Corpo Age

Chapter 157: Unexpected Expected Meeting

The day after I went to the gathering of powerful corpos, I spent my time freely within Aegis like a typical tourist. However, I couldn’t fully get into it because of the strange meeting I was invited to tomorrow by the representative of AeroDynamic, whom I had just recently met.

“Welcome to the Free Floating Bazaar. I hope you enjoy your stay,” the robot greeted us as soon as it scanned our tickets.

“Are you sure we should be coming to such a public area after that invitation?” Thorne asked, as he scanned the surroundings within his power armor.

We were getting a few looks, but most continued with their day after a moment of surprise.

“AeroDynamic is…much bigger than us at the moment. They wouldn’t need to plot in such a roundtable manner if they were out for us. No point in worrying too much about what we don’t know.”

“You know, how you’re acting says otherwise.”

“I’m fine.” I quickly turned the visor on my helmet, transparent to show my face to Thorne. “See?”

He shrugged, and we continued our way into the bazaar.

The Free Floating Bazaar was one of the largest marketplaces on Aegis, and a famous tourist attraction as well. It was a three-dimensional bazaar, with entire shops floating in the air. It combined the experience of microgravity with shopping.

The main reason we initially chose this place was because it didn’t restrict what we brought inside. Microgravity parks made visitors wear their suits, while here, we could bring in our power armor as an alternative.

We floated around as a party of six power armors, which made all the other visitors we came across steer out of our way. That was why I didn’t bother heading into any crowded stores, in case I got in the way of their business.

Most of the stores around sell electronic components, processing chips, or high-class equipment. There were also a few boutique clothing stores, but it didn’t attract me as much when I could find the same stores back in Elevate City.

The only store I visited was one of the larger weapon stores.

Their business was set up completely differently from what I was used to. It seems like they catered more to businesses rather than individual clients because their store was mostly empty. They simply had a desk with several terminals along with several weapons on the walls behind the counter.

I guess it’s no surprise, considering the mercenary scene isn’t exactly thriving up here.

At the thought of mercenaries, I couldn’t help but look forward to the meeting I arranged for tonight.

As much as I didn’t believe AeroDynamic to plot against me, I could never be too careful. I was in unfamiliar territory, so I reached out to Amos, a local QG, for some info.

He said he would need the entire day, so I still had some time to kill before meeting with him tonight.

I shelved those thoughts for now and turned my attention back to the weapon store I just entered.

“Welcome sir, was there anything in particular you were looking for?” The clerk greeted me respectively, likely thanks to our imposing entourage.

“I just wanted to take a look. I’ll call you if I need something.”

“Of course, sir, please feel free to view our products on this terminal here. If anything interests you, I’d be more than happy to bring out a sample for you.”

The clerk respectfully retreated and left me to my own device. I skimmed the list of products on the terminal while keeping an eye out on the other customers.

I initially came to the conclusion this store catered to corpos exactly because of the customers currently in their store. They mostly seemed to be middle-management level personnel of various corps, and I was curious about how other companies usually took care of procurement.

However, I quickly gave up as I realized they were all taking their time, likely communicating with their head office. There was no point observing if all their decision-making happened back in their office.

Instead, I carefully went over the selection the store had to offer, and boy, did it differ from what I was used to.

Instead of just the small arms I’ve seen in other stores, this store also dealt in a lot of advanced tech employed by corporations. They had various mini-nuclear reactors used in power armor, VTOLs, missiles, and even space-borne gunships.

They didn’t even have prices listed for some of the larger items, as it only told me to contact the clerks.

As interested as I was in a gunship, that was something to explore later when we were at least a D-Class company, where we would gain the privilege of operating in space.

I quickly switched to a different category of products lest it tempted me further and explored the more normal selection. They had everything I could imagine, including the cloud vests that could protect you from snipers and collisions to railgun rifles.

I couldn’t help but glance down at our own weaponry, as I found it pretty average. What we had was from the open market, as developing weapons was an entirely different ballgame.

I had some knowledge about railguns from my electrical engineering knowledge, but it was all theory. If I wanted to get into arms development, I would have to brush up on all the other intricacies of it and dedicate some serious research time to produce results.

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Even with the help of Lanus, it was hard to be competitive against the arms industry. The corporate players in that market were all powerful corporations with hundreds of thousands of employees at their beck and call. I’m sure just the number of employees in their R&D could outnumber my entire company.

Realizing I wouldn’t be making my own anytime soon, I decided to place an order for a few weapons that caught my eye.

The first one I bought was listed as a marksman railgun, similar to what Joey’s company employed. It fired powerful rounds with high penetration at the cost of a slow fire rate. To compensate for that, I bought what appeared to be an oversized assault rifle with multiple barrels that enabled a higher fire rate.

I only bought six of each for the team with me because they weren’t cheap at all. They each cost over twenty thousand credits and there was the ammunition and power supply to worry about as well.

After our shopping trip, we went ahead and spent the remaining time at a cafe near Amos’ place. We watched the numerous residents from the second floor of the cafe heading in and out of Amos’ shop that he used as a front.

