Had someone finally come to try to pressure me for my business? It seemed about that time. I didn't expect anything for the first ten-thousand unit roll-out, but the sleep inducer was starting to make a few waves, generating rave reviews and going viral a couple of times in a small way on the local SoCal subnet.
If so, I wouldn't be the pushover this time. I had accepted less than an ennie on the eddie in terms of my pharmaceutical product, but this was even more lucrative. The product was a license to print money, at least until everyone on the planet had one anyway. I would only accept a payout in the billions of Eurodollars for it.
I mean, if they dropped a mechanised battalion on my clinic and put a gun under my nose, well, I would do the smart thing and take their offer, but I expected the standard lowball offer, threat, and slowly escalating violence. My actions would depend on who these guys represented, I supposed.
They were escorted into my office, and I raised an eyebrow. They were both Japanese, a man and a woman, wearing mid-tier suits. Nice, but off the rack, for sure. They were both fit and tall, and my eyebrow rose because the man was... well, the first thought that came to mind was gorgeous, but I didn't typically describe anyone that way, even if they were. The woman was very similar, too.
I had my internal biomonitor run a self-diagnostic. Were these guys using pheromone-based social warfare on me? No?... That just meant that my biom couldn't detect it, I guessed. It was several years old by now, so it couldn't be expected to detect everything these days. I narrowed my eyes in suspicion slightly as we both took our seats.
"Thank you for agreeing to meet with us, Hasumi-san. I am Tanaka Yuki, this is Toyoda Yui," the man said in Japanese, which made me curious too. A Japanese Corp? Secrecy? Arasaka, perhaps? That was my first thought, anyway. But why an in-person appearance when they could be strung up for just being on the continent?
I nodded politely, " Of course. Although I very nearly did not. I am a bit too busy these days to take meetings where both the parties and subject are not disclosed in advance. Forgive my bluntness, but what is this about?"
He coughed and said, "I suppose there is no reason to beat around the bush any further. We're with Arasaka Intelligence and have some requests of you. We know you're a patriot and know you'll be happy to help the land of your birth."
I blinked. Wait. This wasn't about my product? I glanced between the two operatives and sighed, feeling slightly annoyed. I heard them out, and they wanted my cooperation to smuggle in and store items in Southern California for them. They said it in other words, but that was basically what they meant. As they talked, I dug through Dr Hasumi's private files, searching for one of her diary entries from just before she arrived in the United States that I remembered reading many moons ago.
I carefully checked what they were saying against this file and tilted my head, finally asking, " Before I can speak to any assistance I might be able to provide... Is there anything else you need to say?"
They glanced at each other, and finally, the man shook his head and said, " No, at least not for now."
I nodded and mentally pressed a button. Less than five seconds later, my office door was thrown open, and two Arasaka-branded combat robots burst in, followed by Kiwi's XO. The robots had their assault rifles levelled at the two "agents" but carefully angled so I wouldn't be likely shot if they had to open fire. Their programming really was quite good.
The two people froze, with the man looking like he wanted to reach into his coat for something, which I interrupted with a raised hand, and in English, "Don't. I'm afraid we have the advantage of you, sir. If you surrender, I'll try to preserve your life-also, I do not want to have to replace that chair you are sitting in. It's real, cloned leather."
Kiwi's XO said in a loud, booming, command voice, "Both of you, place your hands on the back of your head and interlace your fingers. Failure to comply will result in immediate lethal force."
Both of them looked outraged but complied, with the woman asking, enraged, "Don't you know who we are? Do you never want to go home again?!"
"No... No, I don't know who you are," I said archly. "I suppose it is not uncommon for citizens of any country to be interviewed by intelligence prior to leaving their home long-term. Before I left Kyoto to come to the United States, this happened to me, too. However, they specifically mentioned that if anyone ever came up to me claiming they were Intelligence operatives from home, they were lying, and I should comply with all local laws while in the New United States."
