[0/100 Health Points!]
[Player: Black Coyote has died!]
[You have lost all possessions, your level, your stats, and your karma has been reset. Would you like to create a new character or play as 'Isaac Day' again?]
[Create New Character] [Continue]
Isaac stayed at this screen for a long time. He stared at it with a plain face, lacking any sense of joy or sadness. His mind however was in a different place as it thought about what he was feeling.
After going back to Aurora, he felt pretty decent. It was strange being in a place with normal people again. Well… as normal as people were nowadays. But in the back of his mind, he knew he wasn't comfortable.
Sitting here, Isaac didn't know which he liked more, the hellscape that he had worked in for a few years or the hellscape he had lived in growing up. They both had their fair share of trauma for nearly everyone who had experienced them.
He had half his face blown off in South America, but he felt oddly safe around the men he served with. It was a very tightknit group, and they all had each other's backs. But in the city, it was basically a free for all. He obviously had his friends, but it wasn't exactly the same thing.
Isaac doubted Roscoe would sprint into a hail of gunfire to retrieve him if he was injured. Loony probably would but… well, yeah, not much of an explanation needed there. It was all around a hard situation for him to even describe because they were instinctual feelings.
With a sigh he pressed [Continue] and he was brought back to the town that he started in. He found himself sitting on a bench with NPCs to the left and right of him. He shook his head slightly and logged off. He wasn't in the mood to play anymore.
As the real world returned to him, he ejected the data crystal from his jack and tossed it onto a small shelf. The room around him was entirely dark besides the neon lights flooding in from his window. Without any further delay, he got ready for bed and slept like a rock.
The next morning, he woke up and lazily dragged himself out of his bed. He needed to get ready to meet that corporate suit.
'What was his name again?' He thought to himself as he shampooed his hair in a hot shower. 'Oh yeah, Anderson.' This was something he should probably be remembering, but he couldn't bring himself to.
While showering, his hand raised to the side of his face and traced his scars. His mind went back to the searing hot pain of the shrapnel ripping through him. After pausing on that pain, his hand fell lazily down, and he turned the water off. He stood there for a moment before leaving with a sigh.
After dressing up as nicely as he could with what little he had, he left the large building. He hailed a cab and told them where to go. As they got further into the city, the buildings somehow got even larger and fancier. The word majestic came to mind. At the same time, the advertisement became less and less, letting the buildings and their beauty stand out.
As they neared the city center, one had to crane their neck all the way back just to hope to see a glimpse of the building's top. Isaac got out of the cab and paid the man. At this point he was wishing he never did that stupid quest because he was starting to run exceptionally low on cash.
Working for a corporate military actually pays quite a lot. It's because they expect you to die so you'll never even get to spend the money (it also has a strange tendency to somehow end up back in the pockets of the corporation you worked with). Isaac however, had to spend the majority of it on his medical expenses and more recently his apartment.
Isaac began making his way towards one of the buildings in the large city center. It was a very plain building; it didn't have any sort of decorations on it. It was just pure steel, concrete, and bulletproof glass. Out front there was a neat little sign that said, 'Titan Industries' on it.
Isaac got to the front door and two men stopped him from heading inside. They both looked like they could crush Isaac like a tin can and toss him into the nearest recycling bin. Their muscles bulged with every movement and Isaac's lip raised itself ever so slightly in disgust.
"Do you have an appointment?" One asked while watching Isaac from behind a pair of glasses.
'Warning! Intrusion detected! Purging systems!' Isaac heard a small feminine voice ring out from inside his head.
The man who asked Isaac the question flinched and gritted his teeth.
"Yes, I do. It's with Mr. Anderson; I was told to wait in the lobby." Isaac said as he fixed his hair slightly.
The other man mumbled quietly to into a microphone before walking out of the way of the door. "Sorry for the disturbance sir."
Isaac took a step forward and the large glass doors slid open, revealing a holographic wall. These were used to scan someone's cybernetics and biotech, as well as seeing if they had any weapons. Since Isaac didn't have any weapons or dangerous tech, he could continue walking without any alarms going off.
He reached a desk at the center of an exquisite lobby. It rose high up and had beautiful lighting and holograms decorating everything. But it wasn't anything Isaac hadn't seen before so he quickly lost interest.
"I've been told you're here to see Mr. Anderson. He'll be down in just a moment, if you'll take a seat in our lounge, he'll be right over."
"Thank you." Isaac said while leaving. He entered another room, the lounge, that looked like at least one or two million dollars was spent on it alone. With a roll of his eyes, he sat down and saw a large television broadcasting the stock market.
"Witchcraft…" Isaac muttered under his breath. There was nobody else in the room, so Isaac had nothing to do except listen to the television drone on about numbers and percentages. All of which Isaac failed to understand.
"Please excuse me Mr. Day for being tardy." Anderson appeared all of a sudden as he walked forward with an extended arm. Isaac grasped it and shook it.
Anderson continued, "I'd like to make a proposition with you, but a lounge is hardly a place to do it. Follow me to my office please."
With that, the two left and headed to an elevator. As the two neared it, the people nearby left as if they were little fishes in an ocean and Anderson was a hungry shark. This didn't escape Isaac's sight and as if knowing that Anderson explained.
"I've told them to keep away from us. This business today with SurgeSystems is important, we can't have any distractions."
"I feel like you just want me to be comfortable so it's easier to hire me."
"That's also a part of it, I must admit. He was right about you." Anderson said.
"He?"
"Oh, a slip of the tongue."
"So, you're saying Loony wasn't the person who originally recommended me."
"You're quite sharp Mr. Day. Yes, you're correct, she wasn't the first. You'll find out more in a moment."
