Chapter 142: Politicking

Chapter 142: Politicking

“So what did he say?” Claire asked immediately as I got out of the room.

I took a sip of the milkshake she handed me before replying, as we moved back to the main building.

“Well, stuff about the politics behind their company, for one. He then went over how they had undermined us in detail. It seems like he was the one to come up with the sabotage method.”

I ignored the side eye she gave me for stopping there and proceeded to press the button on the elevator.

“...Hello? That’s it? Give me the details.”

“It’ll be faster to show you.”

I ignored her quipping and went into my workshop. I searched around and found the small device shaped like a conductor’s baton and then went to fetch some spare parts I had lying around.

“He told me he was simply using this lifecycle tester to sabotage our products.”

“What does it do?” Claire asked as she tilted her head.

“It’s a simple way to test an electric device’s lifespan by running currents that simulate their use. Our friend, Luford, told me he removed the limiters and had mercenaries spam our products with numerous currents until it degraded like it had been used for years.”

“Okay...And does knowing how they did it help us prevent it, then?”

“Not really. Our products are already out there. It would be expensive and ineffective to recall them and have an updated version made. It would take a long time to have our production adjusted, and our enemies can simply change their methods. There are just too many ways they can go about it.”

“So why did you bother telling me about it, then?”

“Umm...because you asked? I needed to get something done here real quick anyway.”

I then ignored her and began manually crafting a cybernetic for my new friend. We had come to an agreement, and he deserved a ‘gift’.

Before I knew it, Claire was gone from the workshop and I had completed my task. I went back to visit Luford in the cell where we held him.

“Come out Luford, let’s get your body checked up real quick and we can send you on your way back home.”

He glanced up at me wordlessly but soon complied.

We took him out of his cell and went into the medical building, where I personally gave him a quick checkup. Well, it wasn’t that quick because I had knocked him out with an anesthetic. I proceeded to install a customer version of the spying implant that all my employees had.

While our talks had gone well, I wanted the ability to listen in on their internal meetings in real time and monitor the situation. I could then also react accordingly if he was losing out in the politicking.

Once he wakes up, he can just return and start putting our plan into motion. I’m glad I met him because being able to choose who to negotiate with is a luxury few ever have.

Luford Perez - Sensorial Corporation

Luford woke up confused as he found himself in an unfamiliar room. However, once his memory came back to him, he couldn’t help but let out a yelp in horror.

He had been captured by an enemy corporation and held against his will. They had then interrogated him and the crazy boss of the so-called Halls Corporation was spewing nonsense, like he wanted to be friends. Unable to read the man, it only made Luford more fearful of him.

Luford had decided to talk about the situation in his company, as he believed it wouldn’t have changed anything, but he was then presented with a proposal for him to return and gain control.

It was a nightmare scenario for him that he had dreaded about in his youth. To be forced to betray his own family. However, the talks hadn’t gone the way he thought it would. They said they would let him retain control instead of making him into their vassal company and would like to just have a good business relationship.

Luford was unable to tell if they were serious or if they had far more nefarious plans in mind later on, but then they suddenly knocked him out at the cyber clinic. It made Luford more frightened than anything else.

“But sir, we may be able to maintain our current financial position at best. We will inevitably deteriorate and lose market share from our damaged reputation, even if we win this war.” One of the neutral executives warned.

“Our position isn’t stable in the first place. We’ll have to grit through it and expel these upstarts from our market first and think about recovering later.”

...How is this any different from my initial plan of staying low as we retool to expand our markets? This is just the same plus earning us enemies.

The meeting devolved into a Q&A between the concerned executive and the acting CEO, Harold, while Luford stood by and watched.

There were no good reasons for him to interject at this time, but he believed in the other executives to be smart enough to see where this was going. After the meeting, he secretly contacted them to privately discuss the company situation.

“Patrick, you are a smart man. You should now see that my brother had fooled us with his sweet words, and the result he’s producing is worse than what my plan would’ve done.”

“...Luford, it’s not that I don’t agree with you, but it’s too late to change our decision now. The arrow has already loosed. We’ll still have to deal with this new enemy we have earned, even if we backtracked to your proposal.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, Patrick. I’ve had people open talks with the other party. This sabotage stuff isn’t good for business and they’re eager to get it over with. They’re willing to forge better relations with us after we put this behind us.”

“...But then that would put us on the wrong side of GrainScape.”

“They recently just lost a war. Do you think they have the energy and resources to start any fights? There’s a reason why they approached us to do their dirty work for them in the first place.”

“...”

“There are no eternal enemies, only eternal benefits,” Luford muttered.

A few days later, another meeting was called, but this time, it was called by the CTO.

I reached out for another handful of popcorn when my hand made contact with nothing but air. I glanced over to find Claire hogging the entire bucket as she was absorbed in the projection before us. All our executives were present, so I didn’t bother bantering with her in their presence.

I shook my head and reached over to the other side, where another bucket of popcorn lay between Thorne and me.

“This is really like those shows corpos usually like to watch...” a voice muttered not far away from me.

I glanced over at the speaker, Lucy, and she flinched back.

“Sorry, sir. I didn’t mean to say that out loud.”

“It’s fine.”

We all then redirected our attention to the projection that had live footage from a different part of the city where a meeting was soon to begin.

“You know, watching this is getting me paranoid about some big corp doing the same to us,” Claire said.

I was just about to tell her not to worry about it when I realized some truths about her words. If the level of knowledge I had at plus ten with my system put me on even grounds with the largest corps, then they had similar capabilities. Maybe I was even slightly behind in the areas each respective corp specialized in.

I could only master a few disciplines, but those megacorporations were surely not as limited. I don’t believe we would draw their attention yet, being just an F-Class corporation, but it was something I would have to address eventually.

“Well, maybe that’s why QuickLinks Logistics had the compound-wide jammer active all the time. We should look into something similar...”

Before I could brainstorm various solutions, the projection drew all our attention again. I could see from the perspective of Luford, standing up and overlooking the rest of his peers. It was easy to tell which one was his brother as they looked alike and he didn’t bother hiding his displeasure.

“Thank you everyone. I won’t waste any more of your time and will begin this meeting. For today’s meeting, I wanted to present a proposal to get us out of this unwanted predicament so we can focus on our business activities instead of these hostilities.”

Let the show begin.