Corpo Age

Chapter 18: Setting Up Shop

Thorne - Rollo Halls Associate

“Stay there and watch, don’t do anything unless I say so or you’re spotted.”

“Yes, sir, I’ll do my best. I think I’m getting the hang of how to stay out of sight.”

For the past month, he had followed his new employer out during the night to hunt down miscreants of society. He had been taught how to stay away from them his entire life, so it was strange to be searching for them instead.

His employer nodded and quickly melded into the shadows of night. If he wasn’t used to looking out for it, he would definitely lose sight of him. Luckily, he knew where he was going, so it was much easier to keep track of his boss.

With practiced ease, he watched his boss slip a tracker onto the target’s vehicle and return to his location in a dark alley.

They then both monitored the car with the help of the night vision mode on their optics.

Thankfully, his new employer offered him a set of optics and SAID and allowed him to pay it back in installments deducted from his pay.

The norm was for companies to force employees to use their standard cybernetics that they retained ownership of. If you left the job, they would recover them whether you agreed or not. You wouldn’t even be able to get away with them as the company cybernetics had software that monitored their employees 24/7 that obviously came with trackers.

After a few more minutes, the criminals they were tracking returned to their car, carrying a person over their shoulder. They tossed an unconscious girl into the back where several other victims lay and started their car up.

The two gave chase in a car of their own, following them from a distance. Even though it wasn’t their first time doing this, Thorne couldn’t help but feel excited. It was every kid’s dream to be a superhero who lurked in the dark and preyed on the villains.

That was until he learned how that only worked in fiction, and in reality, the best way to survive was to live with your head down and avoid drawing any attention. His family had done just that, but his mom had still ended up with a sad ending.

That was why his new goal was to attain strength. He needed it to protect himself and his friends. He planned to never let what happened to his mom be repeated ever again.

“Thorne, you there?”

“Yes sir, sorry, I spaced out.”

“Are you sure you’re okay? You don’t have to come with me if you’re tired.”

“Yes, I’m fine, sir. Let’s finish this before the sun rises or Claire is going to talk our ears off again.”

“Yeah… you have a point. It looks like we found one of the bigger hideouts this time too. Let’s hurry. Same old rules, follow my lead.”

The car we had been tracking had stopped in the back alley of some desolate stores. They parked their ride a distance away and approached the tracker.

The duo spotted their targets, two men carrying the bodies, one at a time, down into the basement of the building.

Making sure he kept up with his employer, Mr. Halls, they made their way behind the car. Then he received a text.

*We’ll each take one down the next time they come back*

Not long after, the door squeaked open and the two figures returned to the car. As they were pulling out another victim from the back, he struck out with his combat knife, slitting the man’s throat as he had another hand over his mouth, like he had trained to do. He held the man, preventing his body from dropping, and gently laid it on the ground.

Once he was done, he saw Mr. Halls standing above the other body. He came over and plunged his combat knife into the back of the head of his kill. He didn’t question it as it wasn’t the first time it happened and his employer didn’t seem to want to talk about it.

He had thought Rollo didn’t trust he had done a proper job at first, but he kept reassuring him, so he decided to just stop overthinking it.

The two then entered the basement where the two men came from. The entire time he was focused on Mr. Hall’s movement as he had picked up a few things from it, but he was still far away from being about to move so quietly with such agility.

They soon spotted a room where they kept their victims, a small holding cell, a few tables where they could strap victims onto, various cybernetic parts lying sprawled across the room, and some clear containers that had various organs in them.

So these guys were a bunch of harvesters, sickos who stole people’s chrome and organs and resold them.

He gripped his weapon tighter, secretly thankful that he hadn’t been kidnapped by these people instead of the research corp.

At the far end of the room, a bright white light shined on a table. Through the curtains, they could make out the silhouette of someone standing by the table holding various sharp tools.

“AHHHHH STOP!” A voice yelled out from the table, followed by laughter tinted with insanity.

Thorne aimed his silenced pistol at the laughing man when a hand was placed on his shoulder. He turned to see Mr. Halls giving him a look and soon found another incoming text.

*Calm down, gather information about our surroundings first. We’ll take that guy out all right, but we need to play it smart.*

Taking a deep breath, he nodded back and followed. There was an open door behind the gruesome scene happening. There was a room with several couches, each with a person resting on it. From their glowing irises, it was obvious they were focused on what was displayed in their optics.

There was a set of stairs from that room that led up as well, but it was locked with heavy chains.

Having scouted out the entire place, they meticulously ended the lives of all the preoccupied harvesters. They then made their way back to the other room, where he let out all of his frustrations at the man who had still been operating on the poor man on the table.

While he had dealt with the last disgusting harvester, Mr. Halls adeptly operated on the victim. He rummaged through the room and found some prosthetic organs and limbs that he used to put the man back together.

