I took a shower as soon as I got home as if to wash off the stupidity I ran into earlier. By the time I got out, I found a sparkling black gemstone on my bed. I sat up and reached for my pistol. That wasn’t there when I went to sleep. Someone broke into my apartment. Was it Feras?

Time slowed down as I withdrew my pistol just in time to catch a dark shape hiding in the corner of my room. Corvid crouched in the corner, eyeing me with excitement even as he shyly hid under his wings. The avian sprite shuffled around under my gaze, backing up against the wall further as its head sunk.

”Is this for me?” I deactivated Dexterity, though I kept the gun in hand just in case as I picked up the black crystal.

”C-cawww~…” The bird crumpled down and covered his head as if embarrassed.

I stared at the bird, shifting my gaze to the crystal and then back several times. Something clicked in the back of my head. The description for the Tech Perk was Corvid, the Scavenger. Did that mean he would just bring me stuff? Cause that… that might not actually be that bad. What were the limits though? Would he just bring me random stuff or could he get me magical items like Crow does?

“Come here?” I asked with the sweetest and kindest voice I could muster as I brightly smiled to the crow.

The crow picked himself up, looking at me slightly dazed as he hopped over to me. With a flap of his wings, he jumped up to my leg and hesitantly scooted forward.

I ran a hand over its head, gently stroking its feathery head and petting its wings. “Who’s a good boy?” Does that work for birds? Or is that just a dog thing?

”Caw~?” The crow basked in my attention for a while, enjoying my petting. And why wouldn’t I pet my newest gold-laying goose? If all he wanted was to have his feathers stroked to bring my loot, then why not? Free loot was free loot. Although I wasn't sure what they were to begin with. Something valuable though since it resonated with the Aether.

After a while, Corvid backed off and flapped his wings. He tossed a longing look over his shoulder back to me then disappeared back through the Aether with another flap.

I grabbed the crystal and looked it over. I wasn’t quite sure what it was. It looked a bit similar to a diamond, but it was closer to coal than anything. It was like a fog of black was trapped in the crystal, giving it a weird effect. I tossed it over next to the fox statue. Probably best to just go get it identified.

I went through my morning routine, did some light workouts, and then got to work with my three-dimensional printer. I didn’t have anything too complicated in mind for today, but I did want to go ahead and start printing parts.

I set up a long queue for the device. Most of the parts were fairly simple and for the various things I wanted to set up in the Underground to protect my stash. Solid defenses were a must before I started moving stuff down there.

The parts on the other end of the queue were quite a bit more complicated though. Most of them were for the quadcopter drone I wanted to make. I already had most of the technical and electronic bits, except the optical camo, but the rest of the drone body needed to be printed out. The noise muffler I had in mind also needed some parts.

By the time I got everything in the queue set up, it would take a day and a half to run everything. I didn't want to wait around for that, especially considering I had a gig already running, so I simply set up my modified tapper and adjusted it to gently push the finished products from the printer out onto my table. I also set up the printer’s program to start printing the next thing in the queue after five minutes.

With all my future technical plans going, I settled down next to my window and finally got around to looking through the file that the Inquisitor gave me.

The first couple of pages were breakdowns of the research on the various shell companies. The Netrunners of the Crusade tracked them down through an alias responsible for registering each of the companies, which in turn led to a different shell company. They ping-ponged around at least a dozen different shell companies, some of their search methods less than legal, before they finally tracked it down to one.

As I read the name at the top of the last page, I felt my blood turn cold.

— — —

The next morning, I went out and bought a bouquet. This was the first time I ever bought real flowers and not the synthetic kind, and honestly? There wasn’t a large difference between the two. They felt different though. It was hard to pinpoint why. Maybe it was the scent? Or the almost velvety sensation of the individual petals? Regardless, their prices were definitely different. These ones cost fifty Rayn for the entire bouquet.

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It was worth it though. It was the least I could do to get some actual flowers for once, especially since I was better off now than I’d been in- well, since my parents died.

I caught a reflection of the marbled building in a rogue raindrop tracing down one of the flower’s petals. It dropped off, quickly replaced by several others as I bundled up a bit tighter in my coat.

I headed on into the Jade Columbarium, easily passing by the squad of Jade Fang Enforcers guarding the entrance to the place. They were as decked out as ever. Maybe even more so considering the time of night.

It was surprisingly humid in the columbarium as I headed down the familiar marbled pathways to my destination. The hundreds of alcoves flashed by in a blur until I found the right one.

I shifted over an old vase of synthetic flowers, making just enough room for the new bouquet to fit in the alcove. I straightened everything up and brushed off the faint layer of dust clinging to the two urns. For several long minutes, I lost myself in being a busybody. Anything to take my mind away from the current dilemma.

