The Protagonist System

Kiwi almost needed assistance as she staggered out of the taxi after what she thought was a recalibration appointment. It instead turned into a restoration appointment and a job offer she literally would be a fool to turn down. So, she asked for some time to consider it before accepting.

Why did she need time? She wanted to indulge herself some more as she tried out all the different foods that she hadn't been able to eat for years without it being heavily processed, before she poured the liquid down her artificial throat into her stomach to be digested.

After she almost passed out after trying one of the strawberries Altas had given to her, He advised her to go home to relax and recover after her surgery, then the wonderful bastard gave her a crate full of delicious fruit and vegetables to try, not to mention the expensive meats she could afford but never bought. Why would she waste the money if she couldn't taste it?

Carrying the crate wasn't really why she was stumbling as she walked, though. It was because of where her new job was located. When he had mentioned a new facility he was building, she expected it to be on the outskirts of the city or something, and it was technically outside the city. Way way way outside the city.

He was constructing a space station above it!

The news had been even more shocking than learning he had the means to get into space without needing the spaceport or the huge rockets they used. He didn't explain how he was doing it, just that he did. It was something she absolutely had to tell someone else about and she made her way to her apartment.

She brought the crate of food along, because she was sure the girl talk she was about to have with Lucy was going to need the distraction for the both of them. There were things her fellow netrunner needed to know before her own appointment, like how Atlas could make all of her dreams come true. All she had to do was ask him about them and he could fulfill them easily.

Lucy was shocked when her mentor showed up at her place with both gifts and knowledge. When she asked why she didn't just message her about it, or started a VR call, Kiwi just said that what they were going to talk about needed to be face-to-face and they definitely needed to try some of the things inside the crate she brought with her.

Another shock hit Lucy when Kiwi took off her face protector and revealed she had her whole face restored. Lucy was one of the few that knew about her disfigurement and had kept it a secret, because like Kiwi, she had her own secret shame that she didn't want to talk about or have attention brought to it.

By the time Kiwi had relayed her experiences with Atlas Incorporated, a good portion of the fruits inside the crate had been picked through and consumed. Lucy had felt a little turned on after listening to Kiwi make bedroom sounds as she tasted all of the different things and suckled and chewed on the delicious food.

When they reached the important part of the conversation, about exactly where her new job was going to be located, Lucy almost fainted. By almost, she had collapsed and nearly slipped off her chair to the floor. She had only been saved from hitting the floor by Kiwi's hand grabbing her collar and keeping her steady.

She needed a few minutes to recover, because Kiwi also told her that her new job was too much for a single person to handle 24/7, so she would need an assistant. Atlas had told her she could hire anyone she wanted to make her job easier, and she had pretty much agreed and then came right over to visit Lucy to talk to her.

“Get a grip, girl.” Kiwi said, her voice kind and not harsh like usual. “We have an opportunity to make our dreams come true and escape this horrible place. There will be no more questionable jobs, assholes for clients that only hired us to stare at our tits, and we get to do the things we love to do and don't have to live in this cesspool of a city anymore.”

“It's too good to be true.” Lucy whispered as she clung to Kiwi's arm. “What's the catch?”

“The catch? You have to ask for it and actually believe Atlas will deliver it.” Kiwi advised her. “If you doubt it, or question it, you will never accept it for what it actually is.”

Lucy didn't ask her what she meant, because the taller woman reached up with her free hand and caressed her chin with a gentle hand and a warm smile on her face. “I... I'm not sure...” She started to say, then had a great idea. “Come with me to my appointment, so I don't do anything stupid.”

Kiwi's smile stayed warm as she nodded. Lucy relaxed and leaned against her in relief, because she was worried that she would have ruined things if she didn't have someone else there to make sure she didn't. It was nice to know that Kiwi would still have her back, even though she was quitting Maine's crew.

Lucy sucked in a sharp breath. “What do we tell Maine and the others?”

Kiwi's warm smile changed to a knowing one. “I don't know if Maine himself would ever accept, not with his ambitions driving him... but, and this is a huge but... the others? They all have things they want to do in their lives. With a huge space station being built, one that is going to have cheap stores with expensive products? I think they'll jump at the chance to go from hired mercs to hired security pretty easily.”

Lucy blinked her eyes at her. “You think Falco and Pilar would... wait, is there going to be a casino?”

Kiwi laughed, actually laughed, and Lucy couldn't help but admire how nice it sounded. “A casino, a brothel, a bar to rival every bar in Night City... you name it, it's going to have it.”

“VR booths?” Lucy asked, her voice hopeful. They were expensive to set up and run, because of the power requirements and processing power needed to have more than a few people inside at the same time.

