The Next Opportunity
Do these bastards think I'm some kind of idiot?
I'd been reading the catalog file my counterpart had remotely dumped on me the second he walked in to open our first contract, and I finally couldn't hold back a hollow laugh. It was funny enough that some so-called agent had served up this garbage catalog. The real punchline was the company he belonged to.
These are Control Corp products.
Control Corp was the EFD-universe equivalent of a conglomerate-scale everything-store, a company that manufactured and sold every product under the sun. They draped themselves in a lofty mission statement about how all technology must remain under human control, but in practice they could barely handle cutting-edge tech, let alone control it. All those hard-won technologies just got stamped into budget products by the truckload. Mass-produce decent mid-tier goods from bleeding-edge research, then flood the global market at rock-bottom margins — a suspiciously everyman-friendly outfit, that was Control Corp.
They'd still shown up to this contract bidding war on the strength of the Mega Corp name, apparently, even though they clearly didn't have the chops to handle a biological tissue sample this rare and wanted it anyway.
Then they could've at least brought a real catalog and left some room to negotiate. Are they just trying to screw me?
Unless they thought I was a monkey in a zoo, nobody with a functioning brain would walk in with a catalog like this and start talking about a deal. I let out a thin sigh and swept the file off my screen.
Even Crazy Clock stayed quiet this time, apparently not in the mood for another lecture about how outdated everything was. Honestly, Lee Sena's Pretty series would've blown every item in that catalog out of the water.
True to a world that'll steal the nose off your face while you watch, every last one of them tries to fleece me the second they get an opening.
Prisoners I can just beat down. Guards I can keep in a nice little win-win with a bit of grease on the side. But these desk jockeys, strolling around free society and soaking up every privilege and perk of their so-called elite class — I will not sit still while they try to take me for a ride.
"Control Corp's been having a rough time of it lately, hasn't it?"
"......!"
I could feel the man on the other side of the privacy glass flinch. I couldn't see his face, but by now he'd be breaking into a cold sweat with his eyes wide open — or sitting there slack-jawed like an idiot. His reaction wasn't what mattered, though. What mattered was that a mere convict had just put a hole in the so-called elite.
"What exactly is that supposed to mean..."
"Well. Everyone's having a hard time. I understand."
I left it there, making it perfectly clear I had no intention of taking this any further.
"Why don't you send in the next company. Control Corp doesn't seem to have the capacity to handle the 'rare' biological tissue sample I brought in. I was prepared to take a loss if I had to, but this isn't going to work."
"W-wait, please wait just a moment! It appears there was a minor error in the catalog I showed you!"
"Is that so?"
"Yes! I offer my most sincere apologies on that point! It seems an error occurred in the rush to compile and transmit the materials. Haha!"
A pretty pathetic excuse for an agent dispatched by a Mega Corp, but I decided to let it slide. I'd already thrown my weight around once. Now was the time to ease back a step. If he wasn't a complete fool, he'd come back with a catalog that was actually worth looking at.
Oh.
Fortunately, the second catalog he sent over wasn't half bad. Control Corp really was a giant general store of a company, and they carried just about everything — which, for a convict like me, meant the items worth a second look were weapons and gear, assorted consumables and medicine, and budget-grade implants. He'd clearly decided to lean hard into that angle; the listings were skewed heavily in that direction.
Not bad overall. The problem is that 'not bad' is all it is.
Weapons and equipment needed regular resupply and maintenance, so the bleeding-edge stuff was no good, and neither were the antiques. That vague middle ground Control Corp occupied — somewhere between budget and high-end — was actually the sweet spot. If it was selling well in this day and age, that meant the performance was stable and the after-sales support was easy to come by.
But swapping the biological tissue sample I brought in for nothing but this would still be a terrible deal.
I'd said I was willing to take a loss, but human nature being what it is, you always want a bigger cut. Which meant the real play was right here.
"Hmm. A solid catalog overall. I like that you've got a deep inventory of exactly what I need — weapons, gear, consumables, medicine, the works."