That... was a lie. They actually said that anyone claiming to be either Imperial or Arasaka Intelligence would, in their introduction, say a particular sign in a code word, which Dr Hasumi wrote down in her diary, including the counter-sign she was supposed to reply back. And that if that wasn't said, then it wasn't them.
It wasn't that Dr Hasumi was a spy; in fact, she didn't have very good tradecraft at all for leaving that information in her system and not committing it to memory and deleting it. However, who knew what would happen? She might have become an asset in the future like these jokers were pretending to do. She was, after all, a very intelligent young woman and might see all manner of interesting things while in America. But, it was far more likely that they would just debrief anyone returning home rather than sending actual agents into "enemy territory" to gain any information. That, or they received it in ways as I provided earlier to the Arasaka rep.
I dialled a number on my phone. I was calling the ominously named "Department of Homeland Security." It sounded like something out of Nazi Germany to me, but it had taken over domestic counter-intelligence after the FBI was destroyed back in the nineties during the collapse when the Gang of Four was totally destroyed. As a resident alien, Dr Hasumi was obligated by NUSA law to report any attempt by a non-US intelligence operative attempting to make contact with her. Honestly, I thought these two very pretty people in front of me likely were from that Department, and that upset me a great deal.
I expected to be kept on hold longer, but I got to someone very rapidly after speaking with the AI receptionist, "Sakura Hasumi... thank you for apprehending these two. I don't have a counter-intelligence investigation open for you, so it seems like we'll be coming by and picking them up... however, just in case... could you put us on speaker phone?"
"Of course," I replied and glanced at the two spies in front of me, "You're on speakerphone with Agent Davis of the DHS."
Rather than actually speaking words, all I heard was a very familiar series of mechanised tones coming from the man in front of me. I recognised it instantly as something akin to a dial-up modem because that was the only internet we had at home in Brockton Bay. God, it was slow. So they were digitally encoding data in modulated audio, just like old modems. How funny. I doubted many people alive today would have recognised that noise unless they already knew what to expect.
Agent Davis seemed very amused now as he chuckled over the phone and said, "Okay, Ms Hasumi... turn the speaker off if you don't mind."
"Done," I said.
He chuckled even more, "I'd appreciate it if you let them go. I'm supposed to tell you that you're required by law to keep everything said today in total confidence... but..." he started chuckling again, "... just between you and me, and because it's not exactly going to be secret much longer, these guys are fucking reservists from the 40th ID. Military intelligence, what an oxymoron. Tell them Hooah, for me." He then disconnected without even saying goodbye.
Wasn't that weird for him to tell me where they were from? I thought about it for a moment before deciding that maybe it wasn't. Intelligence in the NUSA was very tribal, and they weren't "his guys", nor did they have the courtesy to inform him of their sting operation, so he didn't care about burning them, especially since I already knew they were American. If he really cared about preserving their identities, he would have had them picked up as if they were criminals and cut them loose a couple of blocks away. Judging from the heated looks I was getting from the two in front of me; they knew that too.
"Sorry, ma'am, sir, I'm sure you understood I have to comply with the law," I said primly, motioning away the robots. "Is there anything I can help the NUSA government with today?"
They remained silent and just stood up and walked out of my office without answering. I watched them go on my security system, and a half block away, the lady said, still within the range of all of my long-distance directed audio transducers outside, "I still say she's dirty. She has a fucking small company of Arasaka fucking combat bots."
" Just. Shut. The. Fuck. Up, " said the man angrily.
I grinned and went back to my work. As I was practising the art of management by walking around, I talked to a few of my employees in the break room. I sometimes made changes if they were requested by the workers and the cost was nominal. I was paying them above average given their jobs, but that still wasn't a huge amount of money, so I was sensitive to any quality-of-life improvements I could offer. Every employee got a free sleep inducer, for example, and they all raved about them even more than my customers.
