528 Win Corpo Prizes Part Two

Delamain dropped me off in the corpo industrial complex at the Arasaka administration building and I entered the facility with confidence. I approached the receptionist's desk and I smiled at the near instant lust on her face when she saw me. Apparently, Delemain's compliment was an understatement.

“C-can I help you, sir?” She asked, her face slightly red. She also straightened her back and pushed up her chest in an intentional move to get me to look. Since it was my first day, I wanted to make a good impression and glanced down briefly at her breasts and let my smile grow into a grin.

“Good morning, Charlene. I'm the new employee hired for the Reclamation Division.” I said and she looked surprised that I knew her name. “I'm here for my schedule, my company ID and security pass, find out which office is mine to do paperwork in, and what lab time has been booked for me.”

Charlene blinked her eyes at me for a moment, then blushed fully and nodded before checking on the computer for me. She intentionally bent over to open the top drawer of her desk and she pulled out a company package with some paperwork that looked like lab procedures, and my ID and pass were inside.

“Here you go, sir.” Charlene said and handed them to me, a smile on her face at making me look at her breasts again. “Your office is the smallest one at the far end of the hallway on the right. You have half an hour to settle in and then you need to report to Lab 01 in the next building. Your limited pass will only allow you inside that one and no others.”

I nodded instead of complaining, because I was an intern and I knew I would be limited for the first week, just as Patricia had warned me yesterday. I had to earn some trust first and then I would be allowed full access to all of the labs and the R&D database.

“Thank you, you've been a huge help.” I said and her blush returned to her face. “I'll see you again on the way out.”

Charlene nodded and watched me as I walked around her desk and down the hallway. I didn't have to glance back to know she was leaning out into the hallway to watch me for as long as she could. It was almost funny that her thoughts were conflicted over looking at the great geometric pattern on my head or staring at my butt.

The office was as small as she indicated and was barely big enough for a desk, a simple chair, and a miniature filing cabinet. Apparently, the company wanted to continue having both electronic and paper copies of things. I sat down and opened the package and clipped the ID to my breast pocket and put the pass into the inside breast pocket. I read the paperwork for the lab rules and procedures and they were basic protocols that even a monkey could understand.

When it was time, I left my office and walked down the hallway, smiled and waved at the receptionist to make her blush again, and left the building. I went over to the much larger building that held the division's labs and entered, used my pass at the security station, and the man there nodded and told me where to go.

I followed his directions and entered the main lab, which was like a central hub and several smaller labs were attached to it through decontamination chambers. There were a few people there at different workstations, two men and one woman, and they all looked up when I entered.

“You the new hire?” One of the men asked.

I really wanted to make a joke about only being a tourist and that I wanted to see all the exhibits, except I could tell just by the expressions on their faces that they wouldn't tolerate any fooling around. Instead of trying to make them laugh and establish a casual atmosphere, I stayed quiet and pointed to the company badge on my breast pocket.

“We have a few preliminary tests for you to complete, so we know what level of comprehension you can understand.” The woman said and motioned to another desk. “Go ahead and log in. It'll prompt you on what to need to do.”

I tried to not feel insulted that she literally implied that I might be a little too stupid for them to have a conversation with until I proved I was smart enough to handle it. I also assumed that if I refused, they wouldn't allow me near any of their work projects until I completed whatever they had set up or the boss told them to.

After what happened last night, I wasn't holding out hope that Patricia would take my side. So, I went to the indicated workstation and sat down, plugged in the superfluous cord into my unattached neck port, and initiated contact with the computer. I then isolated and disabled the malware and spyware that was from multiple companies and then started their tutorial program.

It was literally child's play to complete it nearly instantly and my opinion of my coworkers dropped significantly. Basic was too good of a word to describe it, honestly. I touched the woman's mind briefly to see if it was them hazing or pranking the new guy on the first day, only to find out that she fully expected me to fail their simple test and they could assign the new eye candy the boss hired into the office permanently and would keep me away from their important work.

I submitted the simple questionnaire to both the company and to the division head, just so the executives involved would know the kind of tests the idiots here had given to me to pass inspection.

“I finished the primer. When is the real testing supposed to start?” I asked, just to tweak their noses a bit.

