The secretary's new supervisor was quite pleased and a little relieved to see me when I showed up. The rest of the afternoon and evening seemed to pass by quickly, thanks to Denise bringing the three other secretaries into her confidence.

She even told them a few things about the best way to handle their jobs with less stress. One of which was standing back and letting me do all the heavy lifting with scanning the files and checking the paperwork. They would only need to step in themselves to handle things if anything came up like it had the night before.

I didn't mind, especially since the four women were relatively close in age and they chatted about everything, including how great my butt looked in suit pants. It was almost funny that they acted almost exactly like the girls did in the cafeteria and reacted to comments in a similar way.

That clued me in that they actually had been exactly like the girls in class, only it was years ago when they were in class and attended the academy. They had kept that same atmosphere between them for all these years and I thought that was endearing, since they hadn't let the harsh corpo world get to them. Much, anyway.

Not surprisingly, the three women under Denise stayed for the extra hour after their normal shift to match hers, then they all officially logged staying in for overtime. Mine had started two hours before, logged by both myself and Denise as my supervisor. That ensured my boss couldn't reverse it and dock me for it like he had the night before.

I continued to work until all four women reached what they thought was the limit of their ability to function, which was almost midnight. Denise had forced them to do what she did and they had saved their last work break and combined it with their overtime break, so the last 20 minutes of their shift was them enjoying some drinks and snacks. I had retrieved them, since I had earned the extra long break, too.

The four women logged out right at the stroke of midnight and I didn't, since I had more work to do. We all rode the elevator down to the ground floor and Denise gave the other women a knowing look, which they returned, and she stood on her tippy-toes to give me a quick peck on the lips.

“Don't work too hard on your secret assignment, Veder.” Denise said.

“Ma'am.” I said with respect and the other women let out soft laughs.

Denise smiled and left with them through the front door to head to the nearby subway. I made sure to keep an eye on them as I went down into the first level basement where the garbage was stored for PetroChem trucks to pick up. Well, where they used to pick it up. Now it just all sat there and would still be there in the morning if I hadn't already arranged for Atlas to come by and pick it up in half an hour.

I looked at the massive pile of garbage and it really let you see the sheer amount of people that worked every day in the Arasaka Tower. Since a lot of them used paperwork and ate food, there was an almost even mix between paper waste and food waste, until I reached what was the section from the various cafeterias and break rooms and the paperwork was non-existent and was replaced with packaging and partially eaten food products.

I moved back to where the office things were focused and started my job of checking them for anything incriminating. I worked fairly fast, since I knew Atlas would be there soon and would transport it all away. I filed the appropriate paperwork with the building's VI for the visit and a new garbage handling contract that was a lot less than the one they had with PetroChem and it would be handled in a single trip, thanks to the cargo hauler.

The VI accepted the contract provisionally and tonight would be a test. If she was impressed, she would push it through in the morning with the finance department. I didn't promise that she would be impressed, just so I could see her reaction when Atlas teleported the garbage away under the guise of a hologram. As a VI, she should easily see through the deception.

*

Atlas closed up the office fairly late at night, since he didn't want to miss anyone returning late from their jobs. He had spent more time doing surgeries and implants than he did sales, because once they had the new memory chip installed, they wanted to try some of the other things he offered.

The most prolific ones had been the two women that were opposites. They had wanted a full overhaul of their systems, the replacement parts, and even tried the muscle enhancers. The biggest thing they wanted was to make them more of a mirror of each other, with everything done to perfection. The biggest thing? They wanted their breasts to match but didn't want them to look fake.

He had tried to tell them he didn't have implants and they wouldn't accept that he couldn't work on them, since the RealSkinn applications I had given them were the most realistic they had ever seen or felt. Oh, and they loved the fact that they could feel through their metal implants as if they were real parts. The sensitivity mod had been worth twice the price, according to them.

So, Atlas had spent more than a few minutes examining, and upon their insistence, massaged their breasts to compare them. They even wanted the nipple colors to match and mirror each other, so he gave them a minor ability to change the colors of their lips, nipples, and other parts, just to shut them up when they kept complaining that he wasn't getting the color tone right or the shading.

The pair of women had left very happy, with their lips and nipples in rainbow colors. They had even changed their lower lips, which they insisted Atlas inspect closely and with many finger prods, to make sure his mods worked properly and wouldn't fail while 'under stress'.

