He had gotten the job, in the end.
That chip he had been tossed contained a practice sim. Put on a Braindance compatible headset, load the chip into the terminal, and lean back to wait. After a moment, your vision goes blurry, your surroundings fade, your inner ear is temporarily disabled, and you were in a different world. He didn't understand the exact mechanics behind the process, but they had been doing it for something like fifty years now, so it was probably safe enough.
The technology itself was, that is. That practice sim was absolutely not. It contained a list of three scenarios, and recorded your performance in each. You could run each one as many times as you wanted, but if you did it would record both the very first and very last time, and how many times you ran the scenario. Probably a way to save on space as well as showing off how much progress had been made since the first attempt.
All in all, standard combat sim protocols. He had done this whole song and dance back in basic training (back when he still stomped around for the NUSA).
The sims loaded were hell. An infiltration and sabotage mission started off. His duty was to carry an explosive into a defended base, set it up somewhere useful, and then make sure it went off. Survival was optional. The sim gave a basic overview of the target location, known intelligence, and a list of resources to access. Taking the best looking route, and requisitioning adequate supplies, he began the mission. He didn't want to spend too much of his requisition budget, that would lead to a poorer grade.
The briefing said that the base would have patrols, cameras, and sentries.
It did not say that all those patrols were fucking Dragoons. Or those sentries were manned by simulated AI. Or those cameras were linked to remote signal-detonation landmines. He died within the first four minutes of the sim starting. He had managed to kill two dragoons, injure three, and promptly die to his own explosive being shot at. He only managed those kills through accident, the landmines under their feet going off with his own grenade.
He maximized his budget on adequate equipment and supplies the next time he tried. Then he tried a different route. Then a different loadout. Then a different strategy. He tried fifty-four fucking attempts before moving on to the second simulation. His best attempt detonated the explosive within the base but too far away from anything critical, and he was right next to the explosive as it went off.
The next mission was more his style. An armored convoy was traveling across a bridge in a certain amount of time, his mission was to retrieve an object contained within the convoy. He was not told where the object was, only the name that would be on the label. Knowing what to expect from the last mission, he maximized his budget immediately.
An industrial power lifter, rail-sniper, and all the explosives he could afford. It took him thirty minutes to line the crucial supports of the bridge with the bombs and keep them hidden behind concrete barriers. It was just enough time for him to get into a good position after the fact.
Poor performance on his part had him lose the first and second attempts. He successfully retrieved the package on the third, prying it out of wreckage at the bottom of the canyon. As he had been expecting, all enemies were simulated dragoons in squads of nine and led by AI-commanders. Like those were a fucking common-ass threat to encounter or something. As it turned out, superhumans were real fucking difficult to handle for meatfuckers like him.
It was the third mission that made his day. A survival sim. One base, a budget on soldiers, a budget on arms and armor and a constant stream of increasingly dangerous attackers. The mission was a simple test of how long you could hold out. He once more maximized his budget, and began to bark orders.
One and a half hours on his first attempt. It was easy when you didn't have to care about things like morale breaking, the true weakness of all soldiers. Ready to kill but not ready to die, as if that was their decision to make at that point.
He had served in the Unification Wars, the Texan front, holding off the counter-invasion long enough for the treaty of Night City to be signed and the war to settle down back into simmering hostility. It had been harder then, the Texans had a smaller population, which meant their armies were always more heavily mechanized than their neighbors. The simulation didn't bring in vehicles until a half-hour in.
It was when the proper tanks started coming in that he started losing ground. He only had so many landmines set, only so many AGTMs. Once those were gone, the defense was forced to constantly fall back through checkpoint after checkpoint. Eventually, the base was overrun, and the simulation was over. He only tried that mission once, he couldn't think of any way to run it better than he had after the fact.
Overall, he didn't think he did that well.
Apparently, his standards were too high.
Garrison Lieutenant Sebastian Yarbrough stood at his place around the pushed-together tables in the middle of the temporarily borrowed warehouse. Twenty-one other individuals stood around the ramshackle table, each in various stages of drunkenness from yesterday's celebration. A celebration held by the newest captain, allegedly to get a feel for the new military company he had command over, but now Sebastian realized it was to see how drunk each officer was willing to get.
An officer with a hangover, forced to attend a mid-day meeting, a good chance for the entirely sober-looking Captain to evaluate them, and for them to get a closer feel for each other.
