Corpo Age [Cyberpunk Progression LitRPG]

“Rollo, you’re going to be late if you don’t go get ready soon!” A voice yelled out from behind me.

I turned around and found Claire standing there with a hand on her hip, looking annoyed. Thorne was standing behind her, looking on with a wry smile.

“Alright, alright. Wait for me in the car. I’ll be quick.” I quickly noted some key points about where I was for when I resumed and the current ideas I had on the notepad on my SAID. After a quick visit to the shower and dresser, I met back up with the two of them in the garage.

We set off in a convoy of a dozen Wraiths and entered into the traffic of Elevate City. Numerous flying cars that cost at least millions each flew overhead as we waded through traffic. It was honestly surprising that traffic still flowed with a population in the hundreds of millions.

Still, maybe it’s about time to start thinking about getting a flying vehicle for myself. But then again, that’s millions of credits deep for not that much of a return. There are better ways to spend our credits.

As the large looming tower in the distance slowly grew larger, I spent my time reviewing the new implant and software update that’ll soon be ready for testing before we roll them out to our employees.

There were many ways to monitor people, and even more considering we could install an implant to my targets, which were my employees. I relied on the method I was most familiar with, the nanomachines to record the surroundings, like how the Nyes worked. The bulk of my workload was to keep the implant and its function hidden from the users themselves or anyone who scanned them.

There was an added part where nanomachines would plug into their host’s SAID and track their communications, too. The software already handled that, but as proven before, others may be around it or disable it entirely without our knowledge. That was why I had the new implant monitor the communications as well, without being part of the user’s SAID itself.

On the software side, I had worked with our cy-sec specialists to update it to the best of our abilities, and we weren’t under the illusion that it became foolproof. My main goal with that part was to add something there as a decoy, drawing any malicious party’s attention. It would make them feel confident of having overcome our defenses, making them fall prey to our new monitoring implant.

The feature I added was the privacy mode for our executives when they discussed any sensitive topics. It would automatically deafen any other employees with lower authority when they came into range, preventing them from overhearing what they don’t need to know while working in the same space.

Our company would take a public stance of keeping our employees in the dark, strictly on a need-to-know basis only. This wouldn’t deter any determined parties, though. They could still target multiple parties and piece together the bigger picture. After all, this was the go-to method of corporate espionage when investigating manufacturing processes, as it was the norm to have the workers only know about their own respective parts.

“Rollo, wake up. We’re here.” I turned off the projection of notes I had pulled up on my optics and nodded to Claire in response.

We got off and entered into the commercial section of the spaceport.

“I’m going to go shopping, then. Call me once you guys are done,” Claire said and swiftly headed off along with her bodyguards.

Once we saw her off, I pulled up the map of this place and began heading toward my destination with Thorne.

Joey had invited me to a celebratory event with his acquaintance today, partly to introduce me, but also to discuss the logistic network I had been building over the ruins of QuickLinks Logistics. It had only been a week, but it was enough time to read the general trend.

We soon arrived at the entrance to a business that specialized in hosting social venues. It was owned and operated by SocialCorp, as depicted by the name on the wall behind the receptionist’s desk, in a giant font that was hard to miss.

“Welcome to SocialCorp Meets. You are here for Mr. Moretti’s booking, correct?” I nodded. “Let our assistant over here guide you to the room.”

The young woman at the receptionist’s desk pointed toward a robot beside her. It had a rectangular head, like that of a flatscreen TV. It floated in the air somehow and quickly came out from behind the desk and guided us further into the building.

It was like a movie theatre in the back, and we had to walk for a full five minutes until we arrived at the correct meeting room. The robot wordlessly opened the door for us and waved goodbye as we entered.

The door led to a dark corridor where the only light was at the end of it. We could make out brightly lit greenery ahead, and when we fully exited the corridor, we could see the bright sun hanging above us. It illuminated the projections of trees and grass all around us. It seemed as if we were in the middle of a golf course.

My optics couldn’t even see through these projections until we got close. How high-tech, as expected from SocialCorp.

I didn’t appreciate the fake scenery for long, as an electric buzz, characteristic of an electromagnetic weapon discharging, drew my attention away.

I turned to find a bald head reflecting the sunlight, standing by seven others who all had their backs turned to us. Off to their side were several armed guards whose gaze was drawn to us.

One of the men I didn’t know was standing at the very front, pointing a pistol toward the open space before him. He pulled the trigger once more, as a drone zipped by, shooting it down. He repeated it several more times before he stopped, and the crowd applauded.

He then gave up the custody of the pistol to the next participant and I took the opportunity to approach him.

