Chapter 175: Contact

Chapter 175: Contact

Titus Adiar - AeroDynamic

“Are you sure you’re too busy to join me tonight?” Titus spoke into the terminal attached to his wrist.

“Yes. Enjoy with Polly without me. I’d rather tough it out another night than get chewed out by you and the other shareholders if I don’t deal with this properly.”

“Haha, the woes of a CEO never cease. If you think like that, you won’t have a chance to do anything but work!”

“...Talk to you tomorrow. Good night Titus.”

Ending the call, Titus glanced back over at the golf course before him. Within the steel walls of his compound, he had a specialized golf course made. It employed advanced modular platforms that could form any desired terrain.

If he felt like it, he could change the settings and the entire course would transform at his command. He could erect mountains or fill lakes. Almost any terrain suitable for golf was possible.

For now, he was satisfied with the current settings and walked over to take a swing.

He ensured any cybernetics or tech on him that may assist him was turned off before he took the shot.

Like that, Titus played to his heart’s content until he received a call from someone on his priority list.

“My love, I was just about to come pick you up.”

“Oh, Titus, are you really going to try that on me? You’d think to learn that it doesn’t work on your wife even after four decades.”

“Haha. Alright, Alright. I’m on my way.”

Titus swiftly left the course, leaving the bots to clean up after him. He briskly walked outside where a small convoy of VTOLs was awaiting him. Several guards in power armor patrolled the area and one of them respectfully guided Titus to a luxuriously decorated airframe.

When the door opened, the face of a middle-aged lady popped out and Titus couldn’t help but smile upon seeing his beloved.

“My dear, I always fall in love with you again every time I see you.”

“Oh, hurry up and get in, old man. I’d rather not be late.”

Listening to his wife, Titus quickly boarded the aircraft, and they were soon on their way out of the compound. Outside, another dozen ground vehicles could be seen guarding their flight path from any potential nefarious parties.

As a founder of AeroDynamic, Titus preferred to believe in the sound design of his products for his safety, but his security team had other thoughts. It was much safer to have the ground route secured first to prevent any sudden ambushes.

Like this, Titus’ movement easily caused a huge commotion and traffic jams within Ganymede station. However, no one dared to speak out or do anything about it. This was simply how life was when a corporate bigshot from one of the major corporations went out.

Titus’s convoy of VTOLs soon arrived and landed on the roof of their destination building.

Following their escorts, they finally arrived at one of their usual haunts. The restaurant manager greeted them with a smile and personally guided them to their private room.

No other patrons were allowed to sit anywhere near the path Titus and his wife took, so they managed to reach their room without being exposed to any prying eyes.

As they arrived at the private room, their bodyguards quickly inspected the room and dispersed around the perimeter without a word. They knew their patron didn’t like to be bothered, so they swiftly made themselves scarce.

“We’ll have the usual,” Titus turned to the manager and ordered as they entered the room.

“Of course, they’ll be here within a minute. Let me get madam’s favorite White Peony tea ready while we wait.”

The manager left the room, and Titus wrapped a hand around his wife.

While I had to work overtime, I was happy things went my way.

The next day, I arrived at our team’s spacious cubicle testing room and was greeted with the sight of mutants crammed into a cage. They looked like scorpions, except much more deadly with six stingers.

Our assistant soon set up the installation process and at their command, the door to the cage opened. Just as one of them exited out of the cage, a shimmering energy shield appeared and blocked any other scorpions from escaping.

As for the one who escaped, the nearby bots shot it full of tranquilizers.

This allowed us to begin installing the bio-coprocessor into the mutant’s nervous system. Apparently, the neural link worked just as fine with its nervous system as it would with the human brain.

Once everything was set, we soon began our first round of tests.

I had written the program for controlling this new architecture, so I naturally added all the functions I needed to put on a show. It was a nice feeling seeing the other researcher find nothing amiss when examining my work.

The test consisted of having two scorpions, react to the same scenarios produced by holographic projections. One of them would have our new prototype installed, and one would be an unaltered mutant for comparison.

While everyone in my lab carefully watched the mutant lunge at the projection of a human, I kept a close watch on how the other tests went. Several other testing rooms were working in tandem with different prototypes.

In order to delay them from human testing, I had to put on a show that made them feel we were making rapid progress. And how better to do it than to start from the very bottom?

Thirty minutes after the start of tests, I activated my hidden backdoor code to overload the new prototypes.

Immediately, the mutant thrashed in pain before it suddenly exploded into goo and pieces.

Hmm? I didn’t get any experience points?

“Hmm, so it does violently explode when we overload the heat sink too rapidly. We’ll have to fine-tune how the energy is distributed, but I think it’ll decrease how hot the cybernetic runs by several degrees when we get it right!”

Cora gave me a silent glance at my explanation and returned her gaze back to the screens. We had bots going to dissect the aftermath and gather additional intel. Elsewhere on the other testing grounds, similar screens were taking place.

Seeing everything was going as planned, I relaxed and began pondering why I hadn’t gotten any experience points earlier. I had inputted the command to overload the bio-coprocessor, and usually, that would mean I would be credited with the kill.

As I subconsciously frowned, Cora’s voice resounded.

“Is something wrong?”

“...Oh no. I was just wondering...Do we have any other types of mutants to test on? Maybe one that has brain matter similar to ours?”

Cora ruefully shook her head.

“No, they’ll have to order some and then set up a new cloning line for it, so I don’t think it’ll be anytime soon. It’s not easy cloning these monsters.”

What? Clones? Is that maybe why I didn’t get any experience points...? So clones don’t work, huh...

As we conversed, the first day of testing soon concluded, and we compiled our reports. Before I left, the Senior Researcher, Dr. Gab, and a few other researchers once again pulled me aside to talk. After clarifying some points to them and setting our direction, they finally let me go.

We all left with satisfied expressions.

Now I just had to feed them the correct ‘improvements’ and it should keep them busy for a few days...Still, the schedule is looking tight.

That was why that night I snuck out on the next ship to Ceres Station.

It was time I kept my allies in the loop of my plans.