I breathed in deeply as I listened to Flo about how Erza had gone out of contact. I knew how close she was with Flo and remembered how she had helped guide me when I initially came to this world. My first instinct was to shout that I would tag along in her search, but times have changed. I couldn’t just leave on a whim, especially when the case about our malfunctioning products was ongoing.
These incidents would have a high impact on our reputation and the confidence of our customers. The more we expanded, the more the scale of things grew. Every setback had magnified consequences, as it wasn’t so easy to find alternatives when the monetary amount had grown so much.
“...I…Take one of our teams with you.”
“I can’t—”
“Do it for me and go call Andrew. His team should still be on break since he last followed me up to Aegis.”
“...Understood. Thank you.”
As the call finished, I immediately notified our intel department to keep an eye out for Erza while I got back to investigating the source of our faulty products.
There were currently three main plausible theories.
The first one was a natural defect that only occurs in specific environments or conditions unknown to me. We had tested out the Argus in every common condition it would operate in, but we couldn’t confidently we had tested every possibility. We simply didn’t have the capabilities to do so as the big corps did.
The second was that there was a problem somewhere in our production. It could be embezzlement with someone selling our waste products that didn’t meet our standards. Or even be an honest mistake somewhere in our production process. What I didn’t want to think about was the possibility of traitors within our ranks.
I had previously implemented spying measures against all my employees and so far I haven’t gotten any alerts. I would be quite sad to find someone had noticed and gotten around the stealth implant I had installed. With more and more employees now, I had even spent some time integrating it into our other implants like the Shade, where the nanomachines would then reassemble themselves inside my employees.
The last plausible reason was we were being actively sabotaged. It wasn’t surprising if some corporations found us an eyesore and took hostile action against us. Not every corp resorted to brute force as their first resort. In fact, waging economic wars and intrigue behind the scenes was more common. And this kind of sabotage was exactly something I could see them do.
I would have to wait and see if any additional incidents pop up first to gather more information, though. So far, the two cases didn’t have any commonalities in regard to where they were sourced and who they were sold to. It was only the way they malfunctioned that was the same.
All kinds of possibilities were still open.
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Drew - Halls Corporation
“Oakley, over here!” Drew placed down his cup of coffee and raised his hands at his coworker to direct his attention to the corner he was seated at.
The man spotted him and waved back before getting into the line to place his order. Living up to their moniker of being a fast-food restaurant, it didn’t even take five minutes until he sat down in front of Drew with a tray full of food.
He silently began eating while Drew watched as he sipped on his milkshake in between bites. Their table was quiet until Oakley was fully done with his burger and moved on to his fried crickets.
“How did your investigation go?” Drew asked, leaning in toward his colleague.
Oakley finished chewing his food first and took a sip of his drink to wash it all down before replying.
“I found nothing. I got all their records, camera footage, everything was in order, and the cyber-doc didn’t seem to be lying either.”
“You sure their clinic or supplier didn’t fiddle with our products?”
“My clinic is around the upper mid tier range. They bring products in the box for the clients to break the seal. The client should’ve noticed if it came with a broken seal.”
“But there’s still the chance they just resealed it. Shouldn’t put it past them, especially when they deal in so much chrome on a regular basis.”
“If that was the case, they would’ve taken out some parts for money. The sample we retrieved wasn’t missing anything. There’s no motive for the doc to randomly fiddle with a product and reseal it.”
“...Corporate sabotage?”
“Maybe, but any clinic that willingly goes along with it probably won’t be in business for long with how common that is.” Oakley paused to take another bite before continuing. “How about you? Anything on your end?”
Drew ruefully shook his head.
“My doc won’t breathe a word. I was hoping you had better luck before I had to take more drastic actions.”
“Need help?”
“No, I’ll be fine.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
The two men nodded at each other and then each silently finished their drinks before leaving separately to go about their duties.
He got back into his car and entered the last used GPS address. Judging from the clinic’s schedule, he believed it was probably better to do it earlier in the day rather than later.
Parking his car in the same lot as last time, he surveyed the area in an alleyway. After activating his Shade, he nonchalantly strode into the same building he had been to earlier. However, he wouldn’t be taking the luxury of an elevator this time and had to climb up eight floors’ worth of stairs.
Thankfully, he hadn’t stopped training his body since his days as an active member of the security force. He may have been promoted to Senior Compliance Investigator, but he still thought of himself as an active soldier for the corporation. It was just that his enemies were different, and the methods to handle them were more varied.
Having climbed up to the eighth floor without pause, Drew quietly opened the door from the stairwell and found himself in the large waiting area, right where the elevators were. The place was still empty, with only the green-haired lad at the counter.
