After about ten minutes of just sitting there quietly after we finished eating, with me giving her time to calm down and not freak out, Denise composed herself. She gave me a look full of gratitude and leaned in to lightly peck me on the lips.

“I'm glad to see you're as sweet as your message implied you were.” Denise said.

“You didn't believe a word of it and laughed, didn't you?” I asked with a smile.

“Yes.” Denise said and smiled back. “After what we did last night, it was a little difficult to believe anyone would say those things, let alone to me.”

I didn't point out that usually a message like that gained the opposite reaction. “I think a little sweetness doesn't hurt, as long as it's genuine.”

Denise nodded and leaned back against me. “That's the unbelievable part.”

Ah, I get it. I thought. “Then I should graciously offer to escort you back to your desk.”

Denise let out a huff. “Don't push your luck. I'm a supervisor now and can issue a directive or two where you're concerned, Mr. Full Counter-Intel Agent With All Responsibilities That Entails.”

I had to smirk at that. “Does that mean you realize you now have three other secretaries under you that have to have their files checked?”

Denise gasped and stood. “Goddammit! I need to get back to my office right away!”

I caught her hand and she looked down at me, a little panicked. “Wait to issue that order until this afternoon and then request my assistance. I'll be happy to coordinate with your department for the rest of the week to handle things.”

Denise calmed right down and she nodded. “All right, I'll do that.” She said and started to walk away, only I kept holding her hand and she had to stop. “What is it?”

I slowly stood up and her eyes followed my face until I was at my full height, almost a foot taller than her. “You're good at your job and you earned that promotion. Don't forget that.”

“I... I won't.” Denise whispered, her face slightly red.

“Take the rest of the morning to review the women under you and their procedures. If you have common ground, use it and gain their support. If you don't, offer to find some by helping them. The better they do their jobs, the better it reflects on you.” I advised her.

Denise nodded. “I will.”

I walked with her across the room and out into the hallway. “Then good luck and I'll see you after the academy lets out for the day.”

Denise took a breath and let it out. “Thanks, Veder.” She said and stood on her tippy-toes to give me another peck on the lips. “You can let my hand go now. I'm okay.”

“Yes, yes you are.” I responded and she smiled. I let her hand go and she walked away with her back straight and her head held high.

I went to my homeroom class and the door was locked. I checked with my technopathy and they were in the middle of assimilating another lesson. I could have entered and interrupted them, and after thinking about it, I decided not to. I sat down on the floor beside the door and decided to wait for class to end. It also gave me a chance to talk to the VI and to see what she thought of Adam Smasher's actions over the last 50 years, or for however long she had existed.

It sure turned out to be an interesting conversation. A Virtual Intelligence's perspective on meatbags trying to achieve a balance between the real world and the digital world through cybernetics, was both odd and unique. Oh, and she also watched all of the classes in the academy, just like she watched everything in every room with a camera or vidscreen, and knew exactly how people would act and react in certain situations.

As for her view of Adam Smasher? He should be deleted and removed from all digital access. The things he did in VR made her glad she wasn't a full AI because watching him and his replays of BDs would have driven her insane and given her reverse-cyber-psychosis.

To ease her programming, and after ensuring she couldn't relay it to anyone, I shared with her what I did to Adam and I was going to destroy his recordings, as well as his digital engrams recorded in the basement inside the Mikoshi Digital Fortress. He would no longer have a backup for the company to restore to a new body after he died.

Why can I not report to the board of directors that the head of security is compromised? The VI asked.

I'm using him as a puppet to get as much dirt on the Arasaka Family as possible. He's also digging through their personal records to find out just how bad they've screwed everyone over. I answered. By the way, yes, this is part of my job. I am an official counter-intelligence agent after all.

The VI was quiet for several seconds. You are going to take the entire family down and destroy the company from the inside out?

I chuckled and smiled. No, of course not. I answered and I almost felt relief from her. I'm going to use their own tactics against them and manipulate them into helping people instead.

The VI was quiet again for several seconds. You are not going to harm them?

I don't need to. Their own political manoeuvring has compromised them and I'm going to use that to make them act like better people, whether they want to or not. I told her.

The VI didn't respond for nearly a full minute before she spoke. Then I should inform you of Yorinobu's plan to destroy his father's company and everything he has done to undermine his family and Arasaka's reputation.

