Corpo Age

Chapter 29: New Los Angeles

I tried walking past the man who held a sign with my name on it, but it seemed like he recognized me the moment we made eye contact.

“Mr. Halls!” He exclaimed. “I hope you had a great flight. I’ve been waiting for you. My name is Vincent, but you can call me Vin.” He approached and shook my hand with both his cybernetic ones.

“Vin…? You’re Max’s friend right?” It turned out he was the contact Max had told me about before I left Elevate City.

“That’s right, we fought together back in Texas many years ago, history now, but we still keep in touch.”

“Nice to meet you, Vin. You can just call me Rollo. I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

“Haha, Max, let me know you were on your way so on a whim, I decided to come. Follow me, my car’s this way,” He moved to help me carry some of my luggage.

We navigated through the airport halls and out into the glaring sun until we reached a spacious parking lot. A few more minutes of walking led us to his bright red pickup truck, which must’ve been ancient by this world’s standards.

“So, where are you headed?” He asked once we both got in the car after throwing in my luggage in the back.

“Downtown Summit Hotel,” I sent him the nav data to his SAID.

“Yes, sir,” He started the car, one with a combustion engine, the only one I’ve seen in this world. “Did Max get a chance to tell you about my request?”

“Request? He just told me you’re the guy I should talk to, to get situated, find potential people I could hire, and real estate,” I said, as I tried to enjoy the view and not worry about the occasional rattling noises that came from the engine.

“Figures. The only thing that guy could do properly is all related to his gun. So anyway, he says you’re hiring security for wasteland salvage operations right?” He looked over at me, taking his eyes off the road, so I quickly answered. “Yes yes, that’s right. Watch out!”

He swerved around the vehicle that was in front of him and overtook it before he continued as if nothing happened. “Great! You see, I’m actually looking for a stabler job in security. Do you think I would fit for the job?”

He placed a hand on my shoulder to grab my attention. When I glanced over, he had a bright smile while pointing at himself.

“...I don’t see why not since you have Max’s trust—” The car once again swerved around, this time past traffic as we ran a red light. “...Are you sure you’re good to drive, though?”

He took his eyes off the road once again to turn to me. I really miss auto-drive right about now.

“Hmm? Of course, everyone always insisted I be the driver since forever! I’ve never crashed before and always got out us of trouble. Just ask Max, I drove him and the boys out of more shit storms than I could count, while under fire too.”

No matter what he says, it doesn’t reassure me of his driving skills at all…

“Why did you want a new job all of a sudden?”

“I’ve been thinking about it for a while. All the new fancy space mining tech in the last few years has made the wasteland less profitable, so in turn, the corps have been reducing my paycheck.”

“You work for a corp?”

“Nah, contract security for their transports across the wasteland. The wastelanders have also been acting up all around the place recently, so it’s the perfect time to transition away. With you, we would be limiting our activity to fewer areas where we can actually monitor the local situation in real time.”

“I see… Do you have any leads on who else to hire? I’m looking to start off with a small outpost, so we only need about a dozen personnel, including non-combatants.”

“Out in the wasteland, everyone is a combatant whether they want to be or not, but yeah, I know a few people I could call up, give me a few days.”

The car’s speed finally slowed down as he entered the more urban area. With business out of the way, there was a brief awkward silence as we continued our drive in silence.

“...So Rollo, how was the flight? Tired?”

“Yeah, a little. I had to subdue some guy who was making a commotion and was about to delay the flight. I thought there’d be more security on the plane or something, but I guess not.”

“Haha, fat chance, that shit happens more often than you think and the corps running the airlines will never care. They did some study where they found the people on the flight would more often than not step in to resolve most issues because if the plane is screwed, then so is everyone else on it.”

“...Then they can cheap out on security if that premise holds true. They really aren’t afraid of any accidents, are they?”

Vin Shrugged. “Guess not, it’s just another insurance write-off to them, just like with the convoys I protect.”

After a grand total of thirty minutes, we arrived at the hotel. I declined to go out with Vin for the rest of the day, as I wanted to settle in and do some preliminary research. We exchanged contacts and agreed to meet up in a few days once he had a chance to reach out to some people.

Once I secured my luggage in my room, I decided to take a walk around the area to get a feel for the city of New Los Angeles.

I checked my pistols and holstered them before I left the hotel. The people that walked by didn’t seem too different from what I’ve seen in Elevate City so far. The restaurants around had less variety of cuisines, but the moment I spotted a place with my favorite milkshake, I had to try it out.

