The Protagonist System

Bruno held in his sigh as he used is security pass and entered the classroom. He was ignored by everyone, since they were all logged into VR and his security pass disabled the normal proximity warnings his cyberware would have triggered, letting them know he was there to inspect them.

He walked to the front of the room to where Veder reclined and again held in his sigh. He really liked the kid and regretted he couldn't mentor him in the sport he adored. He also hated that one of the board members had specifically ordered him to retrieve whatever prototype the kid had shown off at lunch.

The claim it was a biohazard was a joke and everyone on the board knew it. The problem was, it was a legitimate way for them to inspect it, claim it was illegal untested tech, and steal the thing to recreate the designs. It also proved the kid really was the best design and construction student, with a side in programming, in the entire history of the academy.

The backpack was leaned against the side of the chair's main support and wasn't locked to it or even had a basic security alarm. Instead of trying to open it there, Bruno carefully nudged it away from the chair to see if there was anything behind it. There wasn't, so he picked it up by one of the straps and walked back over to the door.

Sloppy, kid. Really sloppy. Bruno thought sadly and left the classroom.

His opinion of the kid dropped for not being security conscious to protect his things and he made his way back to the security station. He logged the confiscation officially, since he knew that was what the bosses wanted. He also didn't open it there, just in case the board wanted to do it themselves.

It sure would have been nice to have another delicious apple, though. Bruno thought and left the security station and brought the backpack up to the floor where the board of directors for the academy had gathered. Surprisingly, the principal of the academy was also there and Bruno set the backpack on the conference room table.

“Open it.” The director that ordered him to retrieve it said.

Bruno held in his sigh once more and undid the latch that held the backpack closed. He pulled it open and lifted the top up as all of the board members leaned forward to behold the device for themselves.

*Click!*

Not so sloppy after all. Bruno thought with a smile as the small device exploded.

*BOOM!*

Every window on the entire floor shattered from the pressure wave. Bruno took the brunt of the explosion and it caved in his chest and blew off both of his arms before he was flung through the meeting room door. He landed in a heap with the smile still on his face as he briefly flatlined.

His medicomp injected his heart with a strictly measured shot of adrenaline and a piston designed for it, restarted it. His artificially enhanced lungs reinflated and he started breathing again. Augmented athletes really had the best self-installed medical services, since they needed them constantly to maintain their athletic performances.

The board of directors and the principal all had their eardrums blown out, their eyes pulped, and were thrown backwards and over the chairs they had vacated, since they were bolted to the floor. All of them fell to the floor unconscious and a few suffered major damage, since some of them had less chrome than their contemporaries.

The table was crushed to the floor and the ceiling gained an extra foot of height as a spherical depression was crushed into it. Alarms all throughout the building started blaring out sirens and everything was immediately locked down. Large metal shutters closed over all of the windows in the entire building, even the blown out ones, and every door had their electronic locks engaged and locked everyone inside whatever room they were in.

This was highly inconvenient for many of the executives in the Arasaka Tower as their normal access to everything was suspended, even their electronic access. All of them were forcibly ejected from their VR as the company's security teams engaged the safety protocols and started their investigation on what happened.

*

It wasn't as shocking to me when the Green Room turned red and then we were all forcibly logged out. Well, they all were. I stayed for a moment to see if the room itself would be dissolved and it wasn't.

So, anyone using VR could go right back in if they wanted to, after the lockdown. Good to know. I thought and sent a direct message to Hanako about what I was sure happened to my backpack and that I had discovered inter-company espionage, as per her secret orders.

When I left cyberspace and opened my eyes, there were a few groans as some of the students gained headaches from being forced back into their heads and from the blaring alarm sirens. I started my telepathy up again and discovered that more than a few of my fellow students felt sick to their stomachs.

I unplugged myself and stored my VR set as I hopped off of my still reclined chair. I didn't even look down to see if my backpack was gone, because I knew it was. I went to Evelyn first, since she was at the far back corner of the classroom and lightly touched her shoulder.

I checked her over and fixed any damage to her cyberware and any pain or motion sickness the forced logout might have caused. “Are you okay?”

Evelyn blinked her eyes at me and then blushed. “Y-yes, thank you.”

I smiled and nodded before I went to each of the girls to check them first, leaving Carrie for last. She didn't say anything and only nodded when I asked if she was okay. I went to the boys next and most of them wouldn't let me touch their shoulders when they saw me approach. I shrugged when they wouldn't let me help them and went back over to where all of the girls had stood up and gathered together.