“Excuse me?” “What did you say?” “You're finished already?” The three of them said at the same time.

“I assumed you gave me the elementary school questionnaire and I finished it. I can't find the academy one or the corporate one, however. When do they start or do I have to keep looking? Is that also part of the tests?”

“I didn't receive a notification.” One of the men said.

“Why would you?” I asked before anyone else could answer him. “I sent it to the division head and then sent a copy to the main company servers, as per proper lab procedure. It was in the same package as my ID and security pass.”

The color drained from their faces and the three of them turned back to their workstations and their eyes moved frantically. I sat there and let them panic over it as I started copying everything on their lab servers. It didn't really take long, since they were only working on three side projects on their own as the three combined their efforts on the lab's main project of reworking the single cell protein in a pointless attempt to mass produce tofu.

In my opinion, they could have finished everything years ago and were either stalling or they didn't realize they could have finished them a long time ago. One was measuring the transpiration rate of fluids through cloned or artificial tree wood as they tried to figure out the most efficient way to encourage growth in hostile environments.

The second was trying to extract the various strains of DNA from real fruits and vegetables to reproduce them in vast numbers, which was honestly a waste of time. Plants didn't care if they were clones or all had the same genetic makeup. The project could have had almost instant success by using the various seeds and germinating them with different wavelengths of light to see which would let them grow in almost any type of soil.

Their biggest project was the creation and fermentation of various strains of yeast to produce the most efficient source to increase the yield of whatever they added it to, which I had to assume was either bread dough or for alcohol production. A quick search let me see they wanted to have bread become a staple food to break into the market and to make better tasting alcohol for the rich to drink.

Hadn't they ever heard of a micro-brewery, or better yet, industrious people that had made homemade stills in sheds and barns? They easily produced much higher alcohol content and better results than the woman had managed to achieve after two years of hard work.

As I contemplated the wasted time and browsed the lab results, the lab door opened and Patricia Vogel stormed in, clearly angry, and she came to a stop in the middle of the room and glared at the three workers that wore lab coats over their business suits.

“Which one of you idiots...” Patricia started to shout.

“It was a joke!” One of the men said and held up his hands in surrender. “Just a joke!”

Patricia closed her mouth and stared at him for nearly a full minute before her glare lessened from incinerate to only lightly scorching. “Your joke...” She said with enough disdain that we all knew she didn't believe him. “...just cost me six months of buttering up Hanako Arasaka.”

“WHAT?” The man yelled and slapped both hands over his own mouth for yelling at his boss.

“I was in a meeting with her and she asked me to show her the very important lab employee test that my new employee submitted. I received the notification of its existence right after we discussed how he managed to obtain a position in my division.” Patricia explained.

All three employees looked a little scared after hearing that.

“It was quite humiliating to see what my highly paid biological scientists thought were the best things to test a new lab assistant on.” Patricia said, her teeth grinding together. “She will be sending an inspection team to go over everything we are doing inside the Arasaka Company's labs and to reassess the resources we are apparently wasting!”

The scared look on their faces changed to horror.

Patricia lost the glare as she finally turned to look at me. “As for you...” She walked over and handed me a security pass. It was about five levels above mine and I raised an eyebrow at her. “Miss Arasaka wishes to meet you at your earliest convenience.”

That was a hell of a shock to hear and I kept it off of my face. I accepted the card and put it beside the one I had in my inside breast pocket. “I'll make all due haste to accommodate her request.” I said and stood. “If you will excuse me, Mrs. Vogel.”

Patricia stepped aside and then leaned in as I passed her. “Well played, Veder.”

I nodded, even though I hadn't planned for this outcome, and walked around her towards the door. “By the way.” I said when I reached the door. “Everything you do here is wrong, even the side research, and especially the main project. It's a fools errand and will never happen.”

After dropping that bomb on them and saw their shocked faces, I walked out of the lab at a fast pace and swiped my old pass at the security desk to log out officially. I didn't hand the pass in, though. Either it was temporary or my new one was, so it was safer to keep both. Of course, now that I had them, I didn't need the physical cards anymore and only kept them for appearances.

