That's Why Money Is Good
"You worthless pieces of shit!"
The glass ashtray came flying and shattered against the skull of one of the men standing in line. Blood sheeted down his face as he dropped, and not a soul so much as glanced at him—or rather, not a soul dared to.
"Fine. I'll swallow the ones I sent to rough him up failing. Failure happens. But there's failing, and then there's letting a bastard who walked into our territory on his own two feet just slip away? First thing in the goddamn morning?!"
"No excuse, Boss."
"Don't even try. You spent the whole night drinking and whoring, slept in like you had all the time in the world, then scrambled out the door the second the call came in, charged him blind, and got your asses handed to you! Am I wrong?!"
"..."
"I cannot believe I fed you, housed you, and raised you, you deadbeat sons of bitches. If a stock I'd put my faith in turned into worthless paper overnight, I'd still be less disappointed than I am in you. Fuck."
Already on a cigarette he couldn't have numbered if he tried, Lee Gwangsoo—head of the Gwangsoo Family—dragged hard and raked his men one by one with a look sharp enough to draw blood.
Truth be told, the ones who'd failed were low-level muscle, the kind you only called in when you needed extra fists. They weren't elites. They weren't even names that went on the family letterhead. Trash like that botching a job didn't put a dent in the organization's reputation.
But the other guy had been inside a week. A freshman Orange with no backing worth mentioning and no crew of his own. That changed the math.
"What, did that bastard slather himself head to toe in illegal cyberware? Or are the guards quietly covering for him? You jump a guy who literally has jack shit to his name—a whole pack of you—and you still get wrecked without landing a single clean hit. What the hell does that make me look like?"
"Well... I don't think he's got illegal implants in him. But he definitely bought something from that crazy bitch's shop."
"The tool shop run by the lunatic who names her own inventions Pretty?"
"Yes, sir. We checked. He dropped about ten million won in one shot on a custom order. No question he used that gear when he fought our boys."
"Now I've seen everything. Fine, say he lucked into a jackpot on Special Duty and that's where the money came from. Normally, if you've got that kind of cash, you go see Ted Chan or Borscht, don't you?"
"He's got something. That's for sure. Or at the very least, something he's betting on..."
Ted Chan was the finest implant artisan and independent fabricator in the entire country. Even the megacorps hadn't been able to contain his genius—they couldn't kill him, so they'd had to lock him in a prison instead. Word was the government and the conglomerates still sent people in secret to cut deals with him.
Drop ten million on a man like that and you'd walk out with at least one or two implants worth using. So what the hell was the point of taking that money to a different lunatic entirely and placing a custom order?
Lee Gwangsoo flicked away a cigarette that had already burned down to a stub in a single drag. The reason he could chain-smoke all day on a pair of lungs that never quit was the artificial lung implant Ted Chan had put in him.
And he turns down tech this good?
Hell, swap out a few tendons or a stretch of bone for implant work and you walked away with strength no ordinary human could touch. That was what implants were for. The idea of dumping that kind of money on a custom order from a deranged toolmaker was almost funny. The kid wasn't even one of those purists who insisted the human body stay purely flesh.
"Hah. Forget it. Stay away from him. Looking at you now, I don't think a whole truckload of you could put that one guy down."
"Then... what are you planning to do about him?"
"If you're stupid, your body pays for it. If your body's weak, your brain pays for it. But if you've got money, most problems just go away."
Lee Gwangsoo picked up the intercom handset sitting beside his sofa and punched in a special number. A click of connection, and a modulated voice came through.
The other end said what it needed to say and hung up without waiting. Lee Gwangsoo set the receiver down without looking particularly bothered.
A place like the Civil Affairs Office did not exist in this, the worst prison on earth. But someone, somewhere, was always going to have a grievance, and a great many people wanted a very simple way to erase a problem that fists and brains couldn't touch.
The ones with power and brains stacked their money early for exactly that reason. And when the time came, they crushed the other party flat under the sheer weight of capital. That was what the Civil Affairs Office was for.
Even in a place they called a hell worse than a sewer, the power of capital worked exactly the same as it did anywhere else.
"Special Duty applicants, confirm the equipment issued to you as well as any personally authorized gear!"
Same as last time, the ceiling of the massive isolation chamber split open and a giant mechanical arm came down. Once the prisoners had been issued their kits, green lights winked on one by one above the countless insertion hatches networked through the floor.
"Begin insertion."
The convicts moved like they'd been waiting for the word, taking up positions in front of the hatches they'd already picked out. The sealing doors rolled back. Some of them went sliding down pipe tunnels with a smooth, polished grade; others dropped to their hands and knees and crawled into passages barely wide enough to take a body.
