Afternoon classes were almost a joke. Instead of giving us essential information for several of the courses we were actually interested in, we were fed propaganda about the Arasaka Corporation, and charities and companies it helped sponsor, and we were given profiles and brief histories of the Arasaka Family.

It wouldn't have bothered me much, except it was a complete family tree and included a lot of superfluous dead members that had no bearing whatsoever on the current structure of either the company or the family itself. It would have been a benefit if they gave us a full breakdown of the current employees and their roles... and then I remembered the program we submitted last week.

Instead of helping the girls assimilate the outdated information the teacher gave us, I took the girls aside and helped them alter the program that was actually useful to access the Arasaka servers to get the real profiles and histories that would actually be beneficial to us in the future.

A couple of the girls went to the other girls in the class and brought them over to our group as well and shared the program. Since it had been a group project and officially submitted, they were allowed to use it as well. I also may have copied some of Patricia Vogel's contract wording to convince them they had a free-use license, since I had given the program to the company through the academy.

The altered lesson was readily and easily accepted by them all and we were done long before the rest of the class. Funnily enough, when the other girls split up back to their usual friend groups, none of the guys would accept a copy of the program. Some claimed it was cheating and others just didn't want anything to do with me. I had proven I was trouble and they wanted to distance themselves from it.

For the last hour of the academy day, we were given an hour for free thinking, which was essentially a period off. Evelyn and her friends laid down on the grass and whispered in a private chat and I didn't join in this time. I called up the design program assigned by the academy and loaded a workstation around myself.

I remembered Delamain's request and spent the next half an hour pulling up a basic AV design and altering it. Making it look like the others wouldn't let it stand out, even with another color. It was standard in a certain shape and that just wouldn't do. Plus, the current version was much too long wide to land safely without a landing pad or a much larger area than a normal parking spot.

I also brought in the armored limo's design, since I already had it, and started combining the two. It went surprisingly quickly, considering the two much different vehicles that really only had the passenger compartment in common.

I compressed the cockpit to only seat one person, hid the hover engines behind the limo armored plates to stop them from being shot out. I left the wheels, also hidden and changed them to solid rubber, adjusted the suspension to more robust hydraulics to compensate, reduced the engine size and combined it with the propulsion from the small jet engines of the hovercraft.

The overall shape grew upwards to become more like an APC, or armored personnel carrier, instead of either an AV or a limo. I was okay with that, since it made the interior easier to customize for both comfort and luxury. It came out to be a few feet longer than a normal parking space and that was okay. It was as close as I was going to get without removing essential safety features or redesigning it again.

I saved it and filed the patent and design just before the bell rang to end the day. I dismissed the workstation around me and received a lot of odd looks from the other students, except on the faces of my friends. Some of the girls looked proud and Carrie looked sad. I had to ignore her and logged out of the Green Room.

I couldn't stand around to chat, because I had to get to work. I said goodbye to the girls and left the classroom to head to the lobby and pinged the elevator to arrive just as I did. I didn't bother swiping my card and the people in the lobby gave me surprised looks as I stepped in and the elevator doors closed.

I mentally sent my thanks to the building's VI for h help and shared my amusement at the people's reactions. She didn't understand my amusement at first, so I had to explain it. Once I did, she agreed that giving them little surprises like that was amusing.

I did the coat inside out trick again to transfigure my academy uniform into my corpo suit just before the elevator stopped on the floor that held the Counter-Intelligence Department. I was barely out of the elevator when the man at the reception desk told me that Arthur Jenkins was waiting for me in his new office.

I nodded and held in my sigh as I went to the much larger middle office, which had been reserved for the department's head. It was something Jenkins and Abernathy had been fighting over for a while and I was sure Jenkins thought this put him well ahead of her for becoming the director of the entire Special Operations branch of the company. I knew differently, though. He was being set up to fail.

I thought about warning him about that, then I stepped into the small hallway and was doused with decontamination chemicals. His new office doors opened afterwards and I saw the smug look on his face. His desk was also huge, which was seen as a status symbol by shortsighted people. It wasn't the size of the desk that mattered, it was what you did with it.

Screw you, Jenkins. I thought and stopped walking in front of his desk.

