Max stepped out of his office, to the hallway leading from there to the reception area, through which he could leave. The building itself wasn’t to big, but it still could fit everything Max needed it to. He was content with it.

Stepping into the room, he saw one of his employees sitting at the desk, busily tapping away at her keyboard, doing paperwork. Normally all the paperwork and cataloging would be handled by Prime, but there were still some things that people wanted a human to handle. That’s what the girl at the reception desk, Hela, was working on - whenever she was not busy with customers.

She was just a few years younger than Max, still in her early twenties. A fact that she didn’t seem to mind. The office clothing she wore helped sell her intelligent look, their loose contours slimming. Not that she needed the help, on either front.

She had a wireless earpiece, same as Max’s, hidden in her black hair draped to the side to cover it. It was evident that Prime had not told her he was coming by, else she would have already risen to greet him.

Max raised his hand as he casually greeted her, “Hey.”

Hela’s face immediately brightened up, both for having been saved from mind-numbing work, and because of who had done so, “Good evening, boss.”

She continued beaming. Something Max was impervious to.

“Oh, it’s evening already?”

“Yup.” She said, chuckling merrily.

“You looked tired, so I let you sleep.”

Not wanting to be the reason he fell over, was also one of her considerations. One she would not tell him.

Max scratched the side of his head, “Bored, rather. I did find something interesting to do, though. I’m just going to one of the alleys behind this building, but things could get interesting.”

Hela knew exactly what he meant. She quickly started to panic, her radiant smile gone in an instant.

“D-Do you need back-up?” She quickly spouted, speech slightly slurred. Hela reached for the shotgun under the counter. She knew it was loaded, having checked only a few hours ago. The long weapon did not suit her.

“Calm Down, Prime said there was no one nearby, you don’t have to worry. It’s very unlikely that anything happens, I just want you to stay here and be on your guard.”

Hela calmed down, though still tenser than before. She let out a sigh of relief, “Alright, but remember to come back if things get out of hand. Things always get out of hand with you.”

Max quirked an eyebrow, already halfway through the door, “Now that’s just slander. It only happened a few times”

Hela narrowed her eyes at him. “A few times, you say? What about operation ‘Strix’? Mission ‘Black Esper’? ‘Black Wolf’? Remember operation ‘Tetragon’? Just a basic raid to your average group of bandits? But when you got there it was a cult instead? Why did you think the Omega would be a good idea anyway! You pissed off the entire military, pulling the whole company into the damned mess! Turned into a bloody four-sided free for all! And Mission ‘All-Seeing-Hawk’? The fucki-!”

Max quickly raised his hands to stop Hela, “Okay, okay! Fine, you win! I’ll make sure nothing happens.” Hela didn’t look like she was going to stop anytime soon. All three of them knew she had many, many more points to list. Max had to cut her off before any more time was wasted.

She just continued fuming, silently.

Everything she listed -and many things she had yet to- had all happened since the company’s founding, just five years ago. All things that got so ‘interesting’ they impacted the lives of thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of people. A huge number, compared to the size of Bertha, and compared to how small the Alphas were. Just a handful of people.

Their tasks were largely divided into operations, and missions. The former were generally strategic operations, thus the name. They involved the entire company, or a large military force, or sometimes both. Sometimes, more than that even. Missions on the other hand, only needed a very small group, often just a single person. There were times when the company was handling multiple missions at the same time, but there would only ever be one operation, save for the direst of emergencies. Prime usually took care of cataloging them and analyzing whatever inevitably went wrong during them and learning from the mistake.

At this point, Prime started speaking in both their earpieces. She could have talked only to Hela, but chose not to.

“Don’t worry, Hela. If anything, it’s the unexpected enemies that have to take care of. Max has never failed a mission, yet. I don’t expect that to change.”

Hela sighed, while Max waved her goodbye and finally managed to fully step out of the exit.

Max squinted his eyes while they adjusted to the glaring neon light of Bertha during nighttime.

The city was hectic, people riding every which way on the small road with motorbikes. Large buildings dominated the landscape, many over five stories tall. Enormous screens hung on the sides of some of them, broadcasting advertisements, their multi color light eclipsing what little the actual street lamps provided. Most of them, just over half, were broken to at least some degree. A lot were just cracks, small black spots and long strips of unchanging rainbow light that did not belong. Many of the ads displayed avoided the cracks, a testament for how long they had been there, long since impossible to repair. The few that were completely broken still displayed names of brands that had long since ceased existing, the letters burnt into them through years of constant use, visible if daylight hit them just right. No one could be bothered to remove them.