It took over half an hour; Thorne used the time to check in on the other victims who were still alive and packed away all the ill-gotten chrome the harvesters had. By the time the two finished up in that basement and ensured all the victims would be okay, the darkness of the night sky started to brighten.

Status

Level:

8

EXP:

40/800

Musculoskeletal:

51

Neural Reflex:

15

Visuomotor Coordination:

12

Endurance:

9

Sensory Perception:

37

Upgrade Points:

4

Upgrades:

Enhancements:

SAID: Zenitech Hoth Mk.3

Optics: Nova Tech Stars Mk.4

Cyberarm (Left): Nova Tech Mudra Mk.6

“Seriously, you two, do you always have to go out until morning?”

“But Claire, we had to…”

Checking out my progress from last night, I ate my first meal of the day while Claire was giving us an earful. Well, more like giving Thorne an earful, so I let him handle it.

I was busy studying my status sheet, where I recently found my endurance had gone up by one. I didn’t install any new augments or anything but it went up.

I hadn’t had the chance to go on any gigs as I had to focus on supervising the clinic while renovations were done. There were expensive cybernetics and equipment lying around, after all.

That left only nighttime to do some community cleanup, which Thorne had started tagging along. Not sure if I was lucky or not, but the area around my clinic had quite a few harvesters. Maybe that was why they were eager to lease this place out, even if it was only for a one-year contract.

Maybe all the exercise from all the outings was what increased my endurance. If it was, it was a lot slower than simply installing a new cybernetic instead.

Anyway, it was convenient that I was able to find a few wrongdoers every night, and that has helped me make good progress on leveling up.

Now that I had four upgrade points available, I wasn’t sure what to upgrade with them. Of course, I could invest them all into cybernetic engineering, but that may draw unwanted attention if someone who had no prior record of studying the field was able to suddenly create sophisticated implants.

Maybe I was paranoid, but I’m sure someone would find out eventually just from the cybernetics I would be installing from my handiwork. Each time I upgraded it, I learned a little more about how to configure it to help it fit more seamlessly with the intended user. However, I was starting to feel the diminishing return.

Another thing that stopped me from upgrading cybernetic engineering was because of the allure of spending the points elsewhere. Having learned more about cybernetics, I realized it would require putting some upgrade points into software engineering in order to design and create the software for the new cybernetics for it to function the way I wanted it to.

I also had to spend points on stealth technology itself as well. With leveling up being harder and harder each level, I didn’t need to dump everything into cybernetics engineering when I didn’t have the use for it right now, which was why I have been holding out on the upgrade points.

Maybe I should see how it went with my clinic first and do more market research on the type of cybernetic I wanted to create. The upgrade points didn’t expire, so there was no need to make a decision right away.

“--oss, hey boss, you hear me?” Glancing over, I found both Claire and Thorne staring at me.

“Sorry, what’s up?”

“The foreman said they’ll be done by tonight. Is it okay if I have the furniture delivered tomorrow morning?”

Finish by tonight? That is pretty fast by my old world’s standard. Thank you, whatever technology that sped it up.

“Sure, I’ll try to have all the medical equipment set up before then so we can move the new stuff around freely.”

“...Are you sure you’re going to be awake tomorrow morning? You’re not going off all night again, are you?” Claire wore a scowl on her face and alternated looking between me and Thorne.

“Yeah, don’t plan to tonight. Let’s have the clinic open tomorrow. It’s time to get the revenue to start rolling in. Actually, let’s all go out for drinks tonight.” Sensing Claire staring daggers at me, I quickly added, “We’re going to Haven to start marketing to our potential clients!”

Haven

Sitting at a table out in the main lobby, I had Thorne and Claire beside me while on the couch were Max, Liz, Leo, and Lana.

“So you’re finally opening soon, eh? Flo and Erza couldn’t make it tonight, but I’ll get the word out to them and a few other acquaintances.” The brown-haired man said across from me while embracing his large rifle as usual.

“Hmph, I guess I could try reaching out to my acquaintances as well, but I doubt they will check out some unlicensed back alley clinic.” Said the girl, who was holding onto Leo’s arm.

“Hey, come on, don’t be like that. Sorry, Rollo, she may have worded her words badly but our circle comprises mostly ex-corpo like us, so they aren’t exactly anti-corpo and would rather go to official clinics,” Leo helpfully elaborated.

From what I heard, most hackers and their ilk were ex-corpos who were out on their luck but were looking to get hired again by another corporation while showing off their skills.

“No worries, just spread the word if you can, no need to force it,” Leo nodded in response.

I looked over at Liz, whose eyes never stopped having the distinct glow of watching something through her optics. She leaned back lazily into the couch while she continued to grab the snacks off the table.

Yeah, I’ll leave her alone.

We then drank and made merry. My two employees familiarized themselves with the rest of the group. They brought us around to some other groups they had known and overall; it was a fun night.

Hopefully, I will see some familiar faces tomorrow as customers on my first day.