Corpo Age

Chapter 50: Across the Ocean

I woke up at the sound of my alarm and immediately started my morning routine. I needed a hot shower in the morning to really wake up before I made my breakfast from the open kitchen out in the living room.

Once I ate and dressed, I exited my unit to the elevator and went up one floor to the penthouse on the fifth floor. The elevator doors led me straight to the middle of the office, where several employees were already busy with the work on the terminals in front of them.

At the other end of the room, there were three offices behind the glass walls, where I spotted both Thorne and Claire in their respective offices. We shared looks as I approached my own office in the middle and saw Claire get up as soon as she saw me. I continued into my office as she quickly entered behind me while the door was still open.

“Good morning Rollo, your appointment to incorporate is set for this afternoon at 2:00 PM. Thorne already arranged for your transport, so you better be on time.”

“Yeah, I know, it’s not this just suddenly came up. We’ve been waiting for this for two months.”

“As long as you understand, I got a lunch meeting starting soon so I’m heading out, see ya!” Claire came and left like a hurricane, on her way to the elevator, I spotted her new assistant scrambling to catch up with her.

I checked my emails on my terminal and made sure my agenda was cleared. There wasn’t really much for me to do today, so I exited my office and called out to a nearby employee to buy drinks for everyone. I then made my way into Thorne’s room.

Thorne was focused on his terminal and only noticed me when I opened the glass door to his office, “Hey Thorne, what are you working on, need some help?”

“Rollo, no thanks, I’m almost done. I’m just ensuring the training itinerary is correct and the orders for new equipment are accurate.”

His words drew my gaze to the armor he was wearing. It had mainly black outfits with midnight blue highlights. Its armored plates were enough to stop most rounds and were better than the junk we had our security team bring themselves. The main thing that satisfied me was the standardized design that they all wore, so they actually looked like a professional crew.

You know what they say, clothes make the man.

“Your car is ready to leave anytime. I have a team waiting in the garage,” Thorne said, as his gaze continued to be fixed to the terminal.

“Got it. I’ll head out a little early after I drop by Leo and Lana first.”

“Sounds good.”

He then went on to ignore me, as I didn’t have anything to say, so I returned to my office and waited for the milkshake I had one of the employees buy. Ten minutes later, with my drink in hand, I headed down to the third floor, where most of the security personnel stayed.

It had the main security monitoring room and a server room Leo and Lana had put together. They stayed cooped up in there like shut-ins most of the time, barely ever going back to their unit on the fourth floor except to shower and sleep.

The doors to the room automatically opened as I approached.

“Hey Rollo, Leo’s busy right now, needed something?”

“Not really, just checking in to see if you guys got settled in here yet.”

“Yeah, the connection we have in here is great, way better than the residential lines we had to endure. The upgraded hardware we bought with the company funds helps too, of course.”

“You think Leo can finally crack that data chip with the new setup, then?”

“...Hard to say. With a bit of luck, it could be in a few days or a few months if we’re unlucky.”

“As long as progress is being made, I won’t take up any more of your time. I’m heading out now, have fun.”

“Ha, you too. It is your big day, after all.”

“It’s the company’s and you’re part of it too. We’ll celebrate once we settle everything today.”

I exited their server room and headed to the basement garage next. There were several Vanguards parked. Two of them immediately started up and stopped right next to me.

“Sir.” The tinted windshields came down as the people inside saluted at me.

I nodded in acknowledgment and entered the vehicle.

I had given up telling them to be more casual as new faces showed up and Thorne convinced me that building a habit of discipline was the better option.

“Let’s head there early. I’ll leave the route to you guys.”

It wasn’t the most comfortable being sandwiched by two fully geared guards, but it was a choice I made since this was more practical than having a luxury vehicle customized with defensive armaments; we didn’t have that much funds to spare as we were saving for today.

Even through the heavily tinted glass, I got to enjoy the view of Elevate City as people went about with their lives on the streets and FVs flew by overhead, likely carrying bigshot corpos.

As traffic slowed us down, I opened up the status screen to kill some time.

Status

Level:

15

EXP:

1480/1500

Musculoskeletal:

76

Neural Reflex:

15

Visuomotor Coordination:

27

Endurance:

24

Sensory Perception:

52

Upgrade Points:

1

Upgrades:

• Stealth +7
• Hacking +3
• Cybernetic Engineering +7
• Stealth Technology +10
• Software Engineering +6

Enhancements:

SAID: Zenitech Hoth Mk.3

Optics: Nova Tech Stars Mk.4

Cyberarm(Left): Nova Tech Mudra Mk.6

Cyberarm(Right): Nova Tech Shiva Mk.5

Auditory: Amazing Corp FieldTac Gen 2

Cardiovascular: BioGen Labs Marathon 4

Miscellaneous: HSU Custom Shade

Once I put in the tenth point into stealth tech, the system displayed it required two points to upgrade it further. Even if it gave me more knowledge, I did not believe it would be worth it at the moment. I wasn’t going to sell any more stealth tech anytime soon, as it would reveal my trump cards, and ten points were already more than sufficient.