I continued down the road until I heard sirens down the road and watched as a convoy of cars drove by, each marked with the logo of some corporation I had never seen before. The people on the street seemed used to it and ignored them as they drove by noisily.

As the sky dimmed, I wandered my way into a decently busy pub to sit down, relax, and listen in on the surrounding conversations. My auditory implants helped me filter out the background noise and the mundane chatter.

“---been rough lately?”

“You could say that again. Those goddamn wastelanders have been popping up everywhere non-stop, can’t even hit them back properly when they run so damn fast under the cover of the storms.”

“Ha, at least you’ve got away safely. I heard half of Peter’s crew is either dead or maimed.”

“He’s always been an asshole. Karma finally got his ass. Cheers!”

“Quiet down. They’re right over there,” The woman pointed toward a corner of the room.

“Ha, whatever. Anyway, did you see the Holly Corp convoy rolling into the city again? They’ve been at it non-stop for a while now. Think they found a mine or something?”

“I’d say most definitely, they stopped hiring contractors for salvage operations too, must be trying to keep avenues of information leakage to a minimal.”

I searched online for more information on what I had heard. It seemed like these small corporations sometimes found deposits to mine out in the wasteland. The bigger corps weren’t really interested though, with space mining being more reliable and efficient, and they had enough capital to dip their hands at it. After all, there was a huge market for resources in space to upkeep or expand their habitats and ships that all required various mineral resources.

I filtered through a few more conversations, but there weren’t any more than gossip and rumors, so I decided to call it a night and returned to the hotel.

Unlike Elevate City, the city wasn’t lit up in its entirety and only in certain sections of the city. You couldn’t help but notice that stark contrast as I walked away from the commercial streets into the more residential ones.

As I crossed into the residential area to return to my hotel, the glass to a window across the street shattered without warning and a woman tumbled out of it.

“You wastelanders seriously think you could just strut into the city as you please?” A skinny man with pale skin climbed out of the window shortly after her.

I tried to avoid attention and silently continued walking by. The man slowly approached the woman, who was still dazed from the rough landing out of the window.

“Heh, don’t worry, I’ll show you a good time before I sell you to the harvesters.”

Harvesters harvesters harvesters. They were all on my list after their attack on my clinic. Now that I’m in a new city, I could really use some info on where I can gain some experience points.

The man stepped on the woman’s back and was fidgeting around in his pockets for something. With him distracted, I took the opportunity to power up my stealth implant and close the distance. I got behind him and placed him in a chokehold. He struggled as hard as he could, but it meant nothing in the face of my cybernetic arms!

Once the man fell unconscious, I pulled out the binding bracelets and restrained his limbs.

Now where do I even bring him to interrogate? It’s not like I can just carry him back to the hotel…

“Who are you?” I glanced over to see the woman warily looking up at me from the ground.

“Don’t mind me, I just have business with harvesters,” I said as I lifted the man over my shoulders.

“I—thank you. I am in your debt. My name is Jane. May I ask who helped me?”

There was no reason for me to get involved with a supposed wastelander. I really didn’t want to answer, but I also couldn’t just leave her hanging, “I am…Max-well.” I replied as I walked away from her.

Continuing down the street while I pretended not to hear her, I carried the heavy package around while unsure if I was getting weird looks or not. I was too embarrassed to meet anyone’s eyes, so I eventually decided to stop in a secluded alley a good distance away from the main road.

The man wouldn’t wake up even when I slapped him until I pinched his nose together and covered his mouth.

“Wake up! I wanted to ask you a few questions about your harvester friends and then you can go.” I tried to deliver the best customer service smile I could.

“Who the fuck are you? Do you have any idea who you’re messing with?”

I took a step back, unholstered my Suri, and aimed the gun at him.

“I can ask someone else if you don’t know.”

His glare at me softened as his expression of fear was mixed with thoughtfulness, “Okay, fine…”

He began to spill the information I was looking for, such as the locations of harvester dens, but there wasn’t really any way to tell if he was telling the truth or not. Once he was done and was sure I wouldn’t get anything more out of him, I placed a bullet between his brows.

+10 EXP

I had enough of taking chances. The last thing I needed in a new city was someone working against me.

On the final stretch back to the hotel, I received a text from Vin about being ready to meet. He had several people who were interested in taking the job lined up. After a bit of back-and-forth texting, we finished planning for interviews to take place in my hotel meeting rooms.

Until then, I had some harvesting to do. I had a feeling I wouldn’t get many opportunities once we got too busy with the wastelands.