One captain. Five lieutenants, Twelve sergeants. One technical director. One medical director. One provisions director. One paperwork director. And one state-required shrink in the corner of the room. He narrowed his baleful glare at said paperwork director. The eyes of the brat he had nearly stabbed twinkled at him, amused by his animosity.
Similar looks and weary glances were being exchanged by all currently present, a few long moments for them to size each other up, a few long moments for their new captain to prepare whatever nonsense speech captains usually had.
Captain Bentham was not the image of a typical captain. The man wasn't tall and broad, with a thick mustache and thicker brow. He wasn't jacked enough to break a coffee table with a slammed fist, or well dressed enough to socialize in a euro golden-gala.
No. Captain Bentham was starving-thin and clean shaven, with roughly cut dark hair and eyes that looked like they belonged on a dead fish. His suit was clearly third-hand and over it he wore a ratty brown trench coat that was held together with duct tape and spite. With a face so expressionless you'd think it was a skull-like mask.
Captain Bentham was unnerving to look at, and Sebastian knew exactly why he was picked to be Captain. He knew the type just by the way the man walked. Lean and mean. Angry at the whole world and always looking for the next threat. Always looking around the room for exits and entrances, for vantage points and overlooks. Always looking for another advantage to leverage if it meant doing slightly better than before.
It wasn't the ones that were well-fed that you had to worry about in Night City. It was the ones that were hungry you had to watch out for.
"So I suppose that's enough time for the ceremonial glares to be complete." The Captain drawled out, a voice that sounded worn and scornful. His dead expression swept across the assembled individuals briefly, before going back to looking at them in a more general sense. "Got it out of your systems for now? It's fine if you don't, I'll just look for a replacement later in that case. For now, pay attention, we got work to do."
"Adam Smasher gave us, and by us I mean me, until the end of the month to get the company into as good of shape as I can manage. This meeting is to get a foundation for that started. We don't have to like each other, but we do have to work together, and if you're in this room then you can do that."
"To start with, I'll bring up what I'm sure all of us have already figured out. Most of you are underqualified for your positions. Not all, just most. Despite this, you were all made officers because you were still the best we got."
A sneer grew on the Captain's face as he continued. "The average person is an idiot. Half of all people are even more stupid than that. Night City is full of stupid people it seems, because everyone out being hungover right now is less qualified than any of you for this job."
"This is what's commonly known as a poor situation."
Scattered chuckles broke out across the warehouse. Sebastian was not among them, his scarred visage set in a grim frown. The Captain waited a moment for the chuckles to dissipate before he continued.
"We have about three weeks to turn this company into an effective anything. Our soldiers are barely better than a boostergang and we have about half the support staff we really need. We have a total of two vehicles, lots of empty space, and one of the most dangerous men on the planet judging our actions. Needless to say, we'll all be pulling double duty from here on out. We can't afford to slack off if we want to survive."
"What we do have, is the protection of one of the most dangerous men on the planet and a starting budget of three million euros."
Shocked exhales and low whistles came from that figure. It was downright skimping compared to proper army spending, but still probably more than any of the assembled had ever seen in their lives.
His glare focused on the ones that didn't have some kind of reaction. The brat he had nearly stabbed, the apprentice of Adam Smasher, the netrunning input of that apprentice, the amazonian woman with horns, the giant man with a squarish head, and so on…
A few of them were expected. Some of them he would have to keep an eye on.
"For now, we'll be focusing on basics. Foundational elements. Things that we absolutely need, and then things that would be real nice to have, and then everything else. If it's not essential, cut it out for now, we can't afford to budget for anything fancy right now. Adam Smasher gave a list of requirements, but other than that, it's on us."
"For combat units, focus entirely on running them through basic training for now. We don't have time to do anything but give them all rudimentary tactics and the ability to work together. Give them an exercise regime too. We'll allocate a food budget, make sure everyone eats enough, starving gangers are shit soldiers."
"Technical Director Rook." The captain turned his attention directly towards the man in question. Face concealed behind smartgoggles and a breathing apparatus, the Technical Director's most notable features were his weapon of choice and neckwear. A halberd that looked to be assembled from welded sheet metal, and the skull of a maelstrom cyborg on a chain. The dark red cloak he wore concealed the rest of his body from view, but he clanked like steel when he walked.
The necklace was certainly a definitive statement after the Strom Storm.
"How may I serve, Captain?" The Technical Director drew out in the same way strommers did. Synthetic and grating.
