Hollow Point Happiness

Case 13: Broken Gears

Chris sat in his living room again scrolling through more reports when his phone rang.

Picking up the phone, "Hello? This is Chris."
It was the Slavic man again, "Hello again Mr. Cartwin."
"Please tell me you aren't bringing more bad news."
The man breathed heavily, "Yes and no. After looking further into the images we receive of the potential Hydra we have concluded it is an imposter and steps are being taken to deal with them."
"So that's good news."
"Well... I'll forward you do Aja now."
"Um... ok."

The phone line cut for a second before reconnecting.

"Mr. Cartwin, this is Aja."
"Yes, hello."
"As Xavier told you we have concluded that the Hydra wasn't real and steps are being taken to deal with them, but..."
"But what?"
"The clan heads sent out 2 Hydras to deal with them and en route to their target they... were killed."
"What? Aren't you guys the best there are?"
"Yes, we are. Which is why this is becoming a problem. The imposter seems to have bodyguards or some other form of protection, should more problems arise myself and Inti may be called off you're contract to deal with it."
"Oh, ok."
"That is all for now."

The phone call ended and Chris looked back to the reports. In the end, only 2 really caught him. The first was a follow-up report to the Eric Hemfields and Tyra investigation and the other was a report about a sudden spree of serial killings inside of AUTOSYNC Dynamics.

The first report read as such:

"After receiving the old contracts being sent through by Mr. Cartwin I've looked into other names and further into Ms. Tyra Hemfields and their family. I have reason to believe that Eric was indeed involved in the crime assuming that it was not an accident. To keep it clear and concise I will now explain what I've found. After doing more work I can conclude that neither John McGrouse or Rome Jenson were involved or had means to influence something such as a hit. Further, Eric Kellman, nephew of Tyra Hemfields and a man named Stephen Brandi have an intertwined past as well as relations with Warmage outside of contract work. As stated in my previous report Eric is related to Tyra Hemsfield which holds a relevantly high up position in Warmage but what struck me was she works under a man named Lee Brandi, the father of Stephen Brandi. I have reason to believe that should Eric and Stephen called upon family favorites they may have been able to influence the Corpos into orchestrating a hit. I will continue to dig."

The second report read:

"Recently there has been a string of quote 'serial killings' inside of AUTOSYNC, but after digging into different bounty networks I've noticed that almost all of them have had small bounties on them. There does seem to be a disconnect though, as stated most but not all had bounties, and the one that did have bounties ware never claimed, until recently when suddenly they were all pulled, I was unable to crack into the network but based on intuition I have a feeling they were claimed in person in order to not leave digital trails. I will be traveling to speak with the Bounty Heads and will report in my next report."

Chris thought to himself, "Kinda weird, Corpo contracts often don't get touched, pays low and its almost always extremely dangerous, plus after Mana died almost everyone dropped Corpo contracts. Guess someone is just crazy."

He read for a few more hours but didn't find anything else that seemed interesting, as much as Chris hated to admit the underworld seemed pretty boring, at least form what the reports he read seemed to show.

Chris laid out on the floor, "I wonder what that robot is doing. A multimillionaire ball of code."

Chris had the mental image of the war machine robot sipping martinis on a beach somewhere on Mars and almost laughed out loud.

"Wish I had that much money... actually... why did the robot hide the money...," Chris sat up, "Why did Mana go through some much trouble to vanish, not like it mattered to her if she was dead. Her node was destroyed, the satellite's core went dormant and vanished, her money was basically 'poofed' out of existence. I wonder if she pissed off someone big that wanted her to disappear... Maybe the CEO of Warmage, she seemed to be using him like a puppet. He definitely has the means."

"Whatever, no use guessing."

Chris flipped on the news and his eyes almost failed to process what they saw. On the TV was an image of a room full of cops, a blood-covered desk and shattered stained glass windows. In the background, Chris could see a massive hole in the ceiling maybe 3 feet wide with smoke still rising from it, it looked almost molten and the entire room was scorched. The newscaster spoke,

"Just a little over an hour ago the CEO of AUTOSYNC Dynamics was killed, Mr. Uyemura Taro was killed in his office by an unknown assailant with what is believed to be some type of energy weapon that punched straight through the ceiling and engulfed the entire floor in flames. After that, his office was then broken into which itself resulted in 24 deaths between his bodyguards and his staff. Notably, his personal safety was hacked but nothing was taken it was just left open. Inside the police found evidence that he was the head of one of the Big 5 clans of the criminal world, currently the company as a whole is under investigation. Wait... yes... yes... this just came in! His personal accounts have all been emptied, banks claim it was in a similar manner to the recent disappearance of the notorious 'Mystic' account, which has left police baffled as well. Reports claim that his accounts combined stood somewhere in the 13-14 Trillion New Euro range..."

The report continued to but Chris didn't hear it as his phone rang,

"Yes, hello?"
It was Aja, "Yes, hello Mr. Cartwin. I regret to inform you that your contract is going on hold."
"I assumed as much I just saw the news."
"Yes, all the clans are panicking. The underworld is in chaos right now."
"When can I expect you to resume work?"

Aja grunted and ended the call. Almost immediately it began to ring again. It was Chuck.

Chris accepted the call, "Um? Chuck."
"Chris your in danger!"
"What?"
"Run now! You have to go now Ch-" Chuck's voice caught at the sound of a gunshot.
"CHUCK! CHUCK! HELLO!"

Chris heard the phone hit the ground and footsteps. Someone picked up the phone.

A robotic voice came through it, "Hello Mr. Cartwin."
"The fuck? Defrag?"
"Yes, Mr. Cartwin. I've come to notify you that you have something that belongs to the Brightens. I will be seeing you soon to retrieve it."
"What did you do to Chuck!"
"He has simply be tranquilized."

Chris breathed a sigh, "What do you want Defrag?"
"The pistol, it is Mana's. My last order from her was to retrieve all of her personal equipment and return to her grave as well as Mr. Robert Brightens to deactivate."

Chris heard grunting in the background, then he heard Chuck yelling, "NO! Don't listen to it! Its lyin-" Another gunshot.
The robot spoke again, "36 hours. at these cords."

The call ended and Chris received a message.

"...Chuck..."