Chapter 6: Recovery

Well, I have to say, I'm pleasantly surprised.

In spite of everything that had happened, and all the losses I've incurred over the past few days, the recovery from it has been surprisingly less painful than I had envisaged. Though I had had to act through proxies, once upper management discovered that I remained very much alive, they had restored order within the ranks remarkably efficiently. Granted, I had to offer them the business end of an assault rifle if they didn't get everything running, and hefty bonuses if they did, but it was easier than anticipated. This had the added benefit of framing the rapid recovery of my business interests following my 'demise' as a power struggle between rival executives seeking to gain control of the company, helping prevent anyone from figuring out I was alive before I wanted them to.

On the security side of things, contacting Gunner revealed that the man had done a stellar job of retaining order within 6th Street, such that very little adjustment was required to reposition for my grand return to the scene. Of course, the deal I had cut with the Valentinos complicated matters, and massively so, but that news had not yet been broken to the rank and file of the gang. On the other hand, the withdrawal plans had been revealed, under the pretence of 'preserving operational integrity by reducing the patrol burden and freeing up manpower for further operations'. This was, in spite of being a pretty shallow excuse, surprisingly effective. Turns out, having the members of your gang be comprised of veterans doesn't simply improve combat effectiveness, it also has a noticeable impact on discipline.

Consequently, the Valentino takeover of those districts was relatively painless, and the Padre, under my guidance, had almost seamlessly resumed service for my former customers in those regions. Violent crime was given little to no room to make any sort of sustained resurgence. Unfortunately for me, it seems as if Weldon Holt has seized upon the opportunity, and taken credit for my work as if it were a product of his efforts at the NCPD. Needless to say, I was beyond pissed, but lacking any appreciable means to retaliate, on account of being officially deceased, I had settled for inaction for now, with the resolve taken to somehow fuck the man over in the future.

This inaction, however, did grant me time to oversee a number of other developments. For one thing, a number of quick trades taken by an unofficial representative of mine had had the effect of more than doubling my liquid wealth. Turns out, my death was great news for the Biotechnica stock price, and it soared by almost fifteen percent following my supposed assassination. Same news for the prices of Con-Ag and Akaromi Biocorp. Anticipating this sort of eventuality long in advance, I had standing orders with my broker to go all in on short-term call options on margin for the stock immediately following the breaking of any such news. This was, of course, a handy injection of eddies into my business at the precise moment where it was most necessary.

Now, this sort of business would technically fall under the definition of 'insider trading', however, one of the main advantages of the sheer extent of deregulation in this world would be the lack of power on behalf of any regulatory body such as the SEC. Essentially, for a few days, I was basically printing money, and nobody could stop me.

You know, I think I'm finally starting to warm up to this world...

All jokes aside, it did make for a good amount of start-up capital for a couple of new ventures I had planned. You see, in my quest to fix this world, I had noticed a number of inefficiencies built into the marketplace. Food may have been my big success, but as far as I was concerned, it was just the start. For one thing, the market for small business loans seemed far smaller than I would have anticipated it to be. Getting a loan was tricky enough, but getting one with an interest rate below twenty percent was near impossible.

From a certain perspective, such high rates made sense. The business failure rate in Night City was incredibly high, especially for small businesses, and there came a number of risks built-in with any investments made here. For one thing, if you invested in any business that seemed to seriously threaten the market share of an incumbent, the probability of corporate espionage rendering your investment or loan worthless was insanely high. More importantly, however, was the fact that in the remaining industries, crime and fraud remained common. Even if the person you lent money to was an honest person, the likelihood was that they would be robbed by someone who wasn't. Once all these factors were considered, the available loan terms seemed reasonable, generous, even.

That, however, changed with my deal with the gangs. You see, with 6th Street and the Valentinos both clamping down on all manners of violent crime within their districts, the business environment had suddenly become far more inviting. Business failure was down, and these kinds of investments became far less risky than they had previously been. Already, a gulf in living standards between the territories in the hands of my allies and those of my enemies began to materialise. Naturally, seeing this, and with some Valentino money behind me, I launched another venture to take advantage of it.

Say hello to the brand-new Urban Development Bank!

With the might of the gangs at my back, the local loan market was quickly dominated by low-interest business loans issued by my company. Of course, recipients of these loans had to be small-business owners living and operating in the right districts, but there still seemed to be a huge appetite for them once the interest rate dropped below ten percent. What's more, with the tangible threat of violence behind it, loan repayments had been staggeringly reliable, topping out at a seriously impressive ninety-two percent on-time repayment every month. Though it had been a costly investment to make up-front, it had already begin to yield financial returns within a month of the Bank being established. If the Valentinos had any doubts about my intentions, their portion of the revenues of our joint venture in creating the Urban Development Bank seemed to silence them quickly enough. Sure, the revenues at the moment were a fraction of a fraction of the cost of setting the damn thing up, but the Valentinos weren't morons, they saw the potential, and the real change this was having on the local economies of their districts. As far as they were concerned, things were just fucking nova.

