Corpo Age Chapter 157: Unexpected Expected Meeting

The day after I went to the gathering of powerful corpos, I spent my ti freely within Aegis like a typical tourist. However, I couldn’t fully get into it because of the strange eting I was invited to tomorrow by the representative of AeroDynamic, whom I had just recently t.

“Welco to the Free Floating Bazaar. I hope you enjoy your stay,” the robot greeted us as soon as it scanned our tickets.

“Are you sure we should be coming to such a public area after that invitation?” Thorne asked, as he scanned the surroundings within his power armor.

We were getting a few looks, but most continued with their day after a mont of surprise.

“AeroDynamic is…much bigger than us at the mont. They wouldn’t need to plot in such a roundtable manner if they were out for us. No point in worrying too much about what we don’t know.”

“You know, how you’re acting says otherwise.”

“I’m fine.” I quickly turned the visor on my helt, transparent to show my face to Thorne. “See?”

He shrugged, and we continued our way into the bazaar.

The Free Floating Bazaar was one of the largest marketplaces on Aegis, and a famous tourist attraction as well. It was a three-dinsional bazaar, with entire shops floating in the air. It combined the experience of microgravity with shopping.

The main reason we initially chose this place was because it didn’t restrict what we brought inside. Microgravity parks made visitors wear their suits, while here, we could bring in our power armor as an alternative.

We floated around as a party of six power armors, which made all the other visitors we ca across steer out of our way. That was why I didn’t bother heading into any crowded stores, in case I got in the way of their business.

Most of the stores around sell electronic components, processing chips, or high-class equipnt. There were also a few boutique clothing stores, but it didn’t attract as much when I could find the sa stores back in Elevate City.

The only store I visited was one of the larger weapon stores.

Their business was set up completely differently from what I was used to. It seems like they catered more to businesses rather than individual clients because their store was mostly empty. They simply had a desk with several terminals along with several weapons on the walls behind the counter.

I guess it’s no surprise, considering the rcenary scene isn’t exactly thriving up here.

At the thought of rcenaries, I couldn’t help but look forward to the eting I arranged for tonight.

As much as I didn’t believe AeroDynamic to plot against , I could never be too careful. I was in unfamiliar territory, so I reached out to Amos, a local QG, for so info.

He said he would need the entire day, so I still had so ti to kill before eting with him tonight.

I shelved those thoughts for now and turned my attention back to the weapon store I just entered.

“Welco sir, was there anything in particular you were looking for?” The clerk greeted respectively, likely thanks to our imposing entourage.

“I just wanted to take a look. I’ll call you if I need sothing.”

“Of course, sir, please feel free to view our products on this terminal here. If anything interests you, I’d be more than happy to bring out a sample for you.”

The clerk respectfully retreated and left to my own device. I skimd the list of products on the terminal while keeping an eye out on the other custors.

I initially ca to the conclusion this store catered to corpos exactly because of the custors currently in their store. They mostly seed to be middle-managent level personnel of various corps, and I was curious about how other companies usually took care of procurent.

However, I quickly gave up as I realized they were all taking their ti, likely communicating with their head office. There was no point observing if all their decision-making happened back in their office.

Instead, I carefully went over the selection the store had to offer, and boy, did it differ from what I was used to.

Instead of just the small arms I’ve seen in other stores, this store also dealt in a lot of advanced tech employed by corporations. They had various mini-nuclear reactors used in power armor, VTOLs, missiles, and even space-borne gunships.

They didn’t even have prices listed for so of the larger items, as it only told to contact the clerks.

As interested as I was in a gunship, that was sothing to explore later when we were at least a D-Class company, where we would gain the privilege of operating in space.

I quickly switched to a different category of products lest it tempted further and explored the more normal selection. They had everything I could imagine, including the cloud vests that could protect you from snipers and collisions to railgun rifles.

I couldn’t help but glance down at our own weaponry, as I found it pretty average. What we had was from the open market, as developing weapons was an entirely different ballga.

I had so knowledge about railguns from my electrical engineering knowledge, but it was all theory. If I wanted to get into arms developnt, I would have to brush up on all the other intricacies of it and dedicate so serious research ti to produce results.

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Even with the help of Lanus, it was hard to be competitive against the arms industry. The corporate players in that market were all powerful corporations with hundreds of thousands of employees at their beck and call. I’m sure just the number of employees in their R&D could outnumber my entire company.

Realizing I wouldn’t be making my own anyti soon, I decided to place an order for a few weapons that caught my eye.

The first one I bought was listed as a marksman railgun, similar to what Joey’s company employed. It fired powerful rounds with high penetration at the cost of a slow fire rate. To compensate for that, I bought what appeared to be an oversized assault rifle with multiple barrels that enabled a higher fire rate.

I only bought six of each for the team with because they weren’t cheap at all. They each cost over twenty thousand credits and there was the ammunition and power supply to worry about as well.

After our shopping trip, we went ahead and spent the remaining ti at a cafe near Amos’ place. We watched the nurous residents from the second floor of the cafe heading in and out of Amos’ shop that he used as a front.