I am all ears, my dear. I answered and I spent the rest of the morning being enlightened by a VI that had been forced to stand by as the Arasaka family slowly tore itself apart with infighting and bitter feuds while she also had to take care of them and see to their welfare at the same time.

Her frustration was clear, despite not having the full suite of emotions she should have, and unloading it onto me actually eased some of her worries. A burden shared was a burden halved.

*

Atlas sat behind the counter and lowly chuckled as he tried his best to hide his constant amusement. Over 20 people had been in to visit him so far and made similar demands as the others. Most of them were genuine corporation executives and could have afforded the orders, if they actually wanted them and weren't using them as a means to ruin him and his new business.

Surprisingly, a few of them were posers and pretenders that had thought the contracts themselves would get them invited into different corporations without any real training or means to actually complete the contracts. Those were really difficult ones to not laugh out of the store, mostly because they thought becoming a corpo would give them a better life. It didn't.

You just exchanged one pile of crappy circumstances for another. You didn't become a top executive overnight that had a cushy job, high pay, and access to real food and all the amenities they thought executives enjoyed. To the masses, it was a dream job and something to strive for.

In reality, it was an illusion. You had to be even more ruthless than if you were a street thug trying to fight for your life every day and eke out a living digging through trash for scraps to fix up and sell to the local ripperdoc. Life wasn't easy, no matter where in society you lived and worked.

The door opened and a group of 5 people entered. Just by their clothing choices and obvious cyberware, Atlas knew they were street thugs that belonged to a gang. Openly carrying guns, knives, and baseball bats was a dead giveaway, too. One of them stepped towards the counter and the other 4 spread out around the store to look at the cyberware on display.

“Word on the street says you have cheap high quality cyberware for sale.” The man said and his voice was a mix of his own and a bad vocalizer.

Atlas stayed sitting and kept his eyes on the aggressive guy that he was sure wasn't going to offer to buy anything, not if the others fingering their weapons was any indication. “Only what you see.” He lied and sent a priority request to the police for help. “The rest has to be ordered from corporate HQ.”

The man frowned. “That's not what you told Georgie before.”

Atlas didn't have to glance at the others to know he hadn't seen any of them before. “I've been sitting here laughing my ass off all morning at all the corpos that came in and wanted 10,000 or more units to lock me into supply contracts and run me out of business. Why would I tell them the truth?”

The man glanced back at his crew and nodded. Atlas stood when he was distracted and ignored the others as they tried, quite fruitlessly, to break the invulnerable glass cases holding the cyberware examples with their metal fists and then with their weapons.

The man turned back to Atlas with a sneer on his face. “After you're dead, we'll see what you really have in the back...”

Atlas punched the man's face and caved it in, pulped the brain, and the force of it flung the now dead body across the room to slam into the wall with a metallic clang and a splat. He leapt over the counter and grabbed the closest guy by the neck and twisted, snapped the metal spine, and swung the body at the next guy.

The body's two metallic feet hit the guy in the chest and stuck there with a squelch sound and made the third guy cry out in pain. The other two gang members turned from shooting the glass cases to shooting at the obvious threat. All they managed to do was kill their own men, since Atlas hadn't let the second man go, before they ran out of bullets.

Atlas didn't waste any time as they reloaded and he jumped forward with his meat and metal shield and crushed the fourth guy against the wall, right next to their leader. The fifth and last guy kept trying to reload his gun, except it was jammed. He cursed as he desperately tried to pop the clip back out and looked up when Atlas loomed over him.

“Fuck you!” The guy shouted and threw the useless gun at his face.

Atlas caught it and turned it around to point it at the gang member. “Maelstrom made a huge mistake coming after me.”

“Royce is gonna fuck you up when he hears what you did to us!” The guy spat at him.

“Simon Randall? Really?” Atlas asked and stared at the guy for several seconds. “He's going to make me pay for fighting back against his men for trying to kill me? I'm so scared. What's he going to do? Send more stupid thugs to kill me?”

The guy knew he was being mocked. “Fuck you, gonk!”

“How about no?” Atlas asked and moved in a flash as he shoved the gun barrel through the guy's cybernetic eye and into his brain implant. The body dropped to the floor and twitched several times before he died.

The front door opened and several NCPD police officers rushed in, only they were too late.

“Jesus Christ.” One of them said and took aim. “Hands up!”

Atlas put his hands up and turned around and smiled. “Thank god you're here, officer. I'd like to report an attempted robbery on my business and an attempted murder on myself.”

