Fortuna Verto

32-Navigating Markets

Kori and Rosa slipped back into Hypertech, eager to get together the stuff they might need to complete their latest expedition. Having previously left the place there as a fresh new corporate office, they were quite surprised to find just how much remodelling had occurred in their absence.

"Rosa, don't touch the walls." "Okay.. but why?" "Those signs are warnings about hazardous contact, the entire wall appears to be heavily ionized. An ionic discharge would scramble you at a molecular level, you would lose your own hand on contact.. if not worse." Kori pointed out the signs for Rosa as they steered clear of the main wall and instead approached the main gate. Such a gate was also reinforced, but fortunately opened for them on arrival. Once safely beyond the death wall, they discovered an array of turrets set up all over the place too, the same ones from before. It was pretty clear, this was a bit less a corporate office and more a company of war. It was equally obvious why, having used ionization on walls with a density that should have made such a thing fruitless. When up against beings of absolute zero, physical defenses would mean little.

"Rosa, Kori, you're both back. Perfect." "Sophie.. uh.. that's quite the look for you." "I know, right? I sort of got assigned to inventory management.. which includes more than might have been expected. Drew seemed to think that taking care of store inventory, I would have the organization skills fitting for everything. Things.. sort of moved quickly from there, though. I mean, seriously, Drew makes things go fast. I've never worked for such an intense boss before, but he doesn't even make it feel hard. Even have been getting along very well with Trystine, the two of us having to coordinate.. so many things. The wall, for one, amping up defenses has been the most important project to date." "You did remember to take care of Holi though, right?" "Oh, very certainly! She got those note things you left me.. and then some. Holi!" Sophie clearly had quickly adapted to her new logistics role, Kori was certainly impressed how much the tech illiterate was capable of fitting in with all the technology and weaponry while carrying little more than a holo clipboard in a HT uniform. However, much more stunning was Holi in her brand new synthetic tights, the faint pulses of light making it harder to tell if Holi was even still just a holo or not. Her tights held a motif of cyberscape plating, a faint light grid that pulsed around her in a blue tone as she moved.

"This.. ah.. what.. did you.. do to.. Holi?!" "Oh, don't look at me like that. Her old settings are still available too, if you feel better with her looking more casual. However, after she woke up, she sort of wanted to be a lot more proactive at keeping you two safe. It was a marvelous idea too, focusing on safety. A lot of staff in dangerous positions are now expected to wear synth gear at all times while at work.. and Drew let me know that neither of you are exceptions. I get to be an exception, because I'm not good at this stuff, but even Trystine is wearing synth gear." "Come on, there isn't even a point. The things we're against care nothing about physical protection." "Maybe, but it's still a factor. Certainly you can dodge around a lot easier if you have fewer worries that doing so could get you hurt. Getting hit can even throw you, which good protection could deal with. I mean, that was all my idea, but Trystine took it the distance. She took my design and adjusted it using some kind of silicon alloy, stuff that conducts ions super easy. We even coated the wall in the stuff, almost as a practice measure. With such, not only would we have fewer worries about injuries in ionic discharges, but she said there was plenty of room to improve on.. and all without affecting my original aesthetic design. That was by far the best part!" Kori sighed, clearly believing Sophie may have gotten more than a little carried away by her new responsibilities. The textile expert had even put a lot of focus on matters of attire, which actually might have been far too easy to expect. Everything was ridiculous.. and predictably so.

"Oh, and Trystine said that I was to let you know we integrated Holi to the defense grid." "You did.. what?!" "Well, we were doing upgrades for her anyway, it generally made sense. Being like the master control for everything, that's why I gave her the new look. I call it her combat model. Cool, right?" "I.. should have never asked you to look after her maintenance. Remind me to never do that again, please." "Oh, that reminds me. You asked me to never look after stuff like this before when I was helping Fiona with that one dragon model." "Oh hell, right, you were the original... How could I have forgotten...?" "Speechless at my creativity? You always seem to blow a fit when I make something look fierce." Kori couldn't even finish ideas in her head, Sophie having broken her with such news. Kori really had forgotten that the first prototype model Fiona had worked with for that dragon was of her sister's design.. one which was so graphically intense that it was like a race to see which would fail first, the nanites producing the wild patterns or the eyes of the people trying to watch it.