"You have an excellent eye. As you know, every product Control Corp carries puts reliability first. In a harsh environment like this prison — and in a place like the Darkzone, where every variable in the book is in play — what matters more than anything is gear you can actually trust, wouldn't you agree?"
"These days, nothing matters more than reliability. Implants that bug out and overload at the drop of a hat, weapons and gear that shatter if you look at them wrong, consumables and medicine that never deliver the performance or efficiency they promise. It's an age when you can't trust a single thing you pick up."
"Exactly! Haha, I'm truly glad I was able to show you a proper catalog. Clients with an eye like yours are precisely the kind of prospective VIP our headquarters values most."
The water was starting to boil. Time to turn the heat back down.
"Still, I can't shake the feeling that this is quantity over quality. If I took every item in this catalog, the numbers would more or less work out — but is that even possible?"
"Ah, of course! If it suits you, we are fully prepared to send you one of everything listed! Headquarters would be taking a slight loss on the structure, but an investment of that size is no problem at all."
He snatched at the float like a fish that had been waiting all day for the bait. I, on the other hand, had only nudged it. I hadn't put it in my mouth.
"We'll send you one of everything in the catalog" might have sounded like a windfall, but given my position, it wasn't hard to see the trap.
Because I'm on death row.
Plenty of convicts paid their tribute to the prison and got permits to carry personal weapons, but the conditions were nowhere near loose enough for one man to personally own an entire catalog's worth of hardware. If I swallowed his pitch and said, "I'll take the whole catalog as the terms of the contract," the prison would be waiting with open arms to confiscate most of what I'd just received. I'd eat a one-sided loss, and he'd walk away with a reputation for honoring a deal with a mere death-row inmate — plus the biological tissue sample in his pocket.
Getting played for a sucker by someone I'd written off as an idiot would have been about as humiliating as it gets.
"Being able to take the entire catalog is certainly an appealing set of terms, but I'm just not feeling it. Truth is, I don't even need this much equipment right now."
"Th-there's such a thing as being prepared, isn't there? This isn't personal luxury or greed. It's putting yourself in a state of complete readiness to protect your own life. At this price point, with this quality, in these quantities — headquarters is the only party that can put a package like this together!"
"That's exactly why I'm hesitating. Whether I should spend this opportunity here, or save it for the next one."
"......!"
You're not the only one who can dangle bait, pal. I'm an anglerfish too, glowing down here in the pitch-black deep.
Sure enough, he was elite enough to catch the keyword. His whole approach shifted in an instant.
"D-does that mean a situation like this could happen again? Not just this time, but the next?"
"Hm? You didn't know?"
"Know what, exactly..."
"I've only been in this prison for two months. Do you really not know why they call me the Super Rookie?"
"Ah— ahhh! So that's what you meant!"
He still clearly didn't understand. But admitting that in a negotiation was the same as losing, so he pretended he did. I played along with the clumsy performance. I still had groundbait to spread.
"I don't love saying this myself, but on an individual level, my Darkzone yield rate is overwhelming. I've broken the profit record several times in a row. You think someone like me has much trouble bringing biological tissue samples out of the Darkzone?"
"But generating a high yield and reliably retrieving a specific item are not quite the same thing, are they?"
"You've hit the heart of it. But I can do it. The reason other convicts can't get their hands on biological tissue samples easily is that they don't have the know-how. I do."
"Is it the kind of know-how you can demonstrate here?"
"Come on, that's a trade secret. But you can always ask another guard for a statement. I've brought rare biological tissue samples out of there before."
What I'd brought back then had been tissue from a dead Screamer. What I'd brought this time was a living sample in egg form. The difference was enormous. Was he really going to sit there and not take the hook?
"If you truly can't take my word for it, ask the prison. I have no reason to lie in a meeting like this."
"No, I believe you. Of course I do!"
The moment I put my word on the line, he waved his hands and folded. Just as I'd said, a single inquiry to the prison would confirm it, so he'd decided on his own that I couldn't possibly be lying. Even if he'd already run a quiet check through his Smart Link, the result would have matched what I'd told him, so there was nothing to worry about.