A putrid smell hovered over the entire street.

Prime started talking in Max's earpiece, “You made her scared, you know. She’s worried.”

“This will only take a few minutes, at most. While I don’t expect anything to happen, she’s right. Better be on the lookout.”

“You don’t get people sometimes, do you? I’m going to let her monitor you, so she doesn’t come running once you’ve been gone for an hour.”

Max let out a troubled sigh at her complaints and whispered back. “She’s better than that but sure. Do whatever you think is right.”

He passed by a few people, lying on the street. Drugged, sleeping, or just dead, their state was unknowable. They could only just barely afford the toll to go in the inner city - and the drugs, if they took them. A sorry sight. Some would say they lived better than those in the outer city, if asked. But no one knew the truth.

Soldiers patrolled the street, all armored, though the armor varied widely from simple vests to exo-suits, the latter completely covering them in mechanical protection.

Cars were uncommon, in the city. They were more expensive to maintain, and clumsier than the motor bikes. The extra space only mattered during excursions to the wasteland - something that would not move this street.

Max inspected his building for any vandalism, or damage. Thankfully, there was none. He was renown enough that nobody who could do serious harm or bothered him much. The idiots that did, spraying vulgar graffiti on the walls of every building -both because they didn’t know better, or to spite the fact that they did- had long since ran out of paint use. The building was only two floors tall, dwarfed by those with 6, sandwitching it from both sides. It had a sign just above the entrance reading ‘The Alphas’, in cursive, glaring neon red and green that hurt his eyes. It contrasted poorly with the sand-yellow building.

Ugh, I still don’t like the sign.

A rusty camera sat next to the sign, functional, evident by the red light slowly flashing just above its lens. The camera was focused on him. Prime was keeping track of him, as she promised, its video feed projected onto Hela’s monitor.

“Prime, where is she?”

“In the alley to your left.”

Max nodded and went into the small alley between his building and one of the apartments. A pungent smell greeted him. His face contorted as he looked around for the source. The alley was a trash dump - a few bins, and an immense heap of garbage, both within and without. Shards of shattered glass, and scrunched-up plastic bottles littered the area. Whatever was making the smell, was inside one of many bags, piled next to the wall. Far too much to ever fit into the trashcans, but it was obvious that no one tried to make them. Numerous flies buzzed above the heap - a source of the few ever-present within his building.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

And, among all the garbage, there was a glaring lack of the girl he was looking for.

Max looked at the camera attached to the wall above the trash, questioning.

“Leftmost trash can, up against the wall.”

Max raised an eyebrow, and kept looking at the camera as it turned to look at their target, pointing towards it.

He stopped in front of it. The can rustled slightly at his approaching footsteps. The bags around it were particularly disordered, something the flies seemed to appreciate.

“Yes, that’s the one.”

He leaned closer to the now unmoving trashcan. “Seriously? Well hey, props to her. This place already smells like dogshit, and she chose the smelliest place to hide in. No one would search in there for anything.”

It trembled, presumably startled by his loud voice.

“I'm not equipped with the ability to smell, so I'm afraid you'll be the only one enjoying the odor.”

Max could only groan in protest. After looking around to see no one was nearby, a fact confirmed by Prime, he lifted the lid.

A piece of metal reflected the light inside.

“Stay back!”

The girl screamed out, her swing only hitting air.

He didn’t need to be told. By the time she spoke, he had already jumped back, hand reaching for his pistol. A hand that, when he saw her, he stopped moving.

She was far younger than he thought, probably less than 8 years old. Her once pink dress was covered with whatever remained in the trash can when she got in, hair and face much the same. Only her brown eyes could be truly recognized. Half a scissor, one she could have found in the garbage, was her weapon. Even if Max was hit, he knew it could not penetrate his clothes, unless stabbed with.

Yet, he didn’t let his guard down.

He knew just how effective using children to get people to lower guard was. Especially people like him, the ones that cared.

He looked for threats again.

“There’s nobody, Max. Even the street is almost empty.” Prime confirmed what he himself saw. He straightened up, lifting his hands from his pistol.

