She started promoting to Mercer incessantly.
Mercer just found it somewhat amusing.
[Mercer: You've worked with the Old Captain for a few months, learned quite a bit about doing business, huh?]
[Polaris: Based on my analysis, and the clientele and reputation I've built up, I believe we have a high chance of recouping our investment within six months and earning over three times the principal amount within a year.
Moreover, it will allow me to accumulate a lot of experience in car modification. Maybe we can create our own car brand in the future! Master~ consider it, please~]
Mercer shook his head, but he didn't reject her. He just said, "I don't have time to manage these things. Discuss it with Venus, and if she thinks it's okay, then I'll agree. Let her transfer funds to you from my account; she's in charge of my finances now."
Yes, currently the entire team's finances are handled by Venus. She even understands investments, helping Mercer use idle funds to trade stocks... with quite satisfactory returns.
Thanks to the ctOS System, she's making huge profits in the stock market simply by analyzing various insider information.
To be honest, Mercer's research costs more than V and Lucy know, but he has Venus and Polaris secretly making money for him, ensuring a continuous flow of research funding.
Venus is like an industrious young wife supporting a worthless man, always happily telling him she can buy him things whenever she makes money, and Mercer has never refused...
But because of this... he's never been able to save enough capital for Venus to make money in the stock market...
However, Mercer still has a plan for this — when Arasaka lifts the bounty, and he can walk openly in Night City, he intends to start a company directly.
By then, relying on Night City's tax exemptions for companies, they can treat the team's commission earnings as the company's income and capital, register a few patents, and assess the company's operations to apply for bank loans...
All the loans will be handed over to Venus for stock trading.
Then she'll ruthlessly reap profits, using money to generate more money, which is the correct way to open the door to capitalism, isn't it?
The car drove all the way from the base to the checkpoint, where the Netherworld Dog saw the vehicle and let it pass directly, skipping even a token inspection — Mercer wasn't just slacking off during his current stint with the Netherworld Dog.
While milking Hansen for benefits, he didn't forget to network and make friends within the Netherworld Dog.
With Venus doing big data analysis for him, he could effortlessly identify the best people to befriend, whether they were new recruits struggling with life, underappreciated squad leaders, or researchers.
Despite maintaining a distance from Hansen's diehard loyalists, Mercer, while nominally just an equipment design director, had in reality used money to pave his way, becoming an undercover powerful executive in the Netherworld Dog.
The equipment design department had plenty of grease, and where there's money to be made, there are friends to be had. Even those uninterested in money could be swayed by Mercer's positional advantage, allowing him to decide which soldiers could access new equipment first.
Even though Hansen guarded against it — but he was just a warlord, and how could a warlord prevent his subordinates from exploiting their positions for personal gain?
By relying on capability? Ha, honestly, given Spark Team's impressive records over the past six months, even the Netherworld Dogs who already kind of believed in prioritizing strength wouldn't dispute Spark Team's competence.
V, with spare time on her hands, would occasionally step in as a coach at the Netherworld Dog's training base — though, in her words, it's because she got itchy and needed to play with a few punching bags.
Mercer was willing to spend money to smooth relations, using his position to prioritize the allocation of new and good equipment to his allies in the Netherworld Dog.
And his Spark Team, with impressive combat power, had a considerable reputation.
So, even though he was a newcomer without any positions related to military command, in fact, most of the Netherworld Dogs already saw him as holding a third or fourth highest-ranking position within the organization.
They were unaware of the dealings between Mercer and Hansen, only knowing that he was nominally a director, had a pair of fierce underlings, good relations with many officers, and often provided perks for everyone...
Hansen even instructed his men not to offend Mercer — because he couldn't find another person who could technically replace Mercer, at least Mercer got things done for money, while throwing money at other researchers wouldn't necessarily yield results!
This further propelled Mercer's momentum.
"Director Mercer, heading out again?" The Netherworld Dog soldiers cheerfully opened the gate.
Mercer just rolled down the car window, casually handed out a small stack of banknotes, all in twenties but not a small amount altogether: "Exactly, take this and get some drinks for the brothers."
The squad leader responsible for gate-keeping in the Netherworld Dog expertly accepted the banknotes, saluted without a second thought: "Yes, thank you, Director!"
Mercer waved his hand, raised the car window, while Pira commented a bit jealously: "Damn, this bunch only ever asks me 'Which bar are you hitting today, Liz or Big Bird?' when they see me."
"Because you're stingy!" Rebbecca, sitting in the back of the van wearing armor, said in a muffled voice, then paused and asked Mercer: "Hey? This AI says it wants to bind to my biometric data... how do I do that?"
"That's just authorization. You open the biometric authentication, and then grant it access to the implant detection program permissions. It will use algorithms to evaluate your physical condition, coordinate with you, and optimize its output to form a combat style."