There were other things I wanted to upgrade that could be more useful, but I held off for now until I accumulated more points so I could think about it some more.

It’s been a while since I upgraded my cybernetics. They seem sorely outdated by the standards of what I could afford now. I definitely need to put that on the agenda.

Having approached the topics of finances, I had my optics display the spreadsheets I had stored in my SAID with the finances of the company.

For the past two months, we’ve been selling about 200 units of Shades a month. Those numbers included our own clinics and the ones we supplied to others. We sold each unit for around ten thousand credits retail and had a profit margin of around five thousand credits.

That meant we made about a million per month, but that wasn’t sustainable once we went through all the mercenaries who would purchase our product, our sales would start to decline.

We also had our transportation business that only ran two convoys of ten trucks that we rented. Each truck cost about ten thousand to operate per month and pulled in about twice that amount due to the ongoing demand. So that was another two hundred thousand profits each month while the war was ongoing.

With a total of about 1,200,000 credits in profits per month, we still had to carefully plan our expenses to allocate for the one million for incorporation today. The company still had other expenses and salaries to be paid to about fifty employees, with an average wage of ten thousand per month. We also needed some funds to expand and a reserve, but we were more than ready today. The reduced corporate tax rate we would get will pay itself in no time.

The view around the car opened up as we exited the city and proceeded onto the ocean bridge that connected to the space elevator. As the sight of it slowly grew larger as we got closer, it became more and more difficult to contain my excitement at finally having the chance to approach that marvel of human engineering.

The ocean-view scenic route soon ended as we approached the first checkpoint that was still quite far from the space elevator. The checkpoint was heavily fortified with various advanced armaments, and a small army could visibly be seen guarding the area.

Our car waited in a line until we were waved to approach a booth where the guard questioned us and asked for our identification. We were scheduled to meet with a representation of the Elevate City Consortium that was headquartered here, so we were allowed to enter once they found us in their systems.

We had to pass through one additional vehicle checkpoint plus one more for foot traffic right at the base of the space elevator that prevented us from carrying firearms inside. I managed to contain the urge to crane my neck up to witness the grey tower reach higher than I could see and went inside the building that felt somewhat like an airport.

Following the signs, we soon arrived at a large lobby area that belonged to the Elevate City Consortium that I would easily mistake for a hotel lobby.

“Good afternoon sir, how can I help you today?” The receptionist greeted us with a bright smile.

“I have an appointment for 2:00 PM today under Rollo Halls.”

Her eyes flashed with light before she promptly responded, “Yes, of course, Mr.Halls, we’ve been expecting you. There is still some time until the meeting, so please feel free to tour the commercial area while you wait. We will contact you immediately once we are ready to receive you.”

She gestured us to a nearby escalator that led us toward a shopping area that seemed identical to the shopping malls I’ve been to except more luxurious.

We did arrive a little early, so we toured what the shops had to offer. There were surprisingly a lot of people, despite the strict security of who was allowed in. The prices of each floor reflected the exclusivity of this place.

I couldn’t resist and bought a three-hundred credit milkshake as I observed the vanity items rich people bought. It was hard to imagine that just several months ago; I was still working a part-time job here as I was confused with this world, barely making enough to pay the two thousand credit rent.

Another well-dressed woman walked past me, or so I thought, until they stopped right in front of me, with her eyes staring straight at me. Her guards dressed up in suits behind her flanked her sides while directing a cautious gaze at my own security team.

“You’re a new face. I see that you are a connoisseur of the finer things in life as well,” She pointed to my milkshake with her gaze.

“Yeah, it’s a vice of mine,” I politely replied, unsure of who I was talking to or how to deal with her.

“Oh please, sugar is hardly a vice compared to the things most people put into their bodies. Would you be free to—”

Before she could finish his sentence, a robot wearing the same uniform as the receptionist from earlier came out of nowhere, “Sir, we are ready to meet you now. Please follow me.”

I exchanged glances between the robot and the woman before she continued, “Evidently, you’re not free. Until we meet again.” She gave a polite smile and headed off into the distance with her retinue.

The robot wasted no time and started guiding us.

Finally, we are officially going to become a corporation.