"Hmm." Isaac hummed slightly in acceptance. He expected it to be some codejumper freak who somehow managed to find his records and scrub them of the black ink. He wasn't sure if that was possible, but there were a lot of things he didn't think were possible that a codejumper managed to do.
They entered the elevator and Anderson pressed a button. The doors slid shut and the elevator quietly started climbing. Around two hundred floors later, it stopped, and they left. A room filled with people walking around everywhere talking in quick hushed tones.
There were offices for each of these people with privacy glass that could be turned on and off whenever. They walked past everyone, and the workers stopped their conversations to look at the two.
Eventually, they made it past them and entered a large room with an excellent view of the city. Anderson walked forward and sat behind a desk and motioned for Isaac to sit in a comfortable chair in front of him.
"So, finally mind spilling the beans."
"Before that, we need you to agree and sign this contract." Anderson said as he slid a piece of paper over.
"I'm not touching that with a twenty-foot pole."
"Whatever you designate here," He pointed at a line, "is how much we'll pay you for joining us."
"Do you happen to have a pen?" Isaac asked without missing a beat. As they say, 'Money trumps all.' While Isaac didn't believe in the saying one hundred percent, he definitely recognized its legitimacy.
Anderson handed Isaac a fountain pen after taking off its top. Isaac grabbed it and started reading through the pages. They basically said that if he talked, bad things would happen and that he'd be working with Titan Industries until the operation was complete.
Although he should take this to see a lawyer, especially considering it was a corpo who wrote it, so it was basically the devil, Isaac also didn't care that much. He signed it and slid the paper back.
"Paper's a bit old fashioned don't you think?" Isaac asked.
"Everything that can be off the books, is off the books. Then once the operation is over, it's all getting torched." Anderson explained.
"I see… So, what do you need me for?" Isaac asked.
Anderson hesitated for a moment. "Cerberus." He said simply to gauge Isaac's reaction.
However, contrary to Anderson's expectations, not so much as a muscle twitched on Isaac's face.
"Continue." Isaac said with a calm voice.
"You were a part of Cerberus's third head, the Coyote Company. The person who recommended you, they gave me some files. The stuff you all did was nothing short of incredible! So far, we've gotten someone from Wolf Company and Jackal Company each, but not Coyote."
"Might I ask why you're uniting me with acquaintances I never wanted to see again?" He said that despite calling them comforting earlier. He was aware of the contradiction but also felt it was oddly accurate, he liked them, but still didn't want to see them.
What happened down there should stay down there. He came up to Aurora to start over. Despite having a slight meltdown earlier, he still wanted to try that and meeting with them was not starting over. It was quite the opposite in fact.
"The man you recommended you, well, in truth he recommended all three of you, he said a Cerberus has three heads. He explained that without one of those head's they'll still operate, just at reduced efficiency."
"Alright, who am I working with then?"
"Cutlass and Mirror." Anderson answered.
"I see." Isaac leaned back in his chair and fell deep in thought.
"As you know, we'll be breaking into SurgeSystems. However! We are not breaking into any little warehouse or office. No. Instead, we're breaking into their headquarters tight across the street." A hologram appeared out of his desk showcasing the building across from them.
"For fucks sake." Isaac groaned.
"Funnily enough, the other two said the same thing." Anderson chuckled and continued, "They stole a data crystal from us. You don't need to know what's on it, just that has an advanced tracker, proprietary tech made by us. They stole it and don't even know we're watching them. We'll give you all a data crystal that'll install a tracker. That tracker will lead you to the other crystal at all times. It'll delete itself upon recovery."
"That's all you have?" Isaac asked with a hollow scoff.
"The per-"
Isaac cut Anderson off, "Lemme guess, 'The person who recommended you said it'd be best for you all to create your own plan.' How close was I?"
"Shockingly so." Anderson said without a hint of shock. "You'll meet up with your partners-in-crime at a later time. We'll message you when that is." Anderson stood up and began leaving the office.
Isaac called out to him, "Who exactly recommended me?!"
"He wanted to speak to you alone, Mr. Black Coyote." Anderson said as he walked out the door, leaving Isaac irritated. The room descended to silence as Isaac began thinking about the mission. It was too far to go back now, so he might as well.
That's when another man entered the room, walking with a cane. "Ah… Hello Black." The man said with a smile.
Hearing the voice, Isaac whipped around, "White?"
White was covered in burns and scars so much, so it looked as if he was put through a blender. He limped forward, supporting himself with his cane as much as possible. Eventually he sat in a couch near the entrance of the room, to tired to go any further.
Isaac walked over to him and sat down.
White began grinning as he looked over the scars across Isaac's face. "You look nice." He said sarcastically.
"Not as good as you." Isaac smiled softly.
The two were quiet as the world continued on around them. Eventually White muttered, "I'm dying."
"I know." Isaac responded after a brief pause. If he wasn't, he could just replace everything with synthetic organs or biotech. He couldn't if his body was too far gone, however. The room descended back into silence.
Eventually Isaac had to ask, "What are we doing this for? Cutlass, Mirror, and I?"
"The data crystal is an enigma, even though it was made inhouse. The engineer who designed it and the codejumper who programmed it killed themselves. The notes they left behind though… we looked them over and it could revolutionize the world."
"Still not going to tell me what's on the crystal?"
"I'm sorry, I can't. Like I said it's an enigma and the stuff we do know I'm not at allow to speak about."
Isaac sighed. "Alright, fine." Isaac stood and said, "Take care of yourself, White."
White chuckled, "Don't want to hang out for old times' sake?"
"Hah! Fuck no!" Isaac laughed.
"Wait, one last thing!" White stopped Isaac as he was walking through the door, "How much did you request for the job."
"There were enough zeros to swim in it."
"That's my brother!" White grinned. "Take care of yourself Black."
Isaac nodded with a faint smile and left the building.