That, however, was an enterprise that would truly begin to yield returns in the long run. I needed eddies now. To that effect, I had another ace in the hole: recycling.

Now, to an onlooker from my world, recycling is a good idea, if a terrible business. The competitive and efficient raw-material markets of that world had kept costs for pretty much everything low. Sure, there was the occasional period of volatility, but ultimately, prices tended to stabilise over the long-run at relatively reasonable levels. However, the markets of this world are anything but efficient. Turns out, the notion of market power enabling price-fixing was not one just prevalent in the market for food. Plastics, metals, lumber, glass, you name it. If it was a raw material, chances were, the price for it on the open market would be insanely high.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, sounds like an opportunity.

Of course, one of the main reasons behind that is the fact that the world's reserves of pretty much everything was beginning to run low. Oil wells were drying up, more and more mineral deposits were becoming exhausted, the worlds forests had all but disappeared, and so on. However, this ignored the fact that there was a great big steaming pile of resources just waiting to be exploited at the edges of the city. Sure, it may not a be a viable source for timber, but metals, plastics and glass was all too easy to come across, and in abundance, too.

Now, if you're wondering why nobody ever thought of this before, they did. Recycling, much like indoor farming, is not a completely new phenomenon in the cyberpunk future. However, given its relative unprofitability in the past when competition remained prevalent and the massive profits the current situation garnered the incumbents, it was never a concept that had taken off. The reality was that not much had been invested into developing the process at its infancy, and corporations hadn't seen much point to developing it later on, not when the current shortage allowed them to rake it in. The closest thing currently available to it would be scavengers repurposing old chipsets, and that didn't come close to what I had in mind.

More importantly, however, was the fact that the current situation of high prices and massive demand meant that the simpler and more memorable recycling processes that hadn't been profitable in my world were profitable in this one, and massively so. Purchasing and retrofitting another warehouse had taken longer than it typically did, especially given that I was too dead to personally oversee the process, however, within the span of just a month and a half, Night City had its first recycling centre. From then, it was simply a matter of employing a few dozen homeless to go diving in the numerous dumps around the city, and soon enough, a steady flow of material was making its way out of my facility and onto the open market.

Honestly, from the figures that I was reading, there was a very serious possibility that this new wing of my business would prove to be even more profitable than my produce had initially been. And, to add a cherry on top, this was no joint venture, this was all mine.

Every zero, every single eddy, was all mine for the taking, and it afforded me more opportunity and power than I could have ever dreamed of before. Sure, the output for the moment was small, especially when compared to the revenues of my competitors in those areas, but the profits began materialising almost the moment operations began and the growth had already started, and like last time, it seemed as if it would be exponential in nature. Already, two more warehouses had been purchased, and were currently in the process of being retrofitted. All over the city, a fleet of garbage trucks were making runs from place to place, carrying what was to me a priceless commodity, whilst simultaneously making the suburbs around Night City a cleaner, nicer place to live.

Furthermore, it seemed as if I had underestimated the sheer depth of demand for these materials, because no matter how much I sold, the price didn't seem to fall, not by a single eddy. Of course, I knew that it would be a couple of years until my company could grow large enough to trigger any significant drop in price, but it was surprising nonetheless. Sure, it had begun to stabilise, but it appeared that I had far more room to manoeuvre in this market than I did with food, as this venture was seen as far less of a threat to the incumbents in this industry than my efforts with produce had been for the incumbents in that industry. The result was a far less intense campaign of espionage than I had originally anticipated, though it was still prevalent. Of course, I anticipated that my relatively low-tech solution to the problem of shortages would be stolen sooner rather than later. However, for the moment, I retained a competitive advantage, and I intended to milk it for all it was worth.

With my economic prospects secure for the foreseeable future, I could finally return my attention to the mayoral race, and my position in it.

For one thing, I now felt ready, in spite of the objections of my security team, to return to the spotlight. Though I wasn't completely healed, more than a month and a half of bedrest had done wonders for my injuries. Though I had to walk with a cane for the next few months, I could at least walk, and even run, though not for very long.

However, health issues aside, there had been developments in the race. Following my death, I had ascended to the status of legend in the eyes of many, but that newfound popularity didn't last very long. The populist vote very quickly shifted to Peralez, who suspiciously appeared to be a adopting a watered down variant of many of my policy platforms. Holt, fearing he would be left behind by the new rising star, chose to pillage my achievements instead, claiming the citywide reductions in crime to be his work instead of mine.

The result was that the race remained very much a contest between the two, and though Peralez, through his natural charm and rhetoric, seemed to have the edge in polls, there was no real way to be sure what the outcome of the actual election would be. Now, a tight race was not necessarily a bad thing for me, but it certainly made things much harder than I had imagined they would be.

If one had a decisive edge on the other, then my strategy would have been clear: attack the leading candidate, and exploit the flaws in their arguments and policies. Given that the race was actually in something of a heat at the moment, if I emerged swinging at any one of my opponents, it could inadvertently lead to the other gaining some indirect benefit. As the two men had shown, they had no problem co-opting my achievements as their own when they stood to benefit from doing so.