“That old guy should be making quite a sum just from his legit business alone,” Thorne muttered.

“I guess it’s required if you want to spend any of the funds he earns as a QG without drawing too much attention.”

“There’s no way he’s not under surveillance from the other corps, right? They must know about him.”

“Probably, but he’s a convenient tool for them. Allows them to ss with each other without taking the fall for it.”

“Ha, knowing that wily old fox, he won’t be satisfied being at the rcy of others. I bet he has so ace up his sleeve, like a fleet of spaceships or sothing.”

I chucked at Thorne’s imagination. I couldn’t discount it entirely because I heard Amos had been an asteroid miner, so he must know a thing or two about ships. It wouldn’t hurt to consult him when I expanded to space.

As we chatted around while enjoying so coffee, we spotted a familiar face walking by down below.

“Isn’t that the kid from that gig the old man made us do?” Thorne said as he rubbed his chin. “What’s his na again?”

“Pino…the rcenary kid…”

Upon seeing his face, I imdiately rembered when he tried to hand-feed his plan to help extract his sister. He said he had a knack for plotting simulations and had co up with a plan based on it. I didn’t give it too much of a look as it didn’t account for our abilities, but now that my research projects could make use of such simulations, I reconsidered.

“Let’s go greet him.”

We caught him just as he was about to enter Amos’ shop. He flinched dramatically upon turning around to see our power armors.

“Pino, it’s been so ti. Can we talk?” I gestured toward a nearby alley.

“Umm…sure…”

“So, how are you doing since the last ti we t?”

“Not bad…” He glanced cautiously at us. “Was there sothing I can help you with?”

“Actually, yeah. I was curious about the simulations you showed last ti. Can I see how you do them?”

“Umm…okay?”

After so fumbling, he sent a few files from his terminal.

It didn’t take long to analyze it with my knowledge of software. However, the part that impressed was the accuracy of the mathematical models he employed.

With my software engineering skills, I was familiar with simulation programs, but the accuracy of it was another matter. I was missing so much data for Lanus to simulate what we needed. The models Pino used instead of data were exactly what I needed.

“So you have a knack for math, right?”

He blinked blankly for a mont, confused.

“A little bit?”

“What do you think about working for my company? You can bring your sister, too.”

“...You want to work for a corp…? And beco a corpo? ” He looked completely astonished. “What’s the catch?”

“Nothing. It’s just that I could use your help in my research departnt. There’s a lot of stuff we could optimize with your work. You would have to co down to Elevate City, though.”

“Umm…I don’t know. Thank you for the offer, but I’ve never thought about leaving Aegis before.”

He quickly darted out of the alley and I shrugged when I saw Thorne’s amused look.

“Anyway…It’s almost ti for our appointnt. We should be fine, being a little early.”

We were smoothly led towards the back of the shop after we said the secret code to the storekeeper, where we took the loading elevator down to where Amos was.

We found the old man sitting there, watching the sa old flatscreen TV from our previous visit. He only spared a quick glance before tossing a data chip my way.

I skimd over its contents, which was the report I commissioned him on regarding the eting place tomorrow, and the person I was eting.

“Is this it?” I couldn’t help but ask after going over everything. “There’s basically nothing useful here.”

“Nothing coming up is an answer in itself.”

“...You’re saying they’re clean?”

“That or they hid it well, which ans she’s operating under the blessing of her entire corp. It’s safe to say this isn’t the case of an employee taking action independently, like I initially suspected.”

“And why did you suspect such a thing in the first place?”

“Happens more than you think. This Jewel you have there. Her na ca up before when so other corpos had do things to help them with their internal politics. You’re on your own from here on, kid. Not much I can do when an entire A-Class corp is at work here.”

“...”

Ard with the knowledge that this representative of AeroDynamic was acting under the auspice of her company, I went to the eting as scheduled.

The location was at Launder’s Cafe, a run-of-the-mill cafe found on the border of the industrial spaceport and the corporate one. Its clientele seed to be a mix of spaceship captains and carefree, affluent family mbers of corpos on vacation.

It struck a nice balance of being classy without the stuffiness of following strict etiquette.

I sat in the corner on the second floor after getting my drink. I was in my power armor that was hidden under a projection that made appear to be a regular corpo enjoying my ti off.

I carefully examined all the other guests as I waited for the ti to pass. I arrived slightly early, and it appeared the other party had yet to arrive.

When the ti in the corner of my vision changed to 14:30, I focused on the entrance being displayed through the lens of one of my Nyes. However, no one approached, especially not the lady nad Jewel whom I had t two days prior.

When I was about to text Thorne to get an update on the periter, I saw a man, who had been sitting with his family of three until now, get up from his table and head straight for .

He had short brown hair and a fit build that was absent of any visible cybernetics.

He sat down without hesitation and flashed a warm smile.

Just as I was about to speak, he gestured for to stay silent. He then took out a circular device from his pocket and placed it on the table. I saw a shimring flash around us for a split second that reminded of an energy shield.

“Okay, now we can talk, Mr. Halls. Allow to first introduce myself. I am Titus Adiar, a majority stakeholder of AeroDynamic.”