"Your job is to be setting up a robust, self-sufficient workshop. Lots of our early supplies are going to be pure salvage, and that's where your team comes in when they're not on jobs. To this end, I've already approved the order of three nanoforges."
That drew some attention. Nanoforges were the successor-tech to 3D printers from back in the day, and they were not cheap. Containers the size of outdoor freezers that were filled with swarming nanomachines. What they did was simple, deconstruct and reconstruct materials. They couldn't produce anything fancy, but if you needed scrap turned into bars, or bars turned into uniform components, they could do so within a few hours.
Buying three was easily a hundred thousand from the budget. Not to mention the operating costs.
"The moment those are set up and we have an inventory of things we need, we'll be sorting it out into what we can build and what we have to buy. Your team is going to be working round the clock to grab every useful scrap in Night City and its trash heaps, and turn them into war material."
"Ah. Do we have the required permits then?" The Technical Director questioned.
"We have Adam Smasher." The Captain countered.
"Excellent. We'll begin immediately."
"Medical Director Florence." The Captain moved on to the next in line.
"Captain." The dog-headed woman acknowledged with a scratchy growl. The Medical Director was a woman, wearing a worn blue and white dress, wearing long synth-leather gloves and boots, and what was probably a long brown wig. The most unusual feature about the aged female was her Exotic features. A euro 'werewolf' package from what he could tell, furred and utterly artificial snout at the end of a painfully warped-looking head.
She was wretched to look at, but pleasant enough if you ignored everything above the shoulders. Just like most women then, if he was being honest.
"Make sure we have medical supplies stockpiled and all of our medics actually know what they're doing. Send the bill along for ordering what you need. Furthermore, see about making sure our less stable soldiers don't snap, we need them sane to get anything out of them. Work with Ms. Yamada on that."
The dog-headed woman nodded her head, and the Captain moved on.
"Provisions Director Grayson."
The man nodded with a polite smile. That was a smile you couldn't trust. The smile of a professional wearing human skin. Apparently he was a long time employee of Smasher, and that made entirely too much sense.
"You'll be pulling double duty. We need to make sure everything is clean and orderly, and that the supplies actually come in on time. Once the initial orders have passed, you'll be responsible for keeping those up. Anything we need to buy, it'll be your job to order it, and the job of your underlings to get it ready for the rest of it. For right now, spend your time getting the provisions staff in order, working together, and keeping things tidy. Work with the Technical Director to get scrap in, the Medical Director to move boxes of supplies around, and the Paperwork Director to get everything filed away."
"Absolutely."
"You'll be the 'everything else' part of this operation for a while. Just get your crew to fill in wherever we need labor. Get teams from the Garrison if you need more help." His team then. Sebastian would have to run them through the basics of cleaning up after themselves and delivering boxes then. That was easy to accomplish, merely one less hour of rest a day for the meat.
Grayson smiled and nodded, but didn't respond again. The Captain slightly narrowed his eyes at him, before moving on.
"Paperwork Director Neumann." So that was the teenager's name.
"Captain Bentham." The Brat acknowledged.
"You'll also be pulling double duty. Right now your team is handling the files, records, and forms as part of the paperwork duties. But it's also going to handle Public Relations and Marketing for now. No idea when that will change."
"Ah, the first task is to design a cost-effective but striking uniform then?"
The Captain stared at the brat for a moment. "...That's a good suggestion, do that too. More importantly, start putting out feelers for industry contacts and start sending emails. Sponsors pay the bills, and we have bills to pay."
"Of course Captain." The brat was almost smug in his response, it showed off in the tiniest glint of his eyes.
The Captain leaned back and crossed his arms. "That's the end of the essential briefing. Now comes the discussion part. We're going to be spending the next few hours hashing out as many details of this operation as we can. For now, keep everything broad strokes and easy to implement. Time is money."
"I open the floor to the start of discussion. Assault Lieutenant Claes, you have the floor."
The robot-faced man nodded, and began to speak in the synthetic manner of borgs.
"We will need to determine standard armaments and loadouts. Do we have any guidelines from Adam Smasher on those, and if so, what are they?"
"Railguns, Linear Frames, and Riot-class Armor." The Captain answered.
Claes nodded, and began to speak again. "So then the first order of business will be determining the best supply of cheap railguns…
The main body of the meeting of officers had begun. It would be early morning by the time it ended.