"Ares!" Filmon's voice erupted in the man's head as he opened his eyes, seeing he was still on call. "Have you found our client's husband yet?" Filmon asked, pacing at the Horizon building.
"These things take time you know?... And yes, I found him a while ago, he's definitely having an affair, but with multiple women haha, my kind of guy," Ares answered back, raising a camera toward the hotel window where their client's husband had taken three suited women.
'Didn't expect him to be working for Arasaka, wonder if I'm blacklisted by them too...' Ares thought, taking another picture before putting the camera away.
He had lied to Filmon. Their client had wanted more than just information.
Ares wasn't sure how Filmon would react to him doing separate jobs, but he had decided to take the 10,000 to get information, and the 20,000 was to kill her husband if he was actually cheating on her.
"There's nothing cool about cheating you know? Why can't people just be loyal... Have you gotten all the proof you need or what?" Filmon asked as Ares greeted the motel clerk.
"Nah, not yet," Ares answered before hanging up the call and walking up the stairs with his gun out.
In front of the motel room stood two large men guarding the door and looking straight ahead.
'Huh, guess I'm shooting three,' Ares thought.
The guards didn't even move as he approached them.
Incoming call from-
"Ares, this is Filmon," he heard the boy say as he stepped up to the two men.
"I'm in the middle of something," Ares said as the men looked him up and down.
"Yeah I know, the guy you're spying on right now... He's an executive at Arasaka."
The guard on the left grabbed at Ares's gun while the one on the right raised two twin pistols, letting shots fly.
Ares rolled backward, putting himself behind the first guard who had fired, and put a bullet into his head, sending him through the door.
The man grunted as he got up, revealing the metal plating under his skin.
"Arasaka huh? I seem to be getting involved with you guys too often these days," Ares said with a dissapointed sigh, raising his weapon and shooting wildly.
"Sir take the fire escape!" One of the guards yelled as the one with the metal plating rushed Ares, his bullets bouncing off harmlessly.
Ares threw his gun at the guard, dodging him and rushing into the room. His job wasn't to kill the guards, it was to kill the husband.
The man looked at him as he jumped through the fire escape, clearly surprised to see someone after him.
"Get back here!" The guards yelled as they grabbed Ares, throwing him out the motel window.
Bam!
Ares grunted as he landed hard on the pavement, looking up in a daze to see the two guards climbing out of the window and jumping down on him.
Ares rolled to the side, grabbing the guard by the ankle and pulling out a pistol, shooting several shots into his groin.
The guard dropped, leaving only the metal-plated one.
"You okay?" Filmon asked as Ares got up, his vision blurry.
"Yeah, I think so," Ares said, putting his hands to his head while looking at the metal-plated guard with his pistol raised.
"Did you get what we needed?" Filmon asked.
"Not yet."
Ares rushed the guard, grabbed him by the collar and flipped him over his shoulder, slamming him into the ground.
Ares stood up, kicking the man and forcing him back on the ground while he stood over him, placing his foot on his chest. "Just die," He said, shooting several bullets and having them all clang off the metal-plated guard's face.
"I can't," The guard said as he grinned, jumping up and grabbing Ares by the neck. Ares quickly shot him in the face, the bullet exploding on impact.
"This is a waste of time," The guard said, grabbing Ares by the face as his arm came apart, revealing a large machine gun.
He pressed it against Ares's forehead, a smile on his face. "Die bitch-"
Ares widened his eyes as time seemed to slow down. It was a simple job, why did Arasaka have to in the way?
'I guess I'm... Dead.'
Boom!
"What is this?" Razor said, the barrel of his gun smoking as the Arasaka dropped dead, his head split open by Razor's bullet.
Ares looked over at the man, his heart beating faster than normal.
"Are you okay?" Razor asked, putting his gun away and looking at Ares, as if he was thinking something.
"Yeah, just... surprised," Ares said, taking a deep breath while he looked down at his hand. "Thank you, I'll go finish the job now," Ares said, tightening his fist and rushing off into the same direction as the Arasaka executive.
"Who was he Razor?" A man asked him, standing tall as he had a fully synthetic body, not a single part of him looked human anymore.
"One of your executives, and call me Sir, you work for the boss now, act like it," With that Razor continued on his journey to find more security for Horizon.
Meanwhile, Ares ran after the Arasaka executive.
"Fuck!" The man yelled, seeing Ares gaining on him. "I knew I should have brought more security, fuck fuck fuck!"
"Rest in Peace, Carol sends her regards," Ares said in the man's ear as his gun pressed against his back.
The Arasaka Executive widened his eyes before several shots fired through his body, bursting both of his hearts.
'I'm dying?' Was his last thought as he dropped to the ground, his body now sporting a new hole in it.
Ares made sure he was dead before leaving quickly. He didn't care what happened to the body, plenty of people died every day.
"Back to base..." Ares said to himself, looking at the body once more.
A man walked down Arasaka's halls, his eyes looking over the documents as he walked through the company building.
Finally, he came to a stop in front of a door that read "President."
He opened it up, stepping inside.
"Hm?" What are you doing here so late?" President Saburo Arasaka said to the man.
"Anders is dead."
Saburo paused, looking at his employee. "Dead? How?" He asked, setting down his glass of whiskey. Some things were more important.
"Assassinated, same with his guards, he was out fucking hookers again, and it seems they caught him with his pants down... Probably literally." The man said, throwing the small file on President Saburo's desk.
Saburo hummed as he looked through the file, seeing the pictures of his dead men.
"Well... To Anders then," The president said with a laugh, taking the shot of whiskey he'd set down before.
What were a few dead guys? There were dozens of dead guys in the city, and there were plenty of men he could hire to replace Anders and the other two men.
Saburo was unbothered by the loss, instead thinking about the gain. He could publicize this and get some press toward Arasaka.