I grabbed a zipline rig on a completely vertical shaft—no ladder, nothing—and rode it down.
After what felt like a few hundred meters on the line, my boots found the floor of a space drowned in fog from the knees down.
A little colder than the last Darkzone I dropped into.
That one had felt like a cool spring breeze. This felt like standing in the blast of an air conditioner.
Fortunately, unlike the last time—when I'd gone in with nothing but the basic kit and not a single coin to my name—I'd extended my Human Rights Guarantee Period and put what was left into a more balanced loadout.
First, a Modular Exo-Suit—ankles, wrists, and spine—that I could toggle on and off at will. Two packs of preserved rations and three bottles of water. The sharpened alloy-steel machete I'd looted and sent out for servicing, and Pretty, my claw hammer, still sitting on an unpaid tab. On top of that, ten Glow Sticks, three throwing daggers, and a thin emergency medical kit: one first-aid pack, one dose of painkillers, one bundle of antiseptic compression bandages. And finally, a large backpack to actually carry all of it, plus whatever I farmed. I'd shaken my balance down to the last coin and squeezed every bit of value I could out of it.
Of course there was more—a newly broken-in pair of combat boots, all-weather performance fatigues, a specialized gas mask—but if I started listing every last thing on my body, I'd be here until morning.
I wouldn't even know where to start explaining this Crazy Clock.
I pulled my eyes off the Crazy Clock, which only ever ticked when it felt like it, and faced the gloom through the goggles of my gas mask.
The environment itself looked, at a glance, a lot like the cave-type Darkzone I'd been dropped into before. The details were another story. Both places were dark and cheerless, but unlike that naturally formed cavern, this one carried the fingerprints of deliberate design.
Exhibit A: the ground under my boots is relatively smooth and level.
The fog hid most of it, but a few taps of the toe were enough to tell me this was nothing like a natural floor.
I cracked a Glow Stick, held it up like a lantern, and started walking. People who didn't know better would sneer that a toy like this couldn't possibly be worth a damn in a Darkzone, but the real value of a Glow Stick was something else entirely.
The headline advantages were simple: it didn't eat batteries, it was cheap, and it was easy to carry and easy to use. Each one threw fluorescent light for about ten minutes, and I wouldn't pretend they weren't disposable. Those were real downsides. It also had one overwhelming advantage that more than swallowed those drawbacks whole.
I moved with care, burned through the first stick, and immediately pulled a second to keep the light alive. After about fifteen minutes of walking from the insertion hatch, I had the distinct feeling I'd been circling the same ground, and a rough picture of the sector's layout started to come together.
According to the 3D map assembling itself in my head, this was a massive underground facility built for some purpose—far larger than the previous building, which might have been a hospital or a dormitory or both.
I stopped and stared at the first security bulkhead I'd found since starting my search. I had no idea how many more of these there were, but if the structure was as huge as I thought, I'd be running into the same kind of door in other sectors.
[■-051]
AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY
In the game, you'd force a bulkhead like this and eat the alarm—or you'd use a disposable security key you'd already picked up and stroll right through.
Bulkheads of this design were common enough in Darkzones, and most of them started already open. The ones that were sealed usually had high-value items inside, or a powerful enemy locked in that dropped rare biological samples.
That was when the Crazy Clock, which had kept its silence until now, suddenly fired a laser at the touch panel used to authenticate a security key.
Temporary access privileges to this facility have been acquired.
This facility is a ■■■ Corporation site that was emergency-sealed due to the ■-■■ incident.
Emergency Objective: Investigate this facility. Acquire and protect the high-value assets of ■■■ Corporation left indiscriminately unattended within.
"That's insane."
Who exactly are you trying to shove into a pit of hell? I was a raw newbie. If I went risk-farming without looking where I was going, I was fucked. Right now I had to walk a razor's edge between safety and efficiency just to have a shot at a future.
Upon completion of the emergency objective, usage rights will be granted to a portion of the technologies among ■■■ Corporation's high-value assets.
"Let's go. Right now."
■■■ Corporation, I love you. I had no idea what they actually did, but as of today they were my own small, precious patriotic company. And a small, precious patriotic company's high-value assets were mine to protect...
A heavy boom rolled through the corridor, then a long metallic groan as the bulkhead finally opened. A still colder breath of air came with it, and fog poured out like a dam giving way.
I raised the Glow Stick high, like a brave adventurer advancing through a pitch-black dungeon with nothing but a single lantern.
Whatever waited inside would not stand in the way of my blind love for ■■■ Corporation.