“Hey Joey, thanks for inviting me here today.”

“Oh Rollo, perfect timing! I believe you have met the star of today, Fernando, before.” He waved over the man who had just been shooting. I drudged up the memory with the familiar-sounding name and asked Kiri to look it up once I failed to recall when I had met the man.

‘Fernando Cortez, his father is the owner of Holly Corporation which operates out of NLA.’

Ah, one of the guys I met at that party I went to in NLA a while back.

All I had been told about today was that it was a celebration for one of his corpo associates upgrading their consortium tier to a D-Class. From what I recall, that meant they would be paying the consortium 25 million credits per annum now, an amount we definitely couldn’t afford right now.

“Fernando is here in Elevate City this week to finish off the procedures of upgrading his family’s Holly Corporation into the D-Class tier. They are a real rising star among all the corporations on the West Coast,” Joey continued.

“Please stop it, Joey. It comes off as teasing when I hear that from you. As an owner of a C-Class corporation, there are still many things we’ll need to rely on you for. Anyway, thank you so much for joining us today, Mr. Halls.” He extended a hand toward me that I swiftly reciprocated.

“Congratulations Fernando. It is good to see you again, especially doing so well.”

“You as well. Feel free to partake in our little trap shooting tournament here. We have some prizes, with the top prize being a resort trip to the moon.”

“Looks fun, maybe I’ll give it a try even though I don’t think I’ll do too well.”

“Yes, please do. Everyone has to disable their targeting augments, so you may still get lucky even if you’re not confident. Please, if you would excuse me for a moment,” He said as he spotted another newcomer behind me, and speedily went to greet them.

A waiter took the opportune moment to hand me a drink as I turned to Joey, who remained.

“So tell me, Rollo, how fares your expansion?” He got straight to the point and asked.

“We’re making good progress on navigating the route. The wasteland doesn’t cover that much of the route from Can Sauce City and Miles High, so it wasn’t as challenging as we had expected. Our only problem right now is producing enough vehicles. A lot of your perishable items require temperature control, after all.”

He nodded and took a sip from his cup before responding. “What is your estimated timeline to be able to fulfill all the contracts that are awaiting your signature at the moment?”

All my time talking to other corpos has paid off. I instantly recognize that he is asking when I can fulfill his order instead of the others. Friends between corpos are just relationships to trade favors and he is subtly asking for one.

“Should be another month. For yours, I can start next week.”

“Sounds to me you have everything in order, excellent.” He smiled and took another sip. “I can see that your company’s promotion is not far off as well.”

“Ha, you flatter me. We’ll likely take it slow to make sure our expansion is unhindered.”

“A wise choice, but it seems to me you may not fully understand the advantages of going up in membership rank. Tell me, do you know the significance of the Holly Corporation’s promotion?”

Hmm…I had gone over the information package they had sent when we incorporated our company, but some parts were worded vaguely, while the parts I cared about, like the tax rates, were clearly noted, so I never really looked further into it.

“The tax rates, of course. Followed by increased opportunities of working with other members, and access to industry reports and market analysis.” I replied as I slowly drudged up what I had read before.

“Correct. That is what the publicized version says, but it is written in vague terms. It was done on purpose to keep these perks subtle, away from public knowledge. If your corporation upgraded from G-Class to F-Class, the main perk is to have public institutions give you special consideration. However, do note that once you have moved up in class, it is not possible to downgrade back.”

I immediately thought about the utilities, but that was all privatized. It wasn’t like there were health care or much public facilities I could use.

Seeing me silent in contemplation, Joey revealed the answer. “The ECPD will listen to your direction within reason. While that bunch doesn’t like to fight, they are useful in cleaning up incidents, detective work, tracking, or even arresting people as long as it isn’t too strenuous for them. If you went up to E-Class, you could have the courts and prisons work in your favor.”

“That is…Not something I knew.”

“It is not surprising. Corporations like to keep that information to themselves. There are many companies that get onto G-Class only to fall from grace shortly afterward, so there aren’t any perks. It is something you will eventually find out when your corporation is promoted. You usually are only informed of the perks at your current tier. Even I do not know what the perks available to those in the higher-up classes are.”

So this is the dark side of the corps. The hidden perks…

“Then, what did Holly Corporation gain in promoting to D-Class?” I couldn’t help but ask.

“Starting from D-Class, the corporations become considered as middle-class corporations. They gain the right to rent or buy real estate on the space stations that the consortium controls, allowing them to start operating in space,” Joey said as his eyes shifted upward as if his gaze could pierce through to the space stations above us.