It was a lose-win, but Saburo didn't think of the men as a loss. They were business expenses.
"Well, find who did it and clean 'em up, and get the press over here yeah? It's been a while since I was on Tv..."
Filmon's legs were like noodles, his heart raced faster than the Caliburn and his entire body itched like mad.
These were some of the more tame side effects of using [Bloodlust]. He'd been training it whenever he could, except for shooting, bloodlust was the only one that helped him in combat.
"Geez, if you're going to spaz out like that every time why bother?" Vix said, looking at Filmon suffer on the couch.
She'd finally come out of her room with some good news.
Following many failures, the ghost syndicate's first big seller was complete.
What was the ghost syndicate? That was Vix's future team of techies and net runners who would help her with research on cyberware. How to upgrade, maintain, and make new cyberware was her main goal in her research. Once she learned she didn't care about the rest.
Vix had been trying to find a way to improve her own cyberware, but no matter how much she hacked into the system or looked into the original design, it didn't show anything useful. The only one she knew whose cyberware improved naturally was Filmon, but anytime she brought it up he'd change the subject.
"Spaz out? It's just training, I'd like to see you put your body through some... Stress," Filmon said, smiling a bit as he got up.
'No level up, lame.'
"Was that flirting Mon Mon?" Vix yelled as he walked to his room.
"Haha, who knows!" He answered before seeing a call coming from Ares.
"Yo, what's good?" He asked, plopping down on his bed and closing his eyes.
"Just collected the rest of the 30,000 from the client, I'm heading back now," The man said in his usual gruff voice.
"Cool... Anything else?"
Ares was quiet for a second, making Filmon open his eyes.
"Nah, it's nothing, I'll see you all in a bit," The man answered before hanging up.
"Hmm..." Filmon tapped the sides of his pants before shrugging, if Ares said it was nothing he'd just accept the answer.
Filmon went down to the first floor, the waiting room empty yet his heart full.
They'd finished their first job, and soon enough Horizon was sure to make it to the top talk of the world... Or maybe that was hopeful thinking.
Either way, that's what he believed.
It was weird, two months ago he wouldn't have cared less about this world if he hadn't gotten the path quest. Now though, with an actual goal and reason to play the game, it was a bit refreshing waking up every morning in cyberpunk.
"Ey, you the boss or should I have called?" A voice broke him out of his stupor as a thin man with a gas mask over his face looked at Filmon from the entrance.
"Nope, you're talking to the right person, what can I do for you, sir!" Filmon asked eagerly, clasping his hands together and looking at the man with a bright smile.
"I uh, I saw the ad about your info services? There's someone I want found..." The man said awkwardly.
"You've come to the right place, though our infotech executive is out right now, I can write down your case right now and get back to you once we're ready to do it," Filmon answered, pulling out a pen pad and a pen from his inventory.
"Um, alright, I'm looking for my dealer, he used to give me all kinds of shit, but now he's just gone ghost... I'm not really worried, just looking for a fix, so I'd appreciate if you find him for me."
The man gave a description of the person he wanted found, signed a contract for 10,000 to find the dealer, and left.
'Hmm... A drug dealer could be just what I need on the streets, pushing out any drugs we produce, selling high while we buy low.
That's when it hit Filmon.
The stock market!
What better way to earn money and also help his company rise through the ranks than through stocks?
He practically jumped on the computer, bringing up the current stock market.
NCPD was up 15% while Militech was down 2% in the past seven days. As he changed its parameters Militech now showed a 70% increase while stocks for NCPD showed a 12% decrease in the last two years.
'Interesting... If I can get Horizon on here, buy a bunch of stock and get some people to invest in us... I can make money and grow this business at the same time...'
"What are you so giddy about kid?" Ares asked as Filmon got a transfer of 25,000 Eurobucks to his account.
"I'll take five for my troubles."
Filmon ignored the money, pointing at the news articles and stock market news. "Well, I figured if we do it right, we can manipulate the stock market in our favor."
Ares looked at it, faking interest before looking back at Filmon. "Cool. That's not a bad idea, not a bad idea at all. Well, Imma go back to my house, do I need to clock off or..."
"No you don't, but we did get another job not too long ago... I'll handle that one though, you just stay here tomorrow and chill," Filmon answered, going back to his computer as Ares stood there.
"Kid, are you really cut out for this kind of thing?" Ares asked, deciding to say fuck it and say what had been bothering him.
"Hm?" Filmon looked up at Ares, meeting the man's eyes. "What do you mean?" He asked.
Ares let out a breath. "It's just, no offense, but you don't really seem to be the type of guy to do whatever needs to be done for the company. I've seen a million of these corpo dickwads, and they're ready to murder people for their company... I just don't know if you're really ready for that kind of thing is all..."
Filmon stared at Ares for a bit, looking at him as if he was speaking another language.
"What? Ares the fuck are you saying right now?" Filmon's attention was now fully on Ares. "Do you think I'm weak or something?"
Ares looked at Filmon seriously. "I-"
"No, I asked a question man, do you think I'm weak?" Filmon interrupted.
Ares sighed, standing confidently while he looked at Filmon. "Yeah, yeah I do," He answered as Filmon smiled a bit.
"Alright," The boy said, focusing back on the stock market, leaving Ares standing there. With how Filmon was treating him, Ares felt as if he was in the room alone, like there wasn't an 18-year-old business owner in front of him researching the stock market.
'Maybe I was too harsh...' Ares thought as he turned, leaving the building. 'But it's just the truth, that kid is far too little for this big world... If he's not careful it'll swallow him whole.'
Meanwhile, Filmon looked at the computer blankly. "Did I give off the wrong impression or something?" He said to himself, closing the stock market browser and looking at the open door.
"I'm not weak."