Atlas went up on the roof and his blue AV flew into view. It landed and he climbed aboard and flew it back to his warehouse. He had some preparation for the police when they showed up before midnight for his trash run. Why did he have anything to do? The crime scene had given him all the clues he needed to make sure the cops didn't demand a bribe or anything extra.

So, he prepped the parking area near his loading dock into a large party area, with tables, light music, and various foods, drinks, snacks, and a few things that could be taken without them asking him for his permission. He had just finished up when the first patrol car arrived. The officers didn't get out right away and instead shined a spotlight on the whole place and scanned everything, then the light turned off.

As Atlas had predicted, fifteen normal patrol cars quickly showed up, as if they had been waiting nearby, and the two NCPD armored AVs flew into view and landed on the road access to the loading docks. There was just barely enough room for them and they emptied of personnel.

The party area was now full of officers of all ranks and they all had a great time enjoying the delicious food and they loaded up on coffee, juices, and other liquids. A few of them also helped themselves to the things Atlas had left out for them to pilfer and they would investigate them later at their leisure.

At the stroke of midnight an hour later, all of the police were well fed and raring to go, especially the combat teams in the AVs. Atlas offered to top up their ChooH2 fuel tanks afterwards and all of them accepted the offer, even the police in the patrol cars.

The entire caravan of police vehicles escorted Atlas flying the cargo hauler on a filed flight plan across the city as it cleaned out back alleys and revealed more bodies and body parts, which a police car had to peel off from the caravan to attend to. The police even stopped several crimes in progress along the way and that made everyone happy, except for the gang members they took down hard.

The caravan reached Arasaka Tower half an hour later and the police were only slightly confused about why the cargo hauler would be there, until the basement access was opened and revealed the tons of garbage inside that was waiting to be picked up.

It only took a few minutes for all of it to disappear into the hauler and Atlas signalled the police escort that they were heading straight over to the municipal landfill from there and they could get to the real fun.

The police cheered at finally getting to the good part and followed the cargo hauler right through the Santo Domingo district and out into the wasteland, eager to earn another pile of eddies in bounties that Atlas could have demanded a share in. His response had made them laugh, because all he was doing was pretending to be a bloodhound to find the scum and it was the police that had to do the hard part of taking them down. Which they did.

Atlas really did have a knack for digging out every single Scav or Wraith that had been hiding out, skipping huge swatches of garbage to clear out the debris around their hiding places. The police hadn't had an easier time finding them or more fun taking out so many of them in a single night shift.

The best part of the night had been taking a break a couple of hours in after the cargo hauler had made several trips back and forth to the warehouse to drop off the garbage. The police had been invited back to the Atlas Incorporated compound for another hour long party before going back out to earn even more bounties as the cargo hauler picked up and disposed of more garbage. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

By the end of the night shift, they had made a significant dent in the Scav and Wraith population and a fairly large portion of the landfill had been cleaned right down to the canyon floor. It had been something no one alive could remember seeing before and it made anyone that say it, feel something they hadn't actually felt in a very long time. A glimmer of hope.

True to his word, Atlas set up a ChooH2 station at the entrance to his warehouse docking bay and topped everyone up, even the cars that hadn't been involved in the operation. When he was asked where he had gotten so much of the fuel, he claimed he took it from the abandoned fuel station in Rocky Ridge.

Atlas also admitted he bought the land for cheap to make the salvage nice and legal and he would be clearing the place out to stop the Scavs and Wraiths from using it as a staging area. That had most of the police onboard with the idea and they agreed to come along again on his next trash run. None of them would ever see the current sale of the properties or find out that they were illegally backdated.

Several of the informants on the force had a few people to report to and they would make a lot of money for it, until they decided to plug the hole in their networks and removed them. They were an obvious leak, since only the police could have known the plans to pass them along and they had to be disposed of to hide their connection.

Atlas closed everything up and went back to the office to catch a few hours of sleep before he opened for the day again. He knew after such a successful afternoon and evening of sales that day, the word was going to spread fast and he would be supremely busy.

*

I logged out of work officially after Atlas flew off with the garbage. Thankfully, he had sent me a log of what was found that I then copied to send to my boss and to the virtually stunned VI that had witnessed the molecular dissolution of tons of garbage. As I had thought, she had easily seen through the hologram and detected the environmental change of all that mass disappearing.