The officer kept his gun on him and glanced around. “It looks like you're the one going to jail for 5 counts of murder.”

“Self defence of self and property is an inalienable right of the citizens of Night City.” Atlas said, a little smugly. “Would you like to see the security footage of them admitting it and attempting it several times?”

The officer let out a curse and lowered his gun.

“I'll call Meat Wagon.” Another officer offered and left.

“I'll call in to the station and report.” The other officer said and left as well.

That left Atlas and the lone officer that had threatened him.

“Coffee?” Atlas asked and motioned to the counter and the machine there.

The officer looked around again and sighed. “Fuck it, sure. Black and two sweeteners if you got it.”

Atlas smiled and kept his arms up as he went behind the counter. “Sweeteners? I've got real sugar.”

The officer looked shocked and then glanced around at the clearly higher end cyberware. “They picked the wrong target this time, didn't they?”

“Yessir.” Atlas said and finally lowered his hands to make a cup of coffee that was going to knock the cop's socks off. “Isn't it just too bad they don't have anyone left alive to warn their boss?”

The officer actually barked a laugh at that and walked over to the counter. “Yes, too bad.”

When the officer tasted the delicious coffee with real sugar, his socks didn't come off. It was a close thing, though. He was thinking he might forgo the usual bribe request if he could get some of the coffee to take home.

*

Just before the bell rang to end morning classes, I thanked the building's VI for talking to me and offered to do so again the next time I wasn't busy. When I joked I had meatbag things to do, she mentally shrugged and said she was used to being ignored when she wasn't needed.

I had to reassure her that I might not be able to talk to her all the time while I was inside of her; but, I was always going to need her to look after me while I was. Having an elevator car available nearby was the best thing and I thanked her for allowing me the privilege.

The bell rang and I stood up and felt a small feeling of appreciation from the VI. I was really tempted to enhance her program to make her more of herself, except that would give away that someone besides members of the Arasaka Family had access to her and her programming and they would probably delete her for it.

I took off my corpo jacket, pretended to turn it inside out, and transfigured it into my academy uniform coat. I put it on and buttoned it just as the door to the classroom opened and the students filed out. I waited for Evelyn and the girls to walk by before I joined the group and walked with them. No one really noticed until we reached the cafeteria and Kei looked around to see if I was sitting at my table.

“Veder!” Kei gasped and gave me a quick hug. “You missed all of the morning classes.”

I gave her a smile. “I'm sure I could bribe you or one of the others to lend me your class notes.”

“Bribe her? Just call in your favor.” One of the others said, nonchalantly.

Of course, this immediately made them all think about my confrontation with Carrie and their minds delved into having me demand sex from them all, even Carrie. Her thoughts were tinged with loss, though. She knew I'd never accept having a normal relationship with her after what I had said to her.

Her first mistake was easy enough to move past, since it was a misunderstanding on her part and she admitted it. The second? She knew exactly what she said and had implied, so it was too big for her to ignore or move past. She had genuinely thought I wanted her to perform degrading sexual acts in exchange and it embarrassed her when I called her out on it.

Kei blushed as she gave me a shy smile and didn't deny that she would welcome it. She accurately assumed it would be fun with me in charge and ordering her to have her way with me. Instead of doing that, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small container full of cherry tomatoes.

She let out a little squeal of happiness and chose her main meal at the vending machine, a large salad, and she would sprinkle the tomatoes over it. She sent me a private chat ping and offered the files they had acquired during the morning classes and her notes on them and what she thought was the important parts.

I scanned them and thanked her mentally, then I absorbed them by the time we all gathered our meals on trays and went back to my table in the far corner of the room. The girls all happily chatted and tried to not feel jealous that Kei was enjoying her lunch additions a lot more than they thought she should. She was almost bubbly as she munched on the delicious food that made her limp salad pop.

I sighed and reached into my other pocket and pulled out a container full of peach slices. That made them all squeal happily and they were immediately divided up among their plates and they were all just as bubbly as Kei and their jealous thoughts were completely forgotten.

I didn't miss Carrie slipping one of the wedges into her pocket, either. I didn't try to read her thoughts about it, because I was sure she was going to give the wedge to her mother after school.

Surprisingly, none of them asked why I had been called to the Finance Department's office and only Carrie wondered why. She knew it had to involve my new job and she thought about what I could have done to earn attention from someone so high up in the company. I did not offer her an explanation and ate my food as I listened to the girls chatter on about nothing important.