Using the employee shower at Afterlife was a somewhat uncomfortable experience, mostly because he was eight feet tall and thus taller than the faucet. He had to crouch to be underneath the water and scrub. He had just wanted to use a powerwasher, but they didn't have one here apparently.
What kind of bar doesn't have a fucking powerwasher? From his experience, those were a vital part to making sure your bar stayed clean enough to function. From washing vomit off floors and down drains, to washing blood off walls and vehicles, to spraying hobos that try to clog up your alleyway. Adam Smasher was a firm believer in the functionality of the venerable powerwasher, it was useful for too many things, every meatbag who knew what they were doing had one.
But no. Afterlife was apparently being run by a woman with no brain, because it didn't have a powerwasher. He had no idea how the place was still open for business, probably pure luck and the various gimmick items for sale. Yes, I would like to order a drink themed after a meatbag I killed thirty years ago. Why the meats bothered with this shit he would never know.
So here he was, crouching in a shower-room that was two sizes too small for his frame, and scrubbing with a bar of 'Camay' hand-soap. It was greatly irritating, but it had to be done. He was going to go into a meeting with his temporary boss later, and smelling like he pounded a woman into a drooling mess over the course of many hours wouldn't be a good look.
This wouldn't be a problem if he had his powerwasher. He clenched the bar of soap hard enough to leave grooves from his fingers. What a shitty bar, he was going to tell the woman this when she woke up. Shitty drinks, trash outside, and no powerwasher. He was going to leave a bad review on the net if he remembered it later.
Fifteen minutes of scrubbing and hot water. He couldn't really feel the heat, well he could but he was made of metal, it didn't really affect him in any way. Hot water would help get rid of more smell, which was the only thing that really mattered here. His legs couldn't get cramped, which was one more win in the eternal battle between metal and meat, so it wasn't too annoying. They needed a bigger shower room though, and a powerwasher.
Soon enough, he was done. He turned off the water, stepped out to grab a towel and begin drying his frame off. His hair was out of order, but that was fine because the integrated nano-groomers were already at work correcting the placement of his follicles to the pre-set 'wet style' look. As far as he was aware, nano-groomers were something that basically every meatbag in the modern era got sometimes in their teens. A little swarm of microscopic machines swarming around their bodies, cleaning out impurities and filth wherever they found it. 'Minty fresh' breath, 'Clearcell' skin, and 'Hollywood' hair.
He was convinced it was because they were simply too lazy to bathe properly. That or poor. The Nano-groomers were almost never released due to lobbying from Dental and Cosmetic associations, but it ended up narrowly avoiding the ban. It was a massive court case back in his meat days, and to this day he wasn't sure why. He wasn't even sure why he remembered it, it had been decades since that happened.
Nowadays though, it was common enough to get bulk discounts. Maybe a tenth of the price that it had been back then, cheap enough for nearly everyone to get a set. A whole lot of skin care companies and dentists went out of business when it started getting popular. Only the real top tier stuff was still around. Regardless of all that, his Gemini came with all three integrated in, apparently it was a freebie for the modern borg interested in purchasing such a frame.
Most borgs weren't combat borgs, they were heavy or dangerous labor borgs. Those borgs tend to survive long enough to effectively retire with their decades of quality service earning them great dividends. They were one of the last bastions of the coveted 'middle class'.
He finished drying himself off, and stepped out of the shower room. He walked through the back halls until he found himself at the washer and dryer. The washer was done, so he moved his clothes to the dryer, started it up, and leaned against it to wait with his arms crossed. He didn't know how long dryers took to finish, but Uriel did, he would be here a while.
He didn't have anything better to do, so he pulled up one of his old compilations and set it to play. He ignored the meatbags that the cougar employed as they walked past and gawked at him, he had better things to do than talk to them, like anything else.
Halfway through April 23, 2056, the dryer loudly beeped to announce that it was done. Pausing the recording for later, he got out his clothes and went through the motions of putting them on. Now he was dressed, clean, and didn't smell like a sweaty woman. He was about to walk out, before he remembered that he left his gun in the cougar's room.
Moving through the back rooms and hallways again, he reached her room and opened the door. She was still a motionless mess halfway concealed by her blanket. He grabbed his gun and was about to leave.
'Remember to say goodbye.' Uriel spoke.
He paused, slightly annoyed. 'Why would I do that?'
'Women like it for some reason. It's convenient for her to like us.'
Adam huffed, irritated.
"Woman, are you awake?" He called out. He was answered in the form of a sleepy grunt.
"I'm leaving." She pulled herself up enough to glare at him from halfway behind her arm.
"...you're coming back later, bastard." she mumbled from behind her arm. If he was a meatbag, he wouldn't have been able to hear that. He grunted affirmatively, the brats would likely want to come back sometime, he was probably going to be back here eventually. He'd fuck her again if he had the time.