To further complicate matters, both of my opponents had had in excess of an additional month to campaign, and likely had more entrenched bases of support than I did as a result. Holt was widely regarded as the law and order candidate, someone who stood to maintain the status quo for fear that changing it could lead to the emergence of something worse. Peralez was broadly populist, but it seemed difficult to pin him down in any given category. Many of his statements appeared outright contradictory, and his behaviour appeared to become increasingly erratic with the passage of time.

Clearly, whatever was fucking with his head was getting worse by the day.

With that being the case, attacking Peralez seemed like the easier option, on account of the inconsistencies in his policies and the fact that he had far less corpo backing then Holt did. However, just going after him left me seriously exposed to the possibility of Holt siphoning up some of the more right-wing vote that had currently sided with Peralez. In such a race, every vote counted, and I couldn't afford to be the beneficiary of someone as slimy as Holt.

Honestly, with how much of a headache this whole business was turning out to be, the concept of dropping out of the race altogether was appearing increasingly attractive to me.

Still, the circumstances may not have been ideal, but they were far from hopeless. For one thing, news of my resurrection would undoubtedly spread like wildfire upon its release, granting me a brief edge in coverage and exposure for the following days, making for a good platform to resume my bid. Furthermore, I could actually begin to take credit for my actions again, meaning that Holt would lose at least some of his standing as an effective law and order candidate. In spite of this, I would still have to fight a two front battle against the two, but it wasn't an insurmountable challenge, merely a difficult one.

To that effect, I had devised a strategy to deal with them both.

You see, upon my revival, I wasn't going to attack Peralez, oh no, I was going to help him. By making the man aware of what was happening to his mind, it would not at all be difficult to get him in my corner. Even if that didn't work, simply telling him about it would have the effect of torpedoing his bid for the office of Mayor. I didn't doubt for a second that the man wouldn't seek to get his own back at those messing with his mind and violating his privacy, and if played correctly, the fallout from such a revelation could be used to render Peralez politically dead.

Of course, I could simply go public with my knowledge about his mental state and kill off his campaign that way, but that seemed a touch too nasty, even for this world. Airing the man's dirty laundry like that only invited him to return the favour, and it made me feel unbelievably guilty even to think about, much less carry out, such a move. I had always been a big fan of privacy rights in my old world, and I had no desire to further the dystopian nightmare by insisting that his most intimate thoughts and moments be compromised in such a fashion.

Peralez may not necessarily have been a good guy, but he was far from being a villain, he didn't deserve such a fate.

Regardless of all that, the fact remained that Peralez would not be all that difficult to side-line. The real conundrum lay with Holt. The man had the backing of the NCPD, and from what I could remember, he was in the pockets of Arasaka. Thankfully, in what I could remember of the game, Peralez did in fact beat the man, allaying some of the concerns that any attacks on the man would be met with swift and violent retribution on behalf of some of the most powerful corpos in the world, though he remained a dirty operator, who was not above some seriously underhanded tactics. Regardless, I was relatively sure that so long as I quashed any attempts at a smear campaign and prevented any retaliatory action on my behalf from escalating too far, I would be safe.

With my strategy sorted, there only remained the problem of my prospective killer. In spite of all my resources and efforts expended in that area, I was no closer to uncovering the identity of he person who had sent a Delamain charging in my direction. If a second attempt were to occur, then any hopes I had of political office would be killed then and there. That kind of firepower aimed at my head was not something I was willing to tolerate, no matter the good that I could do with the authority that the office of mayor would grant me.

To that effect, my security team had insisted upon me wearing body-armour for every single public appearance from now on, a request I was only too happy to concede to. The cane that I was to use doubled as a blade and it also broke apart to reveal a handgun concealed in the handle. My shoe-heels had been fitted with tracking devices and my watch now sported an additional bio-monitor to help prevent any attempts via poison or biological agent.

They had also taken the courtesy of taking my car to a workshop and having it kitted out with armour plating, bullet-proof glass, the works. So much so that they'd even had a remote-controlled sentry gun installed in the boot, in the event that I ever found myself in a car chase and needed a quick way to dispatch any pursuers. At my request, they'd also taken the liberty of having all electrical components related to the actual driving of the vehicle stripped out and replaced with mechanical alternatives.

Sure, the car now drove like it was more than a century old, and had the fuel-efficiency of a tank from that time-period, but it was no longer hackable.

As far as I could tell, every measure that could possibly be taken had been. I was now as safe as I was ever going to be. In spite of my frayed nerves and paranoid mind, I was determined to continue my crusade.

It was now or never.

So, the protagonist is finally ready to emerge from the shadows once again!

Next few chapters are going to be a couple of interludes, detailing the various movements of other players in the period in which the MC was 'dead'.

Feel free to comment and let me know what you think.

Hope you guys are enjoying the story thus far!