Today I asked a group of employees how their job or quality of life be improved. There were a few answers, but one of my QA people gave me an incredible suggestion. QA was a simple job, but I had been finding it difficult to staff it. They all shifted to manufacturing slots or quit. Everybody hated it for some reason, and this man told me exactly why, "For part of QA, we run the rigs on braindance mode for five minutes. But it's the same five-minute braindance segment... every... single... time. Can you do... something... anything about this? Everyone wants to quit."
I frowned. I was just following the Braindance SIG requirements for quality assurance here, with some things added in software that tested whether sleep induction would work at the same time. I could mostly infer that it would work if the braindance also worked, anyway.
I nodded slowly, thinking about the QA software, "I think I can adjust the quality assurance software so that it will detect which employee puts on a rig and then start the braindance where the last stopped. That way, you could watch a whole braindance over the course of your day, even if it was stopped every five minutes."
The look of pure hope and adoration was so palpable that I felt terrible for not thinking about this earlier. I needed a suggestion box, and to make sure the supervisors I hired wouldn't discipline anyone for making suggestions.
Had I been unintentionally torturing these guys? I didn't even remember what braindance I uploaded to the QA server. I frowned. If it was the first five minutes of one of my femme fatale spy shows... well, they usually started very cornily, giving comedic elements. I could... see... how that might grate on you if you had to experience it over and over.
I nodded, "I can do that and possibly also allow you to bring braindances from home. Expect a change in a couple of days after I do some tests."
" Holee shit, boys, check out LA22's feed," one of my manufacturing employees said as he rushed into the break room, then skidding to a halt and gulping when he saw me.
I blinked and turned on the local Los Angeles news, and my eyebrows went up into my scalp. There were videos of armoured vehicles and wheeled infantry fighting vehicles rolling down the I-5 south of Santa Clarita and the I-15 north of San Bernadino, creating an improvised roadblock and cutting all access north. The talking heads were blathering and not exactly saying anything useful, but the chyron below read, "SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, LOS ANGELES UNDER MARTIAL LAW. PRESIDENT KRESS TO SPEAK."
Oh. Maybe that was what that DHS guy meant by "it's not exactly going to be secret much longer."
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I slowly squeezed the trigger as I lined up the reticle on my target. In the distance, a man firing wildly from an assault rifle dropped, blood staining the sand. The report of my weapon was mostly silent, the most noise coming from the weapon cycling, kind of like a stapler being used vigorously. The sound of weapons fire everywhere else was dying down too, and I saw no more targets. So, I sat the suppressed Vintorez rifle I had been favouring since I left Los Angeles against the side of the truck.
The Vintorez was what I would call a specialist marksman carbine, as it used a number of specialised intermediate and large calibre cartridges and every version featured an integrated suppressor. Its range wasn't that great, but I wasn't a true long-distance shooter in the first place. I quite liked it, though, and it had been in continuous low-level production since the last century. The one I was carrying featured a heavy twelve-millimetre calibre, and as such, it was intrinsically subsonic just from the giant bullet it shot, just being slightly larger than the old .45 ACP cartridge. This helped it to be quite silent when fired, even if it wasn't so great for defeating armour. Glancing around once more, I hummed and dug around for my medical kit in the vehicle before jogging over to see if there were any casualties on our side.
President Kress' speech had been something of an ultimatum to the Free States to make some accommodation with the federal government or else. It was a little milder than I thought it was going to be, given what I expected, but it had still thrown everything into disarray with both sides mobilising military forces. That speech and the mobilisation of federal forces in Southern California had made the Bakkers family industry of smuggling much more dangerous, and as such, that had made my position riskier, too. We were currently at the border between Oregon and Northern California right now, heading south, but we had been encountering a lot more danger on the road than I recalled.
Not even Texas was being left out of the fun, with Federal forces massing in Oklahoma, as well. However, the President of the so-called Republic of Texas was a bit of a firebrand and had already begun a partial mobilisation, claiming that they would invade Louisanna if provoked and reminding President Kress that Texas was a nuclear power, too. That, I didn't know, but it made sense. There were probably nuclear explosives all around the continental United States.