He shut the door and walked through the halls and rooms out of Afterlife, making his way to Arasaka Tower. He checked his internal clock, and saw that it was nearly nine o'clock. He checked the message for when the meeting was supposed to be, and started running instead of walking. Nine-thirty. It'd be a narrow window to be there on time.
—
Yorinobu Arasaka was not expecting Adam Smasher to be such a punctual individual, arriving exactly one minute before the meeting was to start. Then again, he supposed decades of being a soldier would make anyone so precisely accurate when it came to such things. To be entirely honest to himself, he wasn't sure what he had been expecting.
He found himself repeating that thought over and over again, these past two days. He hadn't been sure what he was expecting out of Adam Smasher, but it wasn't quite the man who stood before him. Bloodthirsty and violent, yes. Crass and irreverent, yes. A skilled and loyal warrior, yes.
He was not expecting a stunted sense of honor, or a sliver of altruism, or a repressed political savvy. Those traits had been a… pleasant surprise to learn of. He had not seen evidence of such being displayed from Smasher in all of his decades, and now he knew who to blame for that. Jugemu Jun was fully willing to speak to him about what he had been doing and had done. He had been unable to see through Yorinobu's carefully controlled expression, hidden by more than enough accelerated time to control his response.
If you treat a man like a wild dog, you get a wild dog. No wonder Adam Smasher was the way he was, with such an individual holding his leash for so long. In truth it was likely a miracle that he had turned out so functional by the time he had arrived. Yet another evil his father allowed, yet another evil that he had to correct. It seems like everywhere he looked he found another sin that he bore the burden of fixing. He thought of the children, he grit his teeth.
Adam Smasher would not be allowed to return to his father, he would do what he could to prevent that.
"You may speak as you feel you must, during this meeting. I am testing you again." He had long since gotten used to having to delay his words to such a painfully slow pace. He had tried honesty based on a hunch at their first official meeting, and it seemed to have worked well. Yorinobu suspected that the both of them were long tired of the corporate snakes and their poisoned lies.
They tried to manipulate him many times, each time he made sure they died swiftly. A suited snake could never poison a dragon of steel. They had begun to stop such tactics after a while.
Smasher grunted in affirmation, his optics scanning around the room one final time. It would have been nearly instant for a normal man, but to his sight it was a long second before he was done. Yorinobu had long since realized that he would never have enough time to bring down his father, not in a whole lifetime.
Not in one lifetime, but what of many lifetimes?
Then, he might have enough time.
He walked through the door into the conference room, where three individuals sat. A younger man with brown hair, an older man with gray hair and a mustache, and a well-endowed black-haired woman. His reaction to the three of them was buried within a fraction of a real second.
He and Smasher walked over to the remaining chairs on the other side of the table, and sat down. The older man hurriedly sat back down, from where he had been rising to greet them, and coughed into his hand before speaking.
"Yorinobu Arasaka, would you prefer if I address you as Yorinobu or Arasaka? I'm an old timer and not too familiar with the way they do things over in Japan, so please be a little patient with me." The older man said in an easy-going way, clearly trying to diffuse potential tension in the room before the meeting properly began. He had no desire to be called by his last name, but it was important to show strength and distance to those who petitioned you.
"President Arasaka will be fine." He drawled out emotionlessly.
The older man nodded in a matter-of-fact way, and continued. "President Arasaka then. To introduce myself, I'm Gerald Humphrey, spokesman for the Emergency Ecological Grant. With me are Militech representative Fred James, and Biotechnica representative Anne Hills."
He harumped to himself in a self-official manner. "From my understanding, we're here to discuss the resolution of yesterday's night's nasty business with that Satan fellow."
He raised a deliberate brow. He had heard a little of what this man's organization was, it was a charity to help fund efforts to counteract pollution and climate change. What that really meant was that it was a way to allow corporations to donate pocket change for public approval. He was curious what the man would claim though, it would reveal what his thoughts on the matter were.
"I'm not too familiar with your organization, not as much as I am with Militech and Biotechnica." He stated simply. He couldn't apologize, he was the afflicted party here, which means he was in a position of strength to negotiate from.
Gerald Humphrey seemed to be delighted to have a chance to talk about who he was a spokesperson for. "Ah, well to give a very concise summary here, not wanting to waste anyone's time too much filibustering, The Emergency Ecological Grant is a european-based, non-profit organization dedicated to help correcting all that nasty, downright unpleasant, damage to our environment. Of course, a nuclear weapon being detonated in the bay would happen to qualify as such."
He took a small drink of water from the cup in front of him.
