I watched as my employee pulled the trigger with his gun trained on one of our customers without hesitation, but his weapon simply clicked. His eyes widened, and he quickly pulled the trigger once more, to no avail.

His weapon wasn’t loaded, and the magazine was missing.

For a moment there, I was about to have my spy implant overload and kill the traitor. It wasn’t exactly intended, but simply an option that was always open when I had access to the nanomachines within their bodies. Usually, their SAID should have a failsafe against these types of remote controls, but I had root control of the SAID from our company software as well.

However, I noticed our first responder, an employee by the name of Drew, had succeeded.

We didn’t want to make a scene and wanted to question our traitor, so I was happy that Drew succeeded in disarming him.

As our traitor was dumbfounded at the fact that his gun had been unloaded, the mercenary caught on that no bullets were coming his way, so he lunged forward and shoved his assailant aside. He didn’t hesitate to dart for the exit, only looking back to ensure he wouldn’t get attacked.

His reaction showed he still had it together, despite my employee’s provocation. It wouldn’t be smart of him to kill a corpo on the clock, as that would usually mean earning a target on his back. It was the correct choice to just run to avoid any further trouble.

I quickly sent a message to one of our guards, who had just arrived around the perimeter, to stop that man and compensate him for his troubles. Explaining to him that it was a rogue agent he encountered and giving him some credit was a lot easier than having to deal with negative gossip that would make the rounds if he talked. It was likely what our enemy was aiming for when they commanded their spy to take action.

‘Take him in. We’ll receive him outside.’ I messaged Drew.

A moment after my message, I watched the outline of Drew, quickly restraining the confused Derek, and carried him out of the building. I couldn’t help but turn off his outline for a second to witness the ridiculous scene the bystanders were seeing of Derek floating away.

When he got outside, one of our factory-new armored personnel carriers was waiting in the lot. I named it Steel Guardian, and it had two variants. The one before Drew was the basic version that could carry sixteen people.

The other one I had designed but yet to create was meant for holding power armors. There was no point making one before I finalized our power armor design because the APC was supposed to be a mobile workshop for it as well. We also only had the two power armors, so it wasn’t worth having a carrier for it yet.

Drew deactivated his camouflage and walked into the empty Steel Guardian with our man.

I soon drew my attention away from Drew’s feed as we began pulling up into the same lot as well.

I strode into our Steel Guardian with Thorne in tow and closed the rear door behind us.

“Sir, as you have instructed, I have restrained Derek. I still find it hard to believe Derek would betray us, though…”

“It’s best if you stay out of it if you’re his friend,” I replied after noting his worried expression.

“No sir! Please let me participate in interrogating him. We may be from the same department, but that may prove helpful in getting him to talk.”

Reading his file, he seemed trustworthy enough to me, and it was true our captive may be more willing to talk to a familiar face.

“Fine, you can do the talking, but listen to our instructions. I’ll be messaging you.”

“Of course, sir!”

I messaged all our personnel to get ready to leave the area and our vehicle got into motion. There was no one in the back of the Steel Guardian we were in except for me, Thorne, Drew, and our traitor, Derek. The driver was in his separate compartment up front, and wouldn’t be able to hear anything going on back here.

As the car hit the road, I made the helmet of my power armor transparent so I could come face-to-face with our traitor. He grimaced upon making eye contact, and I stepped closer to get a better look at him.

I shook my head and backed off to let Drew do the talking.

“Derek! Please tell us what happened!” He immediately yelled as he came up right next to him. Derek had been restrained, so he couldn’t move away from his co-worker.

“I…” He looked down at the ground and closed his eyes.

As the vehicle picked up speed, I took a seat. With the power armor on, I easily took up two seats, but with only four of us here, there was still ample space.

“Seat down first and look at him. We’re having a civilized conversation here.” I interjected.

Drew sighed and took a seat beside Derek while Thorne remained standing right beside them.

‘Ask him to tell us about his employer and everything he knows. I had people check out his background, and it seems like he used his real address where his family lives. I don’t think he’s that dumb if he was a professional spy, so I’m willing to hear him out.’ I messaged Drew.

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Tell me, Derek. Were you threatened?”

“...No.”

I raised an eyebrow and looked at Thorne. To be honest, I wasn’t expecting him to respond so decisively or at all, but this was a pleasant surprise.

“Then why did you do it? Did the company mistreat you somehow, or you did do it just for some money?” Drew continued.

“No! No to both! I know very well how well our company treats their employees despite this being my first job with a corp.”

“Then why?”

“You thoroughbred corpos would never understand.” Derek glanced away and muttered.

“Of course, we can’t understand if you don’t tell us!”

“...”

“Derek! Talk to me here! We’re not trying to screw you over or we would’ve done it by now!”