“What do you think happened?” Evelyn asked me.

“I can't legally say without divulging company secrets.” I answered and her eyes widened. She really did look a lot like Taylor Hebert with her expression like that. “It's a shame it's against school policy to have your hair down and teased out. I think that suits you better than a raised bun in the back.”

Evelyn blushed again and muttered something about making her feel things she's not supposed to feel until she was married. I almost laughed and barely held it in at her thinking a political marriage would give her those kinds of feelings. She was definitely in for a surprise when that happened.

“The door's locked.” One of the guys said and kicked it. It was just for show, since he didn't hiss in pain from kicking a heavily reinforced metal door. “We're stuck here until whatever caused the alarms ends.”

“Oh, right. Good point.” I said and walked over to the door. “Just a second.”

To everyone's shock, I took out my high level security card and swiped it across the panel beside the door. I typed in an arbitrarily long meaningless code and mentally told the alarms in the room to stop and to change the red lighting back to normal.

Nearly everyone in the room sighed with relief when the blaring disappeared and there was just silence left in its wake. The lights changing back made everyone perk up and they quickly gathered into their normal friend groups and started talking to each other.

More than a few were staring at me or giving me calculating looks as they wondered what I had done to gain access like that. I was supposed to be a student, after all. I ignored the looks and returned to Evelyn small group of friends. Carrie was the only one who knew I had been transferred to the counter-intelligence department of the Arasaka Corporation and she heavily debated saying something about it.

I caught her eye and very slowly shook my head. She got the point and kept her mouth shut. She had already screwed up twice with me. If she blew my 'supposed' cover, after I indicated for her not to, she knew there would be no recovering from that... not that she was going to, anyway. I gave her a second chance and she blew it. I won't be giving her a third.

As the girls chatted happily, I checked my cyberdeck at home and there was no response from Hanako Arasaka. I knew she received my message and I had thought she would at least acknowledge it. Oh, well. I would explain when I showed up for work after school, assuming she had actually arranged for someone to bring me in for a proper orientation to the counter-intelligence department.

*

Adam Smasher stalked through the halls of the floor that had been attacked. “Kill the sirens and fix the lights.” He ordered and his main security team did so before they spread out around him and they secured every office and terminal on the floor, ensured any corporate assets were kept safe, and the people locked in their offices were checked over.

The fully borged out man, if you could call a heavily modified mostly cybernetic brain and a bit of spine a man, stopped in the hallway where a security guard assigned to the academy laid on the floor. He was breathing and his armless torso barely bled, probably because of the medical grade coagulants that stemmed the blood loss from not having any arms.

The only door not locked in the entire building, because pieces of it were currently under said security guard on the floor, led into a conference room. Adam stepped inside and let out a low whistle. His enhanced brain easily picked out the results of a micro explosion that was designed to harm but not kill, unless you were right next to it and then it was your own bad luck.

A quick scan by his advanced systems, led Adam to various bits of metal, chemical residue, and an exotic material that technically shouldn't exist. At least, according to the records he had access to as the head of security. He bent down and his mechanical hand opened up, then the palm opened and a tiny micro-control grapple sprung out and grabbed a tiny shard of metal.

He didn't retract it, though. His scanners couldn't decide what it was and he was not putting it inside of his body. The effects it could have in its current state were unknown, despite the obvious evidence that it caused a precise explosion that pushed everything away from it with tremendous force.

“Medic teams authorized.” Adam said and stood. Two more teams scrambled down the hallway and entered the conference room to deal with the injured Arasaka Academy's board of directors. He walked back out of the room and looked down at the medic placing patches over the guard's torn shoulders where his arms used to be. “Wake him.”

The medic didn't bother protesting or informing the head of security how unwise that was. He attached a diagnostic device to the guard's neck port and accessed his medicomp. He nodded at it doing its job and added a command to inject stimulants into the brain.

Bruno gasped and blinked his eyes for a moment, then he saw who stood above him and his shoulder twitched as he tried to salute.

Adam didn't smile and only nodded at the attempted gesture. “Tell me what happened.”

Bruno glanced into the wrecked conference room and back up to the borg's face.

“Don't concern yourself with them. They are being taken care of.” Adam said. His voice did not sound reassuring at all. “Whatever orders they gave, mine supersedes them.”

Bruno nodded and told him exactly what happened after the kid showed off the device at lunch. He didn't leave anything out, not even his thoughts about the kid being stupid to leave such an important device unprotected while in class, and then his happiness at how wrong he was.

