Factory Reset: Divine Corruption

Chapter Sixty

Chapter Sixty: The Star Himself

The city was truly something to behold.

It was clean, too clean for the supposed sins against nature that dwelled beneath its outer shell. The concrete sidewalks were all pristine and free of trash and litter, free of grime and muck. The paved roads were free of potholes and stains of crashes. Many different species walked the streets, all minding their own business.

The skyscrapers reached far into the sky, past the clouds and piercing the atmosphere. They were all gleaming, modern structures that looked almost alien, even to the protogen, who were not foreign to strange designs. And even as the skyscrapers reached high into the sky, most of them barely contained more than five or seven workers.

It was mostly just for aesthetic purposes or for the richest people to ogle at as they walked the streets. The vast majority of the business and activities that took place here took place underground. Even as everyone glanced into the buildings, they found them fully furnished but dusty and empty.

"Egh..." Ja'Kle couldn't hold his disgust as they passed by a shop. It was a small local store, but it didn't hide what it sold. Instruments of torture, ranging from cattle prods, to automatic wakeboarders, to some devices that, in Ja'Kles quick glance inside, he had no idea what they were.

As they walked deeper and deeper into the city, more and more smaller shops appeared here and there, most of them having instruments of murder or highly illegal drugs. However, Mason replied to one of Ja'Kles later grunts of 'blegh', "The worse is in the basements of these places. They do demonstrations at timed events. Even the rich come down to watch some of them."

Although the shops and buildings that housed horrendous things became more and more frequent, the tranquility and the peacefulness of the streets never was diminished. People came, and then people left. There were never more than five people of a specific race, and they all intermingled in the streets, as there appeared to be no cars. With the low population, it made sense. At least, on the surface.

"Where are we going, Captain?" Bailout asked from the front, his hard-light spear grasped tightly by his light fingers, his newly upgraded body glossy and shining in the light. His eyes tracked whomever passed them with a petrifying gaze, and to everyone there, it was obvious that Ja'Kle and Mason were a powerful couple. The plan was working.

"Render runs a business in the center of the city, Galactic-XXX-Consolidated. A conglomeration of many different phonographic industries stapled together by Render." Mason explained encyclopedically, mostly just for Ja'Kles benefit, "He hires almost strictly protogen, though other species sometimes show up." He added, eyeing the buildings to the side, which contained my different sexual devices in the windows.

"Why mainly protogen?" Ja'Kle asked, pausing as another posse walked the street before them. A band of rather rough looking protogen drones protecting a Carian-host. Mason shivered as the host passed, not wanting to know who that person was. Dealing with Carians was bad enough, but having to deal with one powerful enough to get protogen guards that defected from the Federation? They meant business.

After they started walking again, Mason sighed, "Because, not only is porn a incredibly lucrative business that's banned in many galactic governments, but ones dealing with protogen are even more rare. Rarer than rare, actually. Part of the reason why Render's own little streams and the like are... well, sold out." Mason explained,

"Hell, if it weren't for the weapons business here and the... less than legal side of the porn business, Render's company would probably make up one third of the entire planet's funding. It's mind-boggling." Mason explained further, his ears being pressed flat against his scalp.