“It has huge suites that can be rented by the hour and they can run literally anything you can think of.” Kiwi told her. “The computers are so advanced that you don't even have to program anything yourself. You ask it to do something in VR and it can do it.”

“That's stupid. I can code much better than a basic VI.” Lucy said, as if to defend herself.

Kiwi chuckled. “Yes, you can. You also don't have to let the computer do everything. Atlas himself can code some of the most wonderful VR programs I've ever experienced and I've experienced a lot of them since I started netrunning.”

Lucy nodded and then fell into a thinking pose as she considered what she could do with a proper netrunning setup and an unlimited budget to do what she wanted. Kiwi gave her another knowing look and let Lucy continue to rest against her as she picked at the other foods in the crate.

*

The Zetatech Corporation's receptionist was surprised to receive an uncoded clear message on his cyberdeck and it was in a frequency that hadn't been used in years. In fact, the old-style radio wave had been slightly garbled and it took a few seconds for his cyberdeck to process it and display it.

The man blinked his eyes at the contents and read them again, then he hit the emergency contact button and called the vice-director of the entire company directly. Since it really was only supposed to be used in an emergency, his job was in jeopardy if it wasn't justified. The receptionist wasn't worried about that at all.

The vice-director was in a meeting about the recent events, with both the ship using an unknown laser weapon and then ascending into space without the assistance of a rocket. He was quite upset to be interrupted while in a meeting with all of the top executives of Zetatech and openly berated the receptionist in front of the entire board of directors.

The receptionist let him go on for several minutes and didn't say anything until the vice-director took a breath to keep going. “Are you done yet, sir? I would like a chance to tell you the reason I called.”

The vice-director looked embarrassed at being called out on his reaction without hearing the reason first.

“Please do tell us why you called.” The current CEO of the company said.

“Oh! I'm glad you're in attendance, sir. This needs your approval immediately. I received this message nearly five minutes ago.” The receptionist said, tweaking the vice-director's nose again, and he played the message.

Everyone in the meeting made surprised sounds as they learned the Arasaka Corporation's VI was damaged and lost by Saburo Arasaka himself and he trashed the building's main servers in a fit of dementia before having a heart attack. Now they needed help replacing their current equipment, since without the VI running things, they couldn't access their own tech or open the building up.

“Thank you for relaying that to us.” The CEO said. “Since they don't have any receivers or relays available, we will let our equipment do the talking. I want two security teams and two work crews assigned to the recovery mission, as well as our best tech guys from the maintenance department on this.”

“Yes, sir.” Nearly everyone in the room answered.

“Bring our top of the line equipment and not the spyware filled crap we sell to the public. We're going to help our new friends in their time of need and this is not the time to remind them of our usual rivalry.” The CEO said and they all nodded. “Deploy our assets ASAP and make sure they are all properly dressed and look sharp. This will be both for show and have substance, and the results of this mission will help us immensely in the future.”

“Sir.” Most of them said again.

“A raise and a possible promotion is in your future as well, Mister Vaughn.” The CEO said to the receptionist.

“Th-thank you, sir. I appreciate that.” He responded. “Have a good day, sir.”

“You as well.” The CEO said ended the call and turned his attention to the vice-director. “As for you...”

The man held in his sigh as he experienced the receiving end of a similar rant about wasting time and interrupting important meetings without proper preparation and warning.

Unlike the receptionist, whom had weathered the berating like it was a casual thing, the vice-director suppressed a wince after nearly every shouted complaint. He hadn't been yelled at like that since he was an intern himself and had installed a cyberdeck's control board backwards and didn't discover the mistake until after he had half-built the thing and wondered why some of the parts didn't quite fit.

*

Hanako Arasaka sat in her new office and patiently waited for help to arrive. It really did annoy her that they couldn't handle things internally, even with the entire maintenance department working so hard to cobble together something to make an outside call using a signal that they hoped Zetatech had received.

It had really been a choice between them and the recently gutted Militech and Biotechnica companies. Their own recent hardships had put them on the defensive and any requests for help by other companies were either dismissed as unimportant or ignored entirely. That was understandable, since Arasaka itself had just suffered nearly an entire business day without functionality and it was going to cost them millions of eurodollars in lost revenue and repairs.

As the company's crews worked on freeing everyone, she barely paid any attention to the reports she received after they cleared each floor. Each of them were practically identical, except for the number of people rescued. That differed, as did the cost to repair or replace each of the electronic locks they had to physically break to open the doors.