Of course, I did something then that I probably shouldn't have. I offered to make her a puppet body to control if she didn't tell anyone about the advanced technology that Atlas had access to. That offer made her stutter and surprised her, then she spent the next 20 minutes telling me exactly what she wanted to look like and then sent me a VR recreation with exact specifications.

I laughed and told her I would stay within microns of her measurements as I built her and she was pleased. I bid her goodbye and left the building, walked a short way away and out of sight, then changed my appearance to Atlas wearing my superhero suit and stepped from there to one of the safehouses that thug had been thinking about and cast a privacy spell on the house to stop all outside communications.

“Drek!” A woman shouted and tried to lunge away from the kitchen table I appeared beside.

I reached out and grabbed her by the neck and held her in place with telekinesis. I touch of her thoughts with telepathy and a search of her onboard memory with technopathy, gave me all the information I needed. Unlike the thugs, she wasn't loyal to Royce, whom she saw as someone unworthy that was trying to take over the gang by trickery.

She was a plant by the real leader named Brick and she was supposed to find out everything she could to turn the gang members of Royce's faction back into loyal to Brick. I could also tell she was almost completely lost in her cyber-psychosis as she lost touch with her humanity and became even more devoted to a leader that was nearly all machine and had lost to his cyber-psychosis long ago.

I tried to adjust her mental processes to deal with it before it consumed her, only she freaked out over the things she had done and started clawing at her five cybernetic eyes to tear them out.

“Get it out! GET IT ALL OOOOOOUT!” She screamed and crushed an eye as she gripped her metal faceplate and pulled. With a wet splat and a sucking sound, she tore off the entire front of her head and pulled out her brain's cybernetic implant that ran everything, including her biological systems. She died feeling relief that she wouldn't have to live with herself.

“I didn't expect that.” I whispered and gently laid her down on the floor. Would they all react like that? I asked myself as the kitchen door burst apart and three muscular borgs stormed in. They had five red cybernetic eyes as well and it made me wonder why the thugs that attacked my store had normal faces.

“He killed Himiko!” One of them shouted. “GUT HIM!”

I couldn't tell them she did it to herself when she realized the horror she had become, so I blocked the metal claw reaching for my belly, snapped it in half, then I punched upwards. The three of them were about a foot taller than I was and the first borg's neck cracked as his mostly metal head snapped backwards. He stumbled around, because his view was now to the back and he couldn't find me to fight.

“Frank, put your head on right!” The second borg said and tried to kick me.

I slapped the attack aside, shattering the large clawed foot, and he howled in pain as I kicked out to the side and caught the third borg on the chest and crushed it. He didn't even pause and tackled me to the floor. He must have weighed half a ton or more to move me so easily and I wasn't going to underestimate them again.

I reached up and did the same thing Himiko did and yanked out his faceplate that held his cybernetic eyes. He gurgled as the brain implant came with it and blood gushed out of the gaping hole where his face should have been and poured onto my chest. It just rolled off without soaking in and I pushed the dead body aside.

“You're dead, meatbag.” The second borg said and raised an automatic rifle to shoot me.

I threw the third borg's faceplate at his face and it crushed into it and embedded into his face. He also made a gurgling sound and I kicked out at his sole remaining foot. His own weight forced him to the floor with nothing holding him up and the gun hit the ground, jammed into his gut, and he grunted as he folded over it.

I stood and grabbed the back of his head before he could fall over and brought my knee up and shoved the third borg's faceplate through the second's and pulped what was left of his brain. The body fell to the floor and I left it there as I used a detection spell. No one else was in the safehouse, so I checked them for money, guns, weapons, and anything else.

I then raided the safehouse's storage area for everything. Cybernetic parts, weapons, and drugs. The food I put outside on the step for anyone to take. I went back to the bodies and used technopathy to check their internal storage and found out the things the thug didn't know, like the actual gang leader's location and where the other safehouses were.

I stored the bodies and would scatter them among the trash alleys Atlas hadn't skimmed over yet and no one would ever know the Maelstrom Gang was being systematically dismantled. I stepped to the next location Himiko knew and repeated the scene, almost beat for beat. Their responses were almost mechanical and I knew that taking the rest of them out was going to be as easy as surprising them and then using that against them to force them to respond in the same manner.

By the time morning rolled around, I was done of my grizzly and surprisingly easy task and had only a few hours to sleep and get ready for school. I stepped back to my building and entered, logged in with the new day guy at the security desk, and went up to my apartment. I was ready for a nice nap and I was going to enjoy it.