“A kid, huh?”

Max wanted to scold Prime for not telling him just how young she was. Or, even more so, for not telling him as soon as she saw the girl running, and trying to crawl into the garbage. He should have helped, back then. No matter who the kid was.

He raised his hands, trying to show that he would not draw his weapons, wishing to appear harmless to the scared girl.

“Hey, what’s wrong? I live in this building right here-” he pointed at the wall behind the girl, not lowering his hands too far “-and I heard some strange noises coming from back here, so I came to check. Are you hurt anywhere?”

Asra just remained silent, glaring at him, her weapon still pointed forward. Max couldn’t call her name out, she would likely conclude he was one of the people chasing her.

Max scratched his head as he thought of what could he do. He wasn’t good with kids, that not being what he was trained in. Fighting and survival were his forte, not children.

A terrible idea popped into his head. He knew he would never hear the end of it.

Oh, this is so stupid.

He could only hope that her parents sheltered her from the evils of the world. And if sheltered enough, he thought that this might just work.

He reached into his pocket before he found what he was looking for.

He held out a piece of candy.

“Oh, that is so stupid.” Prime spoke in his ear. He mentally berated her, as much as he agreed. Hela murmured much the same, holding her head as she looked at the monitor.

Prime made sure this recording would have at least two backups.

“How about this?” Max said, putting Asra’s attention to the candy in his hand. “If I was dangerous, I wouldn’t be giving you some candy, now would I?”

“Aaand you just made it worse somehow. Are you sure you aren’t secretly a pedophile, Max?”

Max wished to fight back for innocence, but Asra took priority, so he had to swallow all his shame and focus on calming her. He vowed to delete the recording before the whole company saw it.

Asra stared at the piece of candy in his hand, before looking back up at Max. A motion she repeated, debating whether she should choose the candy or try to not risk her life.

It was soon apparent that the candy was winning.

All three of them were in utter disbelief that it worked.

“Max, detecting two military personnel walking here. They might be armed or looking for Asra.” As soon as Prime told Max about it, Max’s eyes narrowed as he put the candy back in his pocket.

Asra jumped back from the sudden movement, once again terrified, straightening the arm she held her makeshift blade in. Her face betrayed a hint of sadness, for the candy she could no longer get.

“Girl,” Max called out, “I hear footsteps, and this is a bad part of the neighborhood. Some dangerous people might be coming by, so can you go back in the bin again? I’ll try to distract them, but you shouldn’t come out no matter what happens. Even if you hear gunshots, alright?”

Asra, scared as she was, still nodded and ducked down into the bin, holding the crude blade close to her chest. Max quickly walked up to her, put the lid back on, and moved away leaning on the wall opposite to her. He was trying to act like he’s waiting for someone so nobody would question him if they saw him in a dirty alleyway.

He crossed his hands, but that was just so he could keep his hands as close to his pistol under his coat as possible. He looked around, but there was no one in sight. He tapped his earpiece once, asking Prime to explain herself.

“I’m still only seeing two of them, but they’re not the standard patrol. Private forces, and there is little reason for them to be here other than Asra. They will pass by very shortly.”

Max did a small nod, picked up by the camera as it turned to have the street back in frame. Max fixed his pony tail, a bit of his hair now covering his eyes, and earpiece. It was a trick he picked up, to make himself look as unimportant as possible. Normally he would fiddle with Prime, but he left her back in his office, something he regrets now.

A few seconds passed as one soldier, wearing gray military fatigues, passed by without even looking in the alleyway. Moments later, another came who stopped to look in the alleyway for a second. Just enough to notice Max. He saw no one else, the only other person in the alley being too well hidden to be spotted.

“Hey you!” He called to the man he assumed was sleeping.

Max cursed in his mind as he looked towards the guy walking towards him, feigning disinterest. The man was dark-skinned, and had a bulky body, his bald head covered up by a gray cap. Unlike the military, it had no identifiable markings.

He seemed annoyed, fanning his face to get rid of the smell Max had already gotten accustomed to, as he walked towards the dark plus brown-haired man. He got even angrier, as he mentally cursed Max for choosing this spot to loiter.

“What are you doing here?” He asked, a hint of his anger leaking into his voice.

“What’s it to you? As far as I remember, the Military can’t question a civilian without good reason.”