“Fine! I’ll tell you then if it’ll make you happy! It’s because I’m from the slums! And the slums have this thing called gratitude that we won’t fail to repay! I doubt you corpos who only value your career, money, and yourselves so much would understand, though.”

He then went on about how a certain individual had been funding many initiatives in his neighborhood since he was little. They had brought food and medicine to their community, saving many of the residents.

All of us who heard the story immediately thought this generous person who had helped Derek’s community was affiliated with the corp that was targeting us right now.

I quickly relayed the info to the intel department so they could follow up on the matter with our own investigations while Derek continued to ramble on. It was apparent that he saw his benefactor as a saint, which explained his motive. He only stopped talking when the door opened once more, as we arrived back in our compound.

During the expansion of our base, there was one area we ensured was built, which was the holding cells. It was no secret we often had prisoners from our conflicts, so we made sure to leave room for our jail. It was an underground facility located near the security department.

We handed off Derek to one of our staff to bring him into his cell while the three of us went to my office to debrief the results of our interrogation.

“Sir…while I may not understand the stupidity behind Derek’s logic, this type of incident isn’t unheard of and is something many corpos have been warned about since young. May I voice my suggestion?”

“You may.”

“I didn’t want to say this before, but now that it’s come to this, I wanted to advise you to stop recruiting from the general public. We should only recruit from real corpos who understand how the game is played.”

I blinked blankly for a second as I tried to understand what he was explaining.

If I was reading him correctly, he was saying that only people with a corpo family background were trustworthy enough to hire. They knew how to pick their bed and lay in it, while the so-called ‘commoners’ were more unpredictable and susceptible to being influenced by other corporations.

His idea wasn’t something I had thought of before. To me, it made no difference what their background was as long as they were capable. Of course, we would filter them over interviews and only hire ones that seemed likely to remain loyal, but it seems there was a reason the corpo caste had been born.

“I have heard your suggestion and will consider it, but I can tell you it isn’t likely. Just look at who most of our executives are, or even at me.”

“I understand, sir… Like I said, I wasn’t going to bring this up either until this happened.”

“Thank you. You may go back to work now. I assume your department is getting a bit busy with all the sabotage that has recently taken place against us.”

“Yes, sir!” He saluted and quickly walked out of my office, leaving me and Thorne shaking our heads.

Here comes the painful part of waiting for the next developments. Now that hints of the fog obscuring our enemy will soon be cleared up, it’s getting harder and harder to sit still and work on my projects. Maybe I should direct my attention to the power armor I’ve been neglecting.

----------------------------------------

Spike - Halls Corporation

“You are to drop what you’re doing and head over to the address I’m sending you to investigate a person of interest. They are known as the sponsor of the economically disadvantaged area you’re heading to.” The Halls Corporation’s head of intelligence sternly commanded across the video call.

“Yes ma’am. I’m on it.” The short and broad man responded.

“Oh, and Spike, you should clean up your beard first.”

The man’s eyes widened as the call was swiftly ended by the other party. He quickly grabbed the rearview mirror and aligned it with himself and got a good look at himself. He found a few crumbs tainting his flawless beard, and he quickly brushed them out. There were a few stubborn pieces stuck deeper into his beard that went down to his lower stomach, and he had to carefully pick at it to get it out.

When his prized beard was clean once more, he quickly drove off toward his new destination.

He parked his car in a secluded alley and glanced over the mission details to prepare himself. Afterward, he reached into the back of his car and fetched out a new set of clothes. He had a neat collection that ranged from fancy suits to rags that allowed him to play any role he would like.

While he had his company’s cybernetic, the Shade to project different appearances for him, it simply didn’t compare to the authentic article when he had to engage in intimate conversations with people to gather information.

He got changed into a cheap and slightly dirty set of clothes before making his way toward the main road.

The area he was in was filled with a bunch of low-rise apartments that seemed quite dated. None of them stood over thirty floors and were one of the relics from the previous generations. Its age made the place cheap to live in, catering to the unfortunate who even struggled to get a place in the affordable megabuildings.

However, if there was one thing going for it, then it would be how united the community was.

It didn’t take long for him to flag down one of the local residents, who regarded him cautiously with bloodshot eyes.

“Hey there, I’m from Hellum, and I heard you folks around here have a generous sponsor?” Spike introduced himself to the lady he found.

Spike casually impersonated himself as a resident of another low-economical condition area.

“What’s it to you?”

“I want to speak with them about helping our community as well. We’ve got people starving and in need of medicine. I was hoping to speak with this kind gentleman of yours.”

While Spike wore a troubled expression, he was expecting the other party to direct him to someone who was often in contact with the mysterious benefactor or reject him for being an outsider. But instead, the woman started tearing up.

“Ah, you’re talking about Mr. Benedict…” She covered her eyes and sniffled. “He’s dead.”