Good, they really don’t open until the sun sets.
He watched the young man at the reception desk for a few moments and only moved once he confirmed he was busy watching something on his optics. The scans from his Argus showed the old doc was stationary in another room, so he confidently walked into the back.
He soon arrived at the workshop the old doctor had been using to work on a cyberarm when he had talked with him and proceeded further when he found nothing of use. He skipped the various operating rooms until he reached one in the back that seemed to be an office.
After setting the Argus to scan in short intervals, he wasted no time and immediately got to work. He plugged into the terminal and found some hefty defenses in the way, so he activated the software from the geeks that created a connection back to his company’s cy-sec department. He was confident even with this outgoing connection, they wouldn’t be detected by the civilian setup here.
He only had to wait a few minutes before a cy-sec specialist from head office helped him secure access to the terminal. He swiftly downloaded everything while he skimmed over the contents.
It was mostly client files and inventory information, which were all things he wanted to take a closer look at. However, this terminal didn’t have access to any of the camera feeds around this place.
Using his company’s app, he quickly sent a message to the cy-sec personnel to help him look into it. It took a little longer this time, but ten minutes later, he received the location of where the camera feeds were stored.
Once his download finished, he proceeded to move to the newfound location only to realize it was exactly where the young man, with bright green hair, was sitting.
Arriving back in the main waiting area, he could only scratch his cheeks as he watched the young man leaning back on his chair, talking to himself as he was busy watching something on his optics.
Back in camo training, they did say people who were lost in their optics were the blindest people around…But ignoring them in a live scenario is a bit…
Taking a deep breath to calm himself, Drew forced himself to take action. He crept up right next to the young man and plugged into the terminal while standing right above him. If whatever he had played on his optics stopped for a second, he would instantly see a cable hanging above him.
No wonder our company bans the use of our optics for anything that takes up more than half our vision while we’re on duty.
Drew had to rein himself in every time the young man moved, sometimes bursting into laughter. He could only pray that his company’s cy-sec specialists could do their thing faster. The download that should’ve been only a minute or two felt like an eternity for Drew.
Still, no issues occurred, and he was able to successfully gather all the footage he was looking for. Just as he unplugged from the terminal, the elevator suddenly dinged, announcing the arrival of someone.
The young man quickly righted himself as he stared impatiently at the elevator doors opening.
Drew could feel his cold sweat dripping down his neck as he thought about how he would’ve been caught if he had just been a few seconds slower.
He didn’t bother to see who arrived and quickly retreated.
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Andrew - Halls Corporation
“Are we going back to space so Peng can float around again?”
“No Peng, this is the airport, not the spaceport.” Andrew dryly replied while he looked over his team and the leader of their new mission.
He was going to be the second in command this time, with their former instructor, the tall and muscular woman with a red cyberarm leading them. Her aura had changed since the last time Andrew had seen her, being especially serious right now, but he couldn’t blame her for it either.
They had been briefed about their objective, which was the search and rescue of their instructor’s long-time co.
Andrew could sense the entire team’s hunger for the mission details, but he waited until they boarded their flight to broach the subject.
“Instructor Flo, can you share any intel you may have to help us on our mission?”
The once-always energetic and reliable instructor simply kept her eyes closed as she responded.
“Just her last known locations and who she last associated with. Here, you take a look.”
Andrew received a file with the details and quickly forwarded it to his team members, which was mostly just Brian and Mark, as he knew Peng wouldn’t care either way.
The three quietly discussed among themselves over the flight, all the way up until they got into their rooms in Lion City.
Once they had settled their luggage, they immediately grouped up and prepared to start their search.
“What’s the plan, instructor Flo?” Andrew asked as everyone else’s representative.
“You will all support me in the background. Stay out of sight while I investigate, and just watch for anyone trying to catch me by surprise.”
“...Instructor, it would be much more efficient if we all split off and did our own investigation.”
“No, too much risk for you guys in unfamiliar territory. You’re company loanouts that I don’t plan on damaging.”
“...If you insist…You’re in charge.”
“Yes, I insist. Now tail me from a distance while I go investigate Erza’s hotel room.”
The group then headed for the hotel several streets away. It was business as normal for most of them, as the outer section of Lion City was the only part foreigners had access to and was practically identical to many metropolises around the world.
Andrew could only watch as his team leader charged boldly into the lobby of the mid-tier hotel. He and his team struggled to keep up while in stealth, being mindful not to bump into anyone on the way.
They caught up just in time to see everyone in the lobby of the hotel staring cautiously at the intimidating woman who boldly strode forward toward reception.
I’m so glad we had taken the time to think it out and had the foresight to book a hotel that’s a small distance away because we could foresee what was about to go down…