The groundbait was down. Nicely done.
"Which brings me to my point. What would you say to Control Corp making a slightly different kind of contract this time?"
"A different contract?"
"I won't be able to give Control Corp the biological tissue sample I brought out this time. Instead, a contract that gives you first claim on the biological tissue samples I obtain next time."
"That is..."
"And I'm not shameless enough to demand the entire catalog in exchange for some vague smash-and-grab of a deal. Just one thing. No more, no less. I want a regular, reliable supply of a few modest consumables."
"......"
I could feel him turning it over. From Control Corp's perspective, it wasn't a bad offer. Even if they lost this round, locking in a sample-supply contract with me was profit, period. And all I wanted were consumables — not expensive weapons or gear, not hard-to-source medicine or implants. Just cheap, easy-to-use expendables you could replace at any time.
"It won't be a bad contract. The volume I'm asking for isn't anything Control Corp would lose sleep over."
"...What consumables, exactly, did you have in mind?"
Got him.
"To start, about a thousand rounds of 9mm pistol, 5.56mm NATO standard, and 12-gauge shotgun ammunition, split 20-70-10. On top of that, ten bundles of trap wire and one box of a hundred Glow Sticks would be nice."
"That's a fair amount. You said you wanted a regular supply, so shall we think of it as monthly?"
"Yes. Delivery once a month. I'll also be obligated to deliver a biological sample at least once a month. Let's put that in the contract."
"The ammunition count is high enough that the prison may raise an objection."
"You don't need to worry about that. What the prison worries about is threatening weapons and equipment. They're not going to lose sleep over a convict bringing in a little 'obsolete ammunition.'"
Obsolete, by 2040s standards. Outside these walls, personal railguns were baseline, and serious biochemical weapons and hacking nanobots were everywhere. How did I know? Because EFD mentioned them constantly, directly and otherwise. Management had even dropped a few as event weapons and given the player base a memory — a nightmare — they'd never forget.
A legendary dark age. The boss's skull popped from a single railgun shot, and people started saying one railgun was worth more than a hundred veterans.
A truly tragic era. Anyway.
He was almost all the way over. At last, he seemed to have made up his mind.
"Very well. We'll take the contract. May I draft the electronic document here and now?"
"That's fine."
The contract came back to me as an electronic document after a pass through the prison AI, clauses filling in in real time. It roughly established who was principal and who was agent, roughly defined what each side was obligated to deliver, and then tacked on language — quite specific, and quite ominous — about the liability either party would face for a breach.
I burned every last second of it, picking through the tangle of poison-pill clauses, checking whether either side could weasel-word their way out or commit an evasive breach. And then Control Corp and I became a properly(?) contracted, perfectly legal(?) supply relationship.
Control Corp, unfortunately, would not be walking out with this sample — but they had locked down the next opportunity with certainty. I had landed a patron, a sucker, who would hand me a free, bottomless supply of consumables whose demand was about to explode.
The contract ran for a base term of one year, and unless either party gave notice one month before expiration, it would automatically renew for another year at a time. Control Corp would realize something had gone wrong well before a year was up — six months, even — but that was none of my concern. Even if they caught on to my real intent earlier than that, they were still obligated to keep delivering proven consumables to me for a minimum of one year.
They're a Mega Corp, so why not just crush me with raw force?
It doesn't work like that. In EFD, breaking a contract with a convict meant burning your credit. And if convicts stopped trusting outside factions? They were already risking their lives running in and out of the Darkzone only to end up miserable, so the odds of a collective strike went way up. They were going to die anyway. They were going to get stepped on anyway, because they were convicts. If they decided to say to hell with all of it and tear the whole arrangement open on their way out, even the people at the top would have no answer.
Which means that even a Mega Corp can't put a scratch on this national project — not with this many powerful people and this many companies with their interests tangled up in it.
I saw the Control Corp agent out with considerable satisfaction and waited for the next one. Whoever came through that door, one of them would leave with the sample. The others, though, could all be granted a "next opportunity" of their own.
Provided, of course, that they became patrons of an irreplaceable, high-value asset named me.