“I should thank you for not screwing up last night.” Jenkins said and didn't bother standing up or even addressing me by name. “I also took the liberty of cancelling your overtime claim. Interns don't get overtime. It's in your contract.”

Oh, fuck you. I thought and took out my new security card. “Good luck trying that from now on.” I said and deliberately paused. “Sir.”

Jenkins lost the smug look and frowned. “How did you get that without my authorization?”

“A senior executive, someone with authority over you, rewarded me for saving the company millions of eddies. I'm also registered as a full agent of this department without having to prove myself.” I smiled and put the card away. To you. I thought as I paused again. “Sir.”

Jenkins looked like he was chewing on something before he schooled his face. “I'm assigning you to the garbage detail until I decide that you've learned your lesson on who to not fuck around with.” He said with a small sneer. “It will be your job to comb through the tons of refuse and shredded paperwork the building produces every day to make sure no one is funnelling secrets out to other sources.”

I knew that went against the Arasaka Corporation's exclusive contract with PetroChem for garbage disposal and smiled happily. “Thank you, sir. I will gladly do my due diligence to keep this company safe from both internal and external threats.”

Jenkins looked surprised by my easy acceptance. He had fully expected me to argue and fight against it. He also expected me to try and report the abuse of his authority to his superiors, or worse, Susan Abernathy. He wanted to come down on me hard for it and was at a loss of what to do with me not following his prediction.

What he didn't know was I had forwarded his orders to the building's VI, with a note to include the video footage, and she filed the contract's violation with both the company's board and PetroChem. The penalties incurred were not insignificant and the losses almost balanced out the gains the company had recovered that morning.

A ring sounded and Jenkins frowned and looked down at his desk. He hit the acceptance and a hologram activated and the Director of the Finance Department appeared. Jenkins immediately lost the frown at seeing a matching frown on the other man's face.

“I was about to contact you personally about lending your new agent to my department again and received a priority notice that Arasaka Corp has been fined for violating an exclusive contract with PetroChem. You wouldn't know anything about that, would you?”

Jenkins tried to keep his composure. “No, sir. I don't.”

“Really?” The director said. “The notation said there's a video attached. Let's watch it, shall we?”

Jenkins winced as the hologram played his explicit order to me, word for word, and my enthusiastic acceptance to protect the company from threats.

“How interesting.” The director of the Finance Department said with a bland voice. “You have cost an agent 6 hours of overtime pay and this company 2.6 million eurodollars. Was your petty gloating and abuse of authority worth it?”

Jenkins was smart and kept his mouth shut.

“I suppose I could override your order and try to recover the situation.” The director said and Jenkins looked hopeful. “But, I won't. Your decision stands.”

Jenkins lost the hope and looked angry.

The hologram turned and looked at me. “Mr. Veder, you will report to the secretary supervisor's office immediately and will work there until her shift ends, by which time all of the building's garbage will be delivered to the basement for removal. You will then go to the basement to start your new assignment. This arrangement will continue each day until such time as Mr. Jenkins deems you have learned your lesson.”

“Yes, sir!” I said and stood at attention. “You can count on me, sir.”

The director smiled and turned to look back at Jenkins. “Arthur.” He said with dismissal and ended the call.

“Get out!” Jenkins spat at me.

I nodded and left his office. I had a secretary to thank for actually taking my advice and a whole heck of a lot of easy work to do.

*

Atlas didn't even need to leave the scene of the crime as the police conducted their investigation at the Atlas Incorporated company office. He provided them all with coffee and donuts, too. This sped the process up considerably and unexpectedly had many more of them show up. Atlas welcomed them all and admitted he was making another trash delivery run that night.

That really had them all excited, especially the combat teams, because they had a lot of fun the night before. Taking down Wraiths and Scavs was always a great time and the bounties had been a nice bonus.

After telling them that he would clean up after they took the bodies, he gave each of them a large thermos full of hot coffee mixed with their preferences of milk, cream, and sugar. That had earned a lot of thanks, a few pats on the back, and several promises to be there at his warehouse at midnight when he started his trash run.

The murder files were closed and the police left. They even took the two souped-up vehicles the gang had parked in the street and blocked off traffic to give them some privacy to commit their crimes. They would either be stripped for parts or converted into police vehicles, which would help them take down more gang members when they acted up.