Eventually, I ran out of things to fidget over unless I wanted to start cleaning out other alcoves as well, which would be heavily frowned upon. I stared at the interlocked dragons of the urns as I inevitably drifted back to the same argument I’d been having for the past several hours.

”Haah…” I tapped my head against the top of the alcove as I stared down at the flowers. I backed off and pulled out the file from my bag, hoping the name would change this time around. It didn’t.

Cold Moon Solutions. A familiar and yet long-since alien name. A name I never wanted to see again. For a moment, I thought about calling Athena and canceling the rest of the gig. I’d still get paid for finding the parent company, though not nearly as much.

I pulled out my phone, intent on calling her as I flicked through my contact list. Just before I got to her name, my head dropped back as I stared up at the ceiling. Another deep sigh escaped me. I’d been stuck in this process ever since I first saw the corporation's name.

Cold Moon Solutions… What can I say about it? The corp was originally founded nearly a century ago, specializing in Human Resources. They built quite the rep back then. With the funding and resources from a few successful decades, the company revamped itself into focusing on tech.

For two decades after that, the corp focused on building up technologies to assist workers. They made everything from robot assistants to passive exo-suits to assist in easily lifting hundreds of pounds. It was a saturated market to get into, but Cold Moon Solutions made a name for themselves for their quality products.

After the K-10 Crash, the CEO decided to split directions once more into a networking company. Half the corporation focused on the development of tools and gear to help workers in an increasingly dangerous world while the other half focused on network development.

In the past, such a shift would’ve been suicidal since the few networking corporations that remained had a hard monopoly. After the K-10 Crash and the development of Nodes, however, everyone was reset to the same position. Things were looking up for Cold Moon Solutions.

The side that developed tools and gear even had cutting-edge developments in cybernetics that were advanced by dozens of years. At least more advanced than publicly available chrome. There was no doubt the megacorps had some good stuff hidden away. Hell, I just had to look at the Drop Chutes to see as much.

Of course, regardless of what was developed, Cold Moon Solution's developments were kept extremely quiet behind closed doors lest one of the megacorps catch wind and ‘acquire’ the research. For a time, things were flowing smoothly.

That is, until the CEO’s old age finally got to him about ten years ago. A heart attack got him, and the Medevac team failed to resuscitate him. It was a failure quickly swept under the rug by Medtech Solutions with a hefty payout.

His will left the company to two sons, making his youngest the new CEO. With the death of the original CEO came years of hardships for Cold Moon Solutions. Unfortunately, misery loves company. The youngest son and his wife met with an ‘accident’ barely two years later. The eldest assumed control from then on. And it's been a downhill slide from the looks of things.

The corporation was initially built upon the core principles of quality, service, and honesty. From what it looks like now, these principles are out the window just like every other corporation in pursuit of a greater profit margin.

If it was ten years ago, I’d easily be able to sabotage to my heart's content. Now though? I wouldn’t even know where to start. The factory and product development side of things was shut down five years ago according to their site. That just left the networking side of the company.

I didn’t even know if there was enough of the company left to even sabotage. I couldn’t access any of their contracts or anything of the like from their public domain, but they’d definitely downsized drastically in the past year or so. They might not even have had the money to pay for Athena’s mercs in the first place. As it looked, even breaking a window would hurt the company.

Hitting a dead horse didn’t necessarily fit with me, though my hesitations cleared when I scrolled down to the ‘Meet the Team’ section of the public page. That wall I put up, the wall I'd carefully maintained since I was a child, shattered as that hatefully foggy face, almost blocked out of my memory entirely by this point, smiled back at me. I knew this was coming though when I first saw the corporation's name. For several long seconds, I was tempted to let the consequence be damned and go ahead with that strike team.

I left the urns of my parents behind and headed back out onto the streets. The cool rain helped clear my head slightly, though it was insufferably humid around here.

I drove back to my apartment, swinging by Big Mike’s to get a burger pizza to go. I slid back into my apartment and ate while I assembled a few mechanisms from the finished bulk of printed parts. I kept my hands busy as my mind twirled like a hurricane for as long as I could, but eventually, I had to turn back to the problem at hand.

I surfed the Net one last time to check if they even had anything of value. Nothing stood out. There were some articles from a couple years back about opening up a new R&D branch, though it didn’t look like it went anywhere. There were a few other miscellaneous things, but nothing seemed too important.

I’d have to get over to their building and check out the decision with my own eye. Maybe this bit of reconnaissance would help me figure out what I wanted to do?