"We're hoping to work with Arasaka and Night Corp in helping the radiation clean up, as well as to make an offer with that urban development project mister Smash has been assigned to." He gestured towards Adam Smasher, who seemed to pay closer attention now that something he was personally in charge of was brought up. Yorinobu inclined his head at the other two at the table, and Gerald Humphrey explained.
"Ah, The EEG primarily relies on donations to continue its operations, you understand? Biotechnica and Militech happen to be our two biggest investors, so on potentially very important businesses like this I get two helpers to make sure I'm not wasting their money." The man was very good-humored about having two corporate spies assigned to him.
"Now, before we get to the offer and whatnot, Mr James here would like to get his business out of the way, if that's alright with you, President Arasaka?" He nodded his head at that, the order didn't matter too much here.
Fred James, the younger man with an unremarkable voice, spoke next. "President Arasaka, Militech has identified the weapon used in the bay as a Militech Carrier Nuke with a yield of ten kilotons, which is nine above what we are legally permitted to sell. We are working on identifying where this breach happened, and preventing it from happening again." code for 'kill the executive who allowed it'. "In the meantime, Militech is prepared to cover half the cost of the radiation cleanup, and give a reimbursement for damages up to nine billion eddies, one billion per kiloton over the legal limit, as is industry standard. Our third offer is contingent on the EEG's offer."
The man sat down, and Anne Hills stood up. She spoke in a rather smooth tone. "Biotechnica is planning on covering the reimbursement extracted from the Switzerland national bank by Arasaka. We ask you to please do your best to sue them for lots!" She smiled brightly, clearly happy at potentially being able to get another government under their influence. "Our offer is also contingent on the EEG's offer." She sat down again, bouncing as she did.
He stared at her for a moment, slowly turning his head to face Humphrey again. He finished his drink of water and stood up again. He fiddled with the monitor controls for a moment before the wall screen turned on and displayed the image of a clean but generic city surrounded by green vegetation. There was text at the bottom that read : Zeniths! City of Tomorrow!
He raised a brow.
Humphrey adjusted his suit jacket, and coughed self-importantly. "We at the EEG would like to offer aid, both financial and technical, on the development of the Pacifica region. We see a unique opportunity here to noticeably improve the world, and history sure as hell isn't written by the hesitant!"
The slide changed to display an anagram.
"Zeniths! City of Tomorrow! That stands for 'Zero-Emission, No-Impact, Terrestrial Habitat' you see. The dream of our best ecological and urban development experts working tirelessly for years to create the perfect city. An arcology that houses everything its residents need, and causes no unnecessary damages to the surrounding environment."
He smiled in grand fashion.
"We here see your efforts at cleaning up the Pacifica region! Not only cleaning it up for the citizens, but also taking many steps for the environment! Green energy, pollution-correcting farming plots, strong anti-littering policies, a mass labor force dedicated to gathering up the decades of trash! Why it's a gosh-darn miracle to find another soul so concerned about our world out there!"
Adam spoke up for the first time.
"Get on with it." He growled out impatiently.
Humphrey coughed into his fist. "Right, to make a very long story short, we're willing to offer aid in exchange for following the guidelines as established by the ZENITH urban planning schemes."
"Why haven't you been doing this already, somewhere else?" He spoke in a grumbling tone. He was savvy enough to notice something was off, and impatient enough to cut right through the feigns of politeness.
Humphrey looked sheepish at that. "Well, investors are always reluctant to spend money on something they don't have tangible evidence on. The EEG is fully confident in this project, but all the projections in the world aren't enough for the big men upstairs, you know? We're hoping to fund your efforts both to improve the world, and serve as an example of success for future funding, you see?"
Humphrey had gotten a read on Adam Smasher at this point, it seemed, he continued in a brash and blunt way even to the hidden astonishment of his fellows. Their reactions would normally be too fast to spot, but he was Yorinobu.
"Of course, by providing the guidelines and resources, but not actually leading the project ourselves, we can protect ourselves from backlash should it fail. We need to keep our funding if we want to help the world, you see?"
"If it fails, you blame me. If it succeeds, you take the credit?" Smasher growled out in a harsh tone. Humphrey nodded nonchalantly. "That sounds about right, yessir."
Smasher stared him down for a moment, before snorting and leaning back in his chair, mimicking Yorinobu in posture. He was not a man who cared about things like credit so long as the job was done, it seemed.
"What aid are you offering?"
Humphrey grinned in a victorious manner.
"Experts from Biotechnica and Militech are prepared to offer financial aid in the project, and provide a substantial workforce. Militech is prepared to offer bulk construction supply. Biotechnica if prepared to offer bulk food and medical aid. And we here at the EEG are prepared to offer funding…"
He leaned in dramatically.
"...We are prepared to offer four-hundred percent whatever your current corporate funding from Arasaka is."