It wasn't until a particular report appeared about the floor the secretarial pool was on, that Hanako realized she had made a gigantic mistake in handling the current situation. The report was quite different from the others, because the security team had found a group of 5 people outside of their offices, four of them women, and the last was a young man wearing an Arasaka Academy uniform.

Veder knew all about the building's VI becoming an AI and she could have consulted with him about how to handle things to get them back into working order. His prowess with both cybernetic technology and programming, could have become a key factor in her decision to contact an outside company for help, which she silently cursed at herself for.

After thinking about it, she mentally sighed at her need to keep the circumstances of her father's death a secret and not contacting Veder had been the better decision. He already knew so many of the company's other secrets and he could have blackmailed her entire family with them, so she didn't want to risk giving him one that could ruin them and shut down the entire company.

She put the report aside and continued to wait for help to arrive, her choice to not include Veder after remembering he was there inside the building, would bother her for quite some time, especially if the Zetatech representatives eventually showed up and were overly gracious and polite. They would obviously be making fun of them and would hold this rescue over their heads for years, perhaps decades to come.

The door to her office opened and Hanako almost told the person she didn't want any more useless reports, only to visibly relax as her niece Michiko Arasaka entered and had a look of concern on her face.

“Zetatech received the call for help and the teams they sent are waiting in the lobby.” Michiko said.

Hanako took a deep breath and let it out, then stood up. “Then let us go and graciously accept their generosity with as much composure as possible.”

Michiko sighed and nodded, then straightened her spine and stepped back to let her aunt pass by her. She knew Hanako was resigned to their current course of action and that she already regretted it. There was nothing to be done about it, not with how the building's systems had been gutted by the removal of the VI that controlled everything and the servers that had all of her programs on it.

They went to the stairs and walked down them, their faces with small but polite fake smiles on them, and they went to their fate to see how bad it was going to be to become indebted to another corporation.

As they descended the stairs, Hanako couldn't help but compare this to what the Atlas Incorporated corporation had done for them recently and she really regretted not thinking of them until now. The misinformation campaign that had been perpetrated against them by the other companies had affected her even more than she had realized.

They entered the lobby and Hanako knew the next few hours were going to be a trying time for her after seeing the smug look on the Zetatech representative's face.

“Ah, there she is! Hanako Arasaka, right?” The man asked and his voice was as grating on her nerves as the words it spewed. “It's a bit humbling for someone like yourself to call a superior company for help, isn't it?”

The sheer insult of the lowlife calling her by her given name without her permission, in public no less, stained her honor so much that she ignored everything else he said. That was when she made a decision to mitigate all of the manipulations they were sure to use against her and her brother's company, both now and in the future.

“Thank you for your timely response.” Hanako said, heavily implying they should have been there much sooner, by not saying it was quick or immediate. “However, your services are no longer required.”

The man's own smug look faded. “Excuse me?”

“We have things well in hand and appreciate your gracious offer of assistance in our temporary time of need.” Hanako said in as derisive of atone as she could that bordered on insulting. “I will be sure to contact your superiors as soon as our normal communications capability has been reestablished to express my heartfelt opinion of this interaction.”

The man's face drained of color and he realized his flippant need to lord their position over her, a high executive of a rival company asking them for help, had just cost his company what could have been a very lucrative opportunity.

“You may kindly remove yourself, your people, and your equipment from our property. Thank you.” Michiko said with satisfaction and started ushering them all back out through the destroyed front doors of the building.

She had no problem backing up her aunt's decision and personally thought this was a much better outcome than what could have put them into a subservient position with another corporation. She silently thanked the arrogant man for making her aunt see the truth as their own guards helped her clear the lobby out.

In fact, she mentally composed a bill for the destruction of their front entrance, because it was achieved by excessive force and the men had seemed delighted to cause much more damage than was necessary to gain entrance to the building. That would be more than enough thanks for him to bring back to his bosses.

“Michiko, remain here and secure the entrance. Keep the team of guards with you.” Hanako said and walked over to the stairs. “I have someone I need to meet.”

“No.” Michiko said and Hanako stopped walking and turned to look at her. “The guards can do that on their own. It's their job. I will remain by your side.”

Hanako opened her mouth to deny her, then mentally sighed. Perhaps having someone else along would make the next few minutes seem less like capitulation and more like a friend asking for help. That Michiko also looked like Yuri's sister might appeal to Veder enough that he won't question why they had waited so long before contacting him.

“Then I will introduce you.” Hanako said and realized that reason alone had given her the perfect excuse to explain why she hadn't come right to him. The pair of women entered the stairwell again and felt their emotions rise as they made their way up to the floor the secretarial pool was on.