Night City.
Corporate Plaza, Arasaka Tower.
Kai had just finished identity verification and was about to walk through the front entrance for his morning shift when he unexpectedly saw a company motorcade pull up to the drop-off zone.
The lead vehicle, a black stretched armored corporate sedan, came to a smooth stop. Secretaries and bodyguards immediately surged forward to open the door. A middle-aged woman in a standard Arasaka executive suit stepped out slowly, radiating the kind of powerful, efficient presence that made people instinctively move.
The employees who had originally been heading toward Arasaka Tower all stopped and stepped aside, silently giving way as they watched her pass.
The display of status was impossible to ignore.
Kai turned and let out a faint, amused sigh.
"Looks like today's my lucky day..."
The woman striding toward the company entrance as if no one else existed was Susan.
Kai deliberately slowed his pace and walked through the lobby to the main public elevators.
There were three main public elevators in the central lobby of Arasaka Tower. There were also smaller elevator banks farther to the sides, some single, some double, but company executives usually used the main elevators in the middle. It matched their status. Their place in the hierarchy.
Kai got there two steps ahead and waited in front of the central elevator in the main zone. Around him, eight or nine Arasaka employees were also waiting, and the moment they saw him, their quiet conversation came to an end.
It was the morning rush, so the elevators were under heavy use. After about half a minute, the sound of high heels striking the floor echoed from behind him, followed by the murmur of people moving together.
Two bodyguards in uniform with slicked-back hair jogged up to the elevators and took position on either side of the center door, wearing sunglasses and standing rigidly in place.
Their movement was enough for everyone else waiting there to instinctively scatter.
In Arasaka, anyone escorted by company bodyguards was high-ranking, no question about it. No one wanted to be remembered by a superior just because of something as trivial as waiting for an elevator.
The others had already moved away.
Kai had not.
He stayed exactly where he was in front of the center elevator, treating the two broad-shouldered bodyguards as if they were air and continuing to wait for the elevator to come down.
Susan was walking fast while giving orders to her subordinates, too focused on work to pay attention to the path ahead. As she neared the elevator, she almost ran straight into the person standing in front of it. Her irritation flared instantly, and the work instructions she had been giving cut off in the middle.
At once, the entire lobby fell silent.
Everyone present naturally separated into three distinct circles.
The outer ring was made up of Arasaka employees coming in for work.
The middle ring was the cluster of bodyguards and Special Ops staff surrounding the area near the elevator.
And at the center were Kai and Susan, facing each other inside the ring.
When Susan saw someone blocking the way, several clear lines formed across her otherwise carefully maintained forehead.
"Sir, please step aside. Our director is in a hurry and has a meeting to attend."
One of the bodyguards had instantly understood the meaning behind his superior's frown. In his view, anyone still standing there in the way was obviously too stupid to know better. A senior executive had arrived, and he still did not move.
Kai could not even be bothered to look back.
"Does company policy say I have to give up my spot while waiting for an elevator?"
The bodyguard stepped closer and raised his voice sharply.
"This is Director Susan. She needs to proceed immediately to a board meeting. You will now..."
Smack!
Before he could finish, Kai's hand lashed out and cracked hard across the bodyguard's face, knocking him straight to the floor.
The sound of the slap froze the entire lobby.
Everyone stared at the scene in front of them, unable to look away.
The other three bodyguards immediately shifted into a combat-ready stance and moved to restrain Kai, but the moment he spoke, they stopped in place.
"Lewis. Arasaka H-rank employee. Personal bodyguard to the Director of Special Operations. Suspected of carrying dangerous modified combat cyberware not formally authorized by Arasaka."
"He presents a serious security threat inside Arasaka Tower."
"So I'd like to ask Director Susan, how should someone who violates company regulations be dealt with?"
Only then did Kai turn around with a smile and look directly at the middle-aged woman behind him, calmly waiting for her answer.
He noticed that she was already using her cyberoptic to read his identity data.
Susan quickly identified exactly who he was.
"So it's you."
Kai replied with polished courtesy,
"I'm flattered you remember me, Director Susan. What a coincidence to run into you here in the company."
"If you're really in such a hurry, I believe that elevator over there has already reached the lobby."
He pointed toward a side elevator not far away. Its doors had already opened at lobby level, and the few Arasaka employees who had stepped inside a moment earlier immediately sensed that something was wrong. Each one awkwardly hurried back out with drinks in hand, clearing the elevator without a word.
Susan clearly understood the insult in his suggestion.
But this was Arasaka Tower. Inside company grounds, even she had to obey the rules.
She had no real leverage on Kai yet, no fatal hold she could use to crush him immediately.
Still, in her eyes, someone at Kai's level was not worth openly wrestling with.
To her, Kai was nothing more than Arthur's loyal attack dog.
Inside Arasaka, he had no real faction of his own. Everything he had came from Arthur.
And once Arthur fell, Kai's good days would be over too.
Susan raised a hand and stopped the bodyguards who wanted to move again. The lines on her forehead smoothed out, and she said in a lofty, controlled tone,
"It's fine. You were here first. I'll wait for the next one."
Kai had not expected someone as domineering as her to swallow the humiliation so cleanly.
That only made him more certain she believed she already had him cornered.
And when someone like her acted out of character, there was always a reason.
For now, though, he was content to needle her one more time and make her choke on it.
At that moment, the elevator reached the lobby, and the silver-gray doors slid open.
Kai stepped inside, then turned to face Susan.
With friendly politeness, he offered one last suggestion.
"Director Susan, do be careful about letting your bodyguards carry unauthorized cyberware from unknown sources. If one of them catches a virus and goes cyberpsycho, getting you hurt would be bad enough."
"But it would be even worse if he took down other company staff along with him."
The calm look on Susan's forehead finally gave way. Dark veins stood out faintly beneath the skin as she cast a cold glance at the bodyguard on the floor. Then she pressed a hand against her left temple, her cyberoptic rotating with a red glow.
The bodyguard on the ground instantly went rigid, like a machine that had crashed. Blue sparks and electric flame burst from the back of his head.
Staring coldly into the elevator, she said,
"Thank you for the reminder. But since you haven't even had basic cyberware installed, you'd better watch..."
The elevator doors closed before she could finish, leaving the rest of her words outside.
Kai brushed at his sleeve.
He had no interest in hearing whatever trash she had been about to say.
He guessed he had infuriated her badly this time, but right now that little sideshow did not matter. What mattered was finding out how much progress Maine and the others had made.
Back in front of the elevator bank, Susan stood there with the rest of her sentence still hanging unfinished in the air, while Kai was already riding up.
She lowered her hands and folded them in front of her, fists clenched so tightly her knuckles whitened, jaw locked hard enough to show in her face.
Even when the next elevator arrived, she did not step in.
The bodyguard who had died on the floor was quickly dragged away for quiet disposal.
The employees who had gathered to watch all carefully avoided the area, silently choosing different elevators instead.
Only after a while did Susan finally unclench her hands and step into the elevator without expression.
Inside, she said to her secretary,
"Tell Carter that useless piece of trash to bring me something worth using. I've kept him buried in there for this long, and he's still no better than dead weight."
"And have Caitlin step up the search for that implant. I want a progress report today."
"Inside the company, I do not want to see him a second time."
"Understood?"
(End of Chapter)
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