A mental inquiry using the program we made in class, let me know where Hanako Arasaka was currently located inside Arasaka Tower. To my surprise, an armored limo was waiting for me at the curbside. I recognized it and nodded at Chris the bodyguard before I climbed into the back. A small screen on the back of the seat lit up and Carrie's face appeared there.

“I'm sorry I didn't understand what you were trying to do last night, Veder.” Carrie said, her face sad.

It only took me a moment to understand what she meant. “You finally talked to the other girls?”

“Kei was quite excited about the deal she made with you and happily told everyone what you charged her for it.” Carrie answered and gave me a pleading look. “I didn't tell them what happened last night and I was hoping you wouldn't either.”

I opened my mouth to agree and she cut me off.

“I'll owe you a favor.” Carrie said. “Please, can you just... not embarrass me again?”

I sighed and relaxed back into the seat. “That wasn't what...”

“I know.” Carrie said and cut me off again. “It took a couple of my friends, telling me how willing they were to make similar deals with you, in order for me to figure it out.”

“Then you don't owe me a favor.” I said.

“I don't want you to tell...” Carrie started to plead.

I held a hand up and cut her off this time. “I wasn't going to. Even if they asked about it, I was going to avoid saying anything for as long as possible. I don't want the extra attention any more than you do.”

Carrie sighed and relaxed as well. “If you're sure...”

“Corpo's Honor.” I said and saluted her with the middle finger.

Carrie laughed and shook her head. “I'll see you at school on Monday, choom.”

“Later, choomba.” I said and the call ended.

It took me a moment to realize what she said and what it meant. We were both supposed to work both days of the weekend, and I assumed I would see her in the office at either lunch or during the mandatory breaks. If I wouldn't see her until school, then that meant either she lost her cushy job working with her mother, which would never happen, or I did.

Dammit, I have to change my plans again.I thought as the limo pulled up in front of Arasaka Tower. I stepped out before the guard could open it for me. “Thanks for not shooting me, Chris.”

The guard looked surprised and then his face went red. His thoughts went right to keeping it as an option if his boss or her daughter asked him to quietly take care of things.

I walked around him and up the steps and into the building. I went to the elevator only high level corpos used and swiped my new security card. The elevator dinged and the doors opened, so no one had used it since Patricia had left and I wondered if that was on purpose. I stepped inside and it rose by itself without me pushing any buttons.

I reached out mentally and found hundreds of human minds, then reached out with my technomancy and felt that all of them had cybernetics. I also felt something like a virtual assistant. It wasn't anywhere near as powerful as a full AI and it was in control of a lot of the basic things inside the building. I didn't try to poke it or gained its attention, though. If it came up in conversation, or talked on its own, I'd comment about it. Otherwise, it would stay a secret of the company's executives.

The elevator reached its destination and opened on a floor that was quite nice. There wasn't a security desk or anything, either. The elevator itself was right in the living room of a floor sized apartment.

“You made good time.” A woman's soft voice said from across the room.

“It might have been sooner if Mrs. Vogel didn't berate her staff before telling me of your request, Miss Arasaka.” I answered diplomatically and turned to look at the very pretty Asian woman in a white leather armless dress. She sat on a couch that was about thirty feet long and it didn't look very comfortable. No plushness, no softness, and there was no way I was going to be allowed to sit on something so expensive. “Although, she did allow me the use of her limo.”

Hanako smiled slightly and waved me forward. “Mitigating circumstances that cancel each other out are always beneficial.”

As I walked over to her, I noticed that she was completely alone. There were no guards, no security system, and she didn't have a weapon on her. How did I know that? Her dress was practically skin tight and the only part that wasn't, were the cups holding her breasts in place. It was a small shame that they were completely covered, too. Even if they were fake, they looked appetizing.

Hanako waited until I stopped a respectable 10 feet away from her before she spoke. “I believe I have you to thank for the ingenious infiltration detection program that is already being dispersed among all currently loyal employees of the Arasaka Company.”

That distinction was quite the qualifier to have on her statement. Either she knew there were traitors selling secrets to the other corporations or knew that some of the ones she gave the program to were not using them to clean their systems. That told me what she was doing with it, too.