Atlas took several deep breaths and pretended he had to clean the normal way while using magic to clean it all, just in case someone was watching. He couldn't detect anyone; but, that didn't mean someone didn't have a zoom lens or boom microphone or something on him. He was in the downtown area and surveillance cameras were everywhere, so his detection spell was almost useless.

Once he had the place clean, he opened the business again and several people walking by on the street outside changed where they were going and came right in. One of the men whistled when he saw the muscle enhancers and the two women gave the cybernetic eyes envious looks. The other men browsed through the rest and only gave the memory chips a casual glance, as if they were unimportant, and they were the most important parts of the display.

“Hey, mister!” One of the women near the eyes called out. She had bright neon red hair and her friend had bright green. They also wore matching opposite dresses. “How much are these and do you have them in any color?”

Atlas walked over to them and the two women gave him very interested looks, since he looked quite dashing in his formfitted suit. “Well, if you want the basic version with only color options and a few vision modes, like night vision and glare protection, they're 500 eddies each.”

Both women gasped. “You're JOKING!”

“I know, I know. That's a lot.” Atlas said, intentionally mistaking their surprise. “I need to make some eddies, you know? The rent on this place isn't cheap.”

The two women leaned in close and whispered for a few seconds.

“What about the higher end versions?” One of them asked.

“I can't take less than 2,000 eddies for a pair with zoom and picture functions.” Altas said and they looked shocked. “If you want full VR capabilities, X-Ray, thermal, and the software upgrade with a free memory chip, it's almost 5,000 for two.”

“Do you do the install?” One of them asked right away.

“How soon can we get them?” The other asked at the same time.

Atlas gave them each a smile. “I have a clean room in the back and everything's guaranteed for a year. If you have any problems, or they're damaged for any reason, come back in and I'll replace them.”

“We'll take the top of the line ones!” Both women exclaimed.

Atlas smiled and motioned towards the counter and the door behind it. “I should warn you that they won't work for anyone else once they're installed. You can't resell them, unless you're bringing them back here and want a replacement or a refund.”

“Oh, we'd never do that!” One of them said. “There's no way anyone else can come close to these prices.”

The men in the store all nodded at that and a couple of them waited for Atlas to lead the women behind the counter before they gathered around the different eyes and admired them. Most of them would eventually leave with at least one replaced eye and would be very happy with their purchase.

The two women argued for a minute over who would go first and Atlas told them it was the same procedure no matter who went first and it would only take a few minutes. The programming for the eyes was preinstalled and the new memory chip would handle the extra load and the storage.

The redhead went first and had an easy access port on the side of her head above her ear. She started breathing heavily after the memory chip had been inserted and her thought processes sped up considerably, as did her recall. She didn't flinch when her sight turned off, because her friend held her hand and Atlas talked as he described what he was doing the whole time.

It was one of the best times she had ever had under a ripperdoc's care and she swore she would tell everyone she knew about how great it was... then her sight came back and she gasped. It was like she had been looking through fogged glass and now it was sparkling clean.

“The manual for the eyes is under the new header. Your implant should have found it already and highlighted it for you.” Atlas said and closed her access port, then carefully reattached the RealSkinn over it and put her hair back in place. “There you are, all done.”

“Oh, my god.” She whispered and blinked her eyes several times, because she couldn't believe the difference. It was like a whole new world had been opened up for her.

“Quick, quick! Move and let me lay down!” Her friend said and shooed her out of the way.

Instead of getting up, she turned onto her side and moved back as she pulled her friend down into a hug and laid her down beside her. “You're not going to believe the difference.”

Atlas gave them a look, shrugged, and started the procedure on the green haired woman. She had a similar access port, only on the other side of her head, and he understood they had taken the opposite theme as far as they possibly could.

He did the same upgrades to her after adding the new memory chip and then warned her about going dark and kept talking as he replaced her old and outdated eyes. When he finished and activated them, she gasped as well. She turned and stared at her friend and the two of them laid there and stared at each other, as if they had never seen each other before.

“Why don't you hang out here for a bit to recover? I have other sales to take care of.” Atlas told them.

The two friends ignored him and their new eyes picked over each other and all the flaws they could easily see, now that they weren't blinded by their old way of seeing things.

“We need to ask him to fix the rest of us up.” They both said at the same time and then laughed.