Adam listened to it all and recorded it for later replay and reference. He took it all in, the implications, the innuendo, and what it actually meant. “Send a team down to retrieve Veder from his homeroom class. Forcibly if he resists.”

“Yessir!” One of his men said and saluted, then ran for the elevator with four others behind him.

Adam sent an inquiry to the counter-intelligence department as well, since this was an internal matter and they would probably never shut up about it if he didn't call them. He fully expected them to try and stonewall him for a few minutes, then he would have to use his authority to make them cooperate.

Instead, there was an immediately response and someone was on the way down to help deal with the situation. Adam didn't let his surprise show and kept listening to Bruno as he gave a brief history of the kid that owned the backpack and how proud he would have been if Veder had joined the augmented sports league. Bruno kept saying the apple was delicious and that made no sense to the borg.

*

Kei was about to ask me for a private moment, one where she would ask me to call in the favor she owed me, when the classroom door made a huge bang sound, clicked a few times, and then swung open.

Four of the five armored security team entered and their heads swivelled around looking for someone. Since I wasn't an idiot, I excused myself from the girls and walked over to them. Two raised their guns in my direction and the other two knelt to cover them. They didn't quite point them at me; but, the threat was implied.

“Gentlemen, I'm the one you're looking for.” I said and came to a stop five feet away from them.

The one by the door checked something and nodded. “That's him.”

“Let's go.” One of the standing ones said and motioned with his gun to the door.

“No funny stuff.” The other one with their gun out said and stepped aside.

“I'm not allowed to perform a comedy routine? How sad.” I said in a flat voice as I walked by them.

The guy closest to me raised the butt of his rifle to slug me in the back. “No talking back!”

I swug around and caught the end of the rifle with my elbow and knocked it aside. The guy had put a lot of force into the swing, since his thoughts were about me being augmented, and the momentum carried him right into the other guy and the both of them toppled to the floor in a mass of tangled limbs and a lot of cursing.

“Take him out!” The one by the door ordered and the two kneeling stood to fire.

I had the entire class of students behind me, so I couldn't allow that. I darted forward, quick as a flash, and used a double-clotheline move to hit them in the chest. Both men yelled as they were flipped end over end through the air and they slammed into the wall on either side of the open door.

The remaining security team member panicked and the classroom door slammed shut and clicked, then banged as the heavy bar lock engaged.

“Idiot.” I said and calmly walked over to it and it opened at my command. “My security is higher than yours.”

The armored man raised his pistol and I slapped it out of his hand. It crumpled from the blow and shattered his hand. He cried out and cradled it to his chest as he backed away from me. I felt the other two guards that had only fallen, scramble to their feet. I mentally shut the door and engaged the lock once more, then changed the passcode to the random set of numbers I had used before.

I shook my head at it and turned to the hurt security team member. “What were your orders?”

“Fuck you.” The guy said, defiantly.

I easily plucked them from his head. “Consider yourselves on report for ineptitude. Adam Smasher needs better men than you on his security detail.”

“You have no right...”

“...to discipline morons that can't follow simple instructions?” I asked. “Did I resist before your teammate decided to club me with his rifle?”

The man didn't respond and remained silent.

“Don't worry, I've recorded all of it and I'm sure an unbiased account will clear you all of any wrongdoing.” I said and almost laughed at his sigh.

I checked the security footage inside the classroom and saw the rest of the security team were tearing apart the panel by the door and were trying to short out the locking mechanism. Since they were specifically designed not to do that, I wasn't worried about them escaping. I copied it of course. There was no such thing as too much evidence.

I walked down the hallway towards the lobby where the elevators where and the remaining security team member followed me. I didn't comment and he didn't say anything when the elevator opened without me using a security card. I could feel his disbelief, though.

The elevator brought us up to the right floor and stopped. The doors opened and I walked over to where Bruno was on the floor and had the head of security above him. The large cyborg named Adam Smasher would have been intimidating if I didn't know he was mostly just a combat chassis covered in formed plate armor. A simple power down command would pretty much make him into a lump of useless metal.

“Where is the rest of your team?” Adam asked the lone security team member.

“They're in a time out, sir.” I answered for him. “I have a recording of the entire incident, a copy of the security footage, and a digital report with the pertinent details if you would like to see them.”

Adam gave me an odd look, then nodded. I pinged his implant, which made him stand up straighter, if that was possible, and he allowed access. I checked him for any spyware and malware, like I do for every connection I make, then sent him the files.