“You're monitoring them using the same program and seeing who cleans what systems and when.” I stated, which made the woman smile for real.

“Hmm.” Hanako hummed and tilted her head slightly as she gave me a searching look. “Patricia was right to warn me about your intelligence. That was a frighteningly quick and accurate deduction.”

I nodded my head once and didn't respond, since that wasn't a question.

“It was quite funny making her squirm as she told me the real version of how she hired you.” Hanako said and her smile faded. “I was quite amazed you accepted the job offer after she protected her daughter instead of you.”

I couldn't help responding to that one. “When you play corpo games, you should win corpo prizes.”

Hanako's face blanked as all emotion disappeared from her face. She gave me a blank stare for a full minute, the same as Patricia had done to her employee that accepted the blame, and slowly stood.

“What other programs have you written?” Hanako asked me. “Is it as innovative as Cleaner?”

“Innovative?” I asked, a little surprised by both the description and the simple name.

“Yes, innovative.” Hanako said and stepped towards me and looked up at my face. “I have the best ICE in the world in my cyberdeck and even better personal protections on my cybernetic implants.” She stopped one foot away from me and stared deep into my eyes. “Yet, when I ran your program, even on a separate diagnostic tool, it bypassed all of it and accessed my protected and encrypted storage as if it had no protections at all.”

Oh. Oops.I thought and then mentally shrugged. I had already gained her attention, so trying to lie about it or pretending it wasn't as important as it was, wouldn't gain me anything. Truth it was. “It's just a simple code and only took a few seconds to write.”

Shock showed on her face for a moment, then she blanked her face again. “What else did you write recently?”

I brought up the school project and sent her a copy. “That keeps track of the higher ranked executives of the Arasaka Company. My study group at school completed it yesterday and submitted it to the teacher.”

Hanako's eyes lost focus as she ran the thing and she sucked in a sharp breath. She spent a few seconds asking for certain people and then ended with her father, Saburo Arasaka. It gave his location as the compound in Japan, fifth floor, inside his private quarters.

“How are you able to bypass Arasaka's Black ICE?” Hanako asked, her voice full of curiousness.

“They have Black ICE installed? Where?” I asked instead of answering, which actually answered her, just not in the way she ever expected.

Hanako closed her eyes and took several deep breaths, which made her cupped breasts push up against the leather restraining them. “You are being transferred from the R&D's Reclamation Division to Arasaka's Counter-Intelligence Department, effective immediately.” She said and opened her eyes to look into my eyes again. “Don't refuse.”

“I wasn't going to, Miss Arasaka.” I responded.

“I want you to be my inside man in that department.” She continued. “After the foreign influences are cleaned out, hopefully by Monday afternoon at the latest, you will be placed there by a subordinate not connected to me and will be in charge of maintaining that cleanliness. Secretly, of course.”

“Of course.” I agreed.

“Officially, you are a talented intern recruited for your other skills and it was only just now discovered how talented you actually were in other things that could benefit the company immensely.” Hanako told me. “I hope you are agreeable that cover is the best way to keep you active enough to let you hide whatever you need to do to keep the department solely under this company's influence and no other.”

I nodded and she smiled and stepped back. For some reason, she glanced down to my crotch and she lost the smile as a brief look of disappointment appeared on her face.

As if I'd get hard from just admiring her.I thought. “Will that be all, Miss Arasaka?”

“Yes, Mr. Veder. That will be all.” Hanako said and turned to walk away.

I'd like to say I was surprised that she had a spectacular ass, except this was a world where cybernetic implants, artificial muscles, body sculpting, and covering it with RealSkinn to make it look natural, was as easy as paying a bunch of eddies for the work.

You could make yourself look like however you wanted and anyone and everyone did it, which was why my own changes had been easily accepted without comment. I turned around as well and walked over to the elevator and it opened for me. I stepped inside and turned around to face the doors and saw Hanako sit on the couch in the same spot she had before, as if posing for the cameras, which she was.

The elevator doors closed and ended my current adventure with one of the most powerful people in the company, with only her brother above her and her father above him. Would I ever see her in person again or was I to be relegated to secret messages and directives from cut-outs and blind drops? Only time would tell.