The person’s eyes narrowed, looking offended. “I can do whatever the fuck I want. Now, answer my question or I’ll arrest you for resisting an officer!”

Max looked at him with pity as he pointed toward the camera mounted next to the wall of his building.

“Sure, go ahead, arrest me. I have all the evidence I need to prove my innocence while you have a job you rely on that you can’t afford to lose.”

He grabbed Max’s collar, and pulled him towards himself, yelling as he did. “WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TO TELL AN OFFICER WHAT TO DO!?”

He tried to intimidate Max, looking at him as if he was looking at a cockroach he would just crush in but a moment. Max, for his part, looked just about as intimidated as a cockroach would in that scenario.

That is, not at all.

By this point, the other soldier had realized his partner had disappeared. And by the screaming, he knew where to.

He peeked his head into the alley, and paled, as he realized just who his friend was screaming at.

“Mike! Stop! Don’t do anything we’ll both regret!”

The person holding onto Max’s collars, Mike, looked back at his friend angrily.

“What the hell do you want!? This guy thinks he’s hot shit and can ignore a Military officer!”

Mike’s friend ran up to him and pushed him away from Max.

“Mike, Are you stupid!? Didn’t you see Alpha’s sign on the building!? He’s the owner, you dumbass!”

Mike turned pale like his friend, as he understood what he had just done.

Alphas were infamous in the whole of Bertha, especially in the Military, and for all the right reasons. They had made the Military drown in both success and failure, their meddling tremendously helpful just as often as it was harmful. There was no contest that the military would win in a direct fight, of course, but one happening was all but impossible. As such, there was a love-hate relationship between the two.

But, all military personnel knew that offending the Alphas was a terrible idea - even if only because of how quickly that would get them thrown out by their superiors.

Mike’s ego was far too great to admit to any wrongdoing, and his friend was now just as pissed as Mike had been. But, trying to appease Max took priority.

“Please excuse him, H-He’s new around these parts an-”

Max knew what he was trying to do and helped him out.

“Just do me a favor and fuck off, will ya. I’m waiting for someone and you two are wasting my time.”

The guy felt like he was just pardoned a death sentence, as he tried to drag Mike away. Unfortunately, Mike didn’t budge.

The bald man quickly pulled out his phone, and showed a picture of a girl standing next to an old man, who seemed to be her father.

The girl was obviously Asra, who was still hiding in a bin to the side.

“This girl is missing, have you seen her?”

Mike said, his friend still trying to drag him away with no progress done.

Max looked at the phone for a moment with his poker face up. “Nope, haven’t seen her.”

The thinner officer apologized again, desperately pulling at Mike’s arm, who finally budged.

Once they both left, Max mimed scratching the side of his head, lightly tapping his earpiece twice, asking Prime to scan the area’s. She could check the area for lifesigns -some of the cameras were infrared, looking for temperature- checking the status of anyone near her. Unfortunately, she was still up in his office, but the former function was still usable.

Moments later, Prime spoke again.

“They both left, and I’m not detecting anyone else. You’re safe.”

Max did a small nod, and went to open the lid back again. He saw Asra take a swing at him again, but it wouldn’t work twice. He caught the hands of the child before the blade came near his face.

“Didn’t your father ever tell you not to play with scissors?”

Asra was terrified, and she looked like she was about to cry. “P-Please don’t hurt me.”

She forced the words out of her mouth with fresh tears streaming down her face.

Max sighed. “You’re misunderstanding something.”

Max pried the crude blade out of Asra’s hand, and threw it away.

He knew her a bit better now, so he knew roughly what to say to calm her.

“Look, I’m not a bad guy. I won’t hurt you. You were hiding behind my office, we noticed, and I came to help.” Max paused for a moment as he took a step back, and crossed his hands. “Are you in trouble? My office works in solving just that, and if so, you’re in luck. Because just for today, we have a special offer! All services, free of charge, for anyone such as yourself.”

Asra peeked out of the bin like a terrified, chubby squirrel. “Y-You will save me?”

“Only if you’re not a bad girl who doesn’t listen to adults like me. Are you someone like that?”

She shook her head.

“Good, that. Means I can help you out.”

Asra wiped away the tears on her face as she finally smiled. “T-Thank you.”

Prime recorded everything Max did, and smiled with glee. She had found another thing she could use to mess around with him.