed before she had a chance to continue talking.

Claire drove with me this time to another location quite a ways away and met up with a young man this time who acted as our guide.

The place this time was even larger, though with the caveat, it was only one floor. The price was fairly similar to the previous ones, and it also fulfilled all the requirements I had come up with Claire previously. However, they wanted the lease term to be at least two years.

Once we finished the tours, I brought us to a nearby coffee shop of a chain I frequented as I was a fan of their milkshake, or chills, as they called it.

“So, what do you think?” I asked the girl in front of me while sipping on my drink.

“I like the location of the second one more, but the first one seemed to be better space-wise for a clinic. Both could work honestly.” Unlike a sweet tooth like me, she was chatting while enjoying a latte.

“Sounds about right. Let’s see what Thorne thinks before we finalize the decision.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Halls, you’re the boss!” She said mischievously.

I glared at her, she sounded like she really enjoyed calling me Mr. Halls though she used to just call me ‘boss’, while Thorne was more rigid and wouldn’t stop calling me Sir, not sure which one I preferred, they all made me sound old.

“Well, I sure hope you like doing logistics, because you’ll be responsible for all of that after I pick out all the furniture we’ll need.”

“What!? At least let me participate in the shopping too! That’s the fun part.”

“I have a feeling our tastes wouldn’t match. I’ll have Thorne shop with me this time.”

“No way! You guys are going to pick something so boring.”

“Boring is safe, and safe is good. Go decorate your own room.”

She stared daggers at me for a moment before replying, “...Maybe after I get my first paycheck, speaking of the first paycheck, that is worthy of commemoration right? I think you should commemorate it with a big bonus!”

“I’ll see what I can do after we’re done spending and start earning. For now, let’s head out. Thorne’s still waiting for us.”

“Right behind you! Mr. Halls!”

Okay, maybe I should look into some auditory implants.