“That old guy should be making quite a sum just from his legit business alone,” Thorne muttered.

“I guess it’s required if you want to spend any of the funds he earns as a QG without drawing too much attention.”

“There’s no way he’s not under surveillance from the other corps, right? They must know about him.”

“Probably, but he’s a convenient tool for them. Allows them to mess with each other without taking the fall for it.”

“Ha, knowing that wily old fox, he won’t be satisfied being at the mercy of others. I bet he has some ace up his sleeve, like a fleet of spaceships or something.”

I chucked at Thorne’s imagination. I couldn’t discount it entirely because I heard Amos had been an asteroid miner, so he must know a thing or two about ships. It wouldn’t hurt to consult him when I expanded to space.

As we chatted around while enjoying some coffee, we spotted a familiar face walking by down below.

“Isn’t that the kid from that gig the old man made us do?” Thorne said as he rubbed his chin. “What’s his name again?”

“Pino…the mercenary kid…”

Upon seeing his face, I immediately remembered when he tried to hand-feed me his plan to help extract his sister. He said he had a knack for plotting simulations and had come up with a plan based on it. I didn’t give it too much of a look as it didn’t account for our abilities, but now that my research projects could make use of such simulations, I reconsidered.

“Let’s go greet him.”

We caught him just as he was about to enter Amos’ shop. He flinched dramatically upon turning around to see our power armors.

“Pino, it’s been some time. Can we talk?” I gestured toward a nearby alley.

“Umm…sure…”

“So, how are you doing since the last time we met?”

“Not bad…” He glanced cautiously at us. “Was there something I can help you with?”

“Actually, yeah. I was curious about the simulations you showed me last time. Can I see how you do them?”

“Umm…okay?”

After some fumbling, he sent me a few files from his terminal.

It didn’t take me long to analyze it with my knowledge of software. However, the part that impressed me was the accuracy of the mathematical models he employed.

With my software engineering skills, I was familiar with simulation programs, but the accuracy of it was another matter. I was missing so much data for Lanus to simulate what we needed. The models Pino used instead of data were exactly what I needed.

“So you have a knack for math, right?”

He blinked blankly for a moment, confused.

“A little bit?”

“What do you think about working for my company? You can bring your sister, too.”

“...You want me to work for a corp…? And become a corpo? ” He looked completely astonished. “What’s the catch?”

“Nothing. It’s just that I could use your help in my research department. There’s a lot of stuff we could optimize with your work. You would have to come down to Elevate City, though.”

“Umm…I don’t know. Thank you for the offer, but I’ve never thought about leaving Aegis before.”

He quickly darted out of the alley and I shrugged when I saw Thorne’s amused look.

“Anyway…It’s almost time for our appointment. We should be fine, being a little early.”

We were smoothly led towards the back of the shop after we said the secret code to the storekeeper, where we took the loading elevator down to where Amos was.

We found the old man sitting there, watching the same old flatscreen TV from our previous visit. He only spared me a quick glance before tossing a data chip my way.

I skimmed over its contents, which was the report I commissioned him on regarding the meeting place tomorrow, and the person I was meeting.

“Is this it?” I couldn’t help but ask after going over everything. “There’s basically nothing useful here.”

“Nothing coming up is an answer in itself.”

“...You’re saying they’re clean?”

“That or they hid it well, which means she’s operating under the blessing of her entire corp. It’s safe to say this isn’t the case of an employee taking action independently, like I initially suspected.”

“And why did you suspect such a thing in the first place?”

“Happens more than you think. This Jewel you have there. Her name came up before when some other corpos had me do things to help them with their internal politics. You’re on your own from here on, kid. Not much I can do when an entire A-Class corp is at work here.”

“...”

---

Armed with the knowledge that this representative of AeroDynamic was acting under the auspice of her company, I went to the meeting as scheduled.

The location was at Launder’s Cafe, a run-of-the-mill cafe found on the border of the industrial spaceport and the corporate one. Its clientele seemed to be a mix of spaceship captains and carefree, affluent family members of corpos on vacation.

It struck a nice balance of being classy without the stuffiness of following strict etiquette.

I sat in the corner on the second floor after getting my drink. I was in my power armor that was hidden under a projection that made me appear to be a regular corpo enjoying my time off.

I carefully examined all the other guests as I waited for the time to pass. I arrived slightly early, and it appeared the other party had yet to arrive.

When the time in the corner of my vision changed to 14:30, I focused on the entrance being displayed through the lens of one of my Nyes. However, no one approached, especially not the lady named Jewel whom I had met two days prior.

When I was about to text Thorne to get an update on the perimeter, I saw a man, who had been sitting with his family of three until now, get up from his table and head straight for me.

He had short brown hair and a fit build that was absent of any visible cybernetics.

He sat down without hesitation and flashed me a warm smile.

Just as I was about to speak, he gestured for me to stay silent. He then took out a circular device from his pocket and placed it on the table. I saw a shimmering flash around us for a split second that reminded me of an energy shield.

“Okay, now we can talk, Mr. Halls. Allow me to first introduce myself. I am Titus Adiar, a majority stakeholder of AeroDynamic.”