The dagger was finally out in the open.
Now that the meeting had reached this point, Little Michiko had finally shown her hand.
Her goal in probing Kai had already been achieved. As long as Kai was not one of the hardline hawks pushing strongly for war with Militech, then this matter could continue.
Yorinobu, far away in Kyoto, had used the Arasaka family's high-level internal communications to emphasize that Militech had to be countered.
The moment Little Michiko heard that, she knew she had to do something, something she could show to Saburo in Kyoto.
So she urgently needed a tool.
A capable tool.
And a tool that wanted to stay alive.
Someone to carry out the task of retaliating against Militech.
If the retaliation succeeded, reward him.
If it failed, discard him.
After hearing all that, Kai could not help feeling his teeth ache again.
What Michiko had handed him was not a task.
It was a blazing-hot burden.
He knew full well he was being used like a pack mule for Little Michiko, but right now, he had no room to refuse.
Actually, retaliating against Militech in itself was not difficult.
A planned convoy hit, a terror attack, a netrunner frying people's brains, those were all classic Arasaka specialties.
But the key problem was scale.
The retaliation had to hurt Militech enough to shut people up on the board.
At the same time, it could not openly offend Militech and escalate the conflict between the two megacorps.
If it was too small, the board would not accept it.
If it was too big, they would hand him over to Militech as the explanation.
Little Michiko, you really dug me one hell of a pit. As if being roasted over the fire wasn't enough already.
Kai could only complain inwardly, while keeping his face as still as possible.
As his thoughts spun, his mind drifted for a moment to Gloria's apartment that day, to her slightly restrained, shy expression...
And to the way he himself had spoken to Maine and the others when he threatened them. The tone and posture had not been much different from Michiko's now.
Fortune really did turn in circles.
He had not expected the payback to come this quickly.
Suppressing a bitter laugh, Kai answered her.
"Director Michiko."
"I understand what you're asking for."
"I'll do my best to handle this quietly, but it may take some time."
Without changing expression, Michiko stood up and prepared to walk him to the office door.
"The deadline can be relaxed by a few days."
"But it needs to be done quickly."
"Your appointment order will be generated and entered by Human Resources immediately."
"I've already opened my office access permissions to you."
"For important matters, report to me in person."
Kai stood as well and followed Michiko toward the mechanical gate.
When the two reached the office entrance, Michiko stopped, turned slightly toward him, and smiled faintly as she extended a delicate hand in a gesture for a handshake.
"By the way, congratulations. I hope your tenure as dual deputy director goes smoothly."
Kai took her hand and smiled just as brightly.
"Thank you. I hope everything goes smoothly too."
The mechanical gate slowly opened.
Kai released her hand and turned to walk outside.
Michiko folded her hands in front of her lower abdomen and stood behind the gate, watching Kai leave until he disappeared from view.
Then she summoned her personal secretary and said flatly,
"Clean up those two useless things who failed to do their job."
After that, she turned and walked back into the office, and the mechanical gate closed again with a seamless seal.
As soon as Kai stepped into the elevator, his Dragon Fist glasses showed that a new contact had been added: Michiko Arasaka.
At the same time, his job information had already been updated.
He checked it directly.
[Kai]
[Date/Time: 2076/6/18; 12:30]
[Employee ID: NC770416]
[Employee Rank: M9]
[Department Position: Deputy Director, Counterintel; Deputy Director, Special Ops]
[Message Notice: Your new position has been created and entered into the Arasaka corporate personnel system // Special Ops has prepared a deputy director office for you and is awaiting your...]
Kai had only been back for less than a week, yet so much had already happened that he could not help sighing at how unpredictable life was.
Now he held a position countless corpos could only dream of, and not just one, but two posts in major departments with real power.
Less than a day had passed since Caitlin and Carter Smith died, and already no one mentioned them anymore.
The traces of the losers had been scrubbed clean from Arasaka Tower, left only in cold digital archives.
For some reason, Kai did not feel even the slightest joy over any of it.
That strange heaviness he could not quite describe seemed to wrap around him once more.
As the sealed elevator dropped rapidly, Kai felt his chest tighten and his breathing grow shorter.
He reached out and pressed the floor buttons again, canceling the preset destination of Floor Thirty-Three, Counterintel.
Instead, he selected the ground-floor Arasaka lobby.
He decided to leave early today and go for a long run along the seawall that night.
As for reporting to Special Ops, he would wait until he was in a better mood.
Right now, he still had Little Michiko's assignment hanging over him, and everything else could be pushed aside.
Susan Abernathy, director of Special Ops, was currently suspended, so there was no chance for her to shove extra work or pull any tricks.
For Kai, this period was actually one of the rare easy stretches in his corporate life.
Ding.
The public elevator arrived at the ground-floor Arasaka lobby.
This lobby was the only part of the entire tower open to outside visitors, a condensed showcase of Arasaka's uniquely New Militarist aesthetic.
A large combat mech stationed in the lobby remained on permanent standby, though in the six years since Arasaka rebuilt the tower, it had never once been activated.
Kai walked out through the lobby, and quite a few employees from other departments greeted him first.
The board's decision today had made a huge impact. Any Arasaka employee even slightly interested in office politics would already know about Kai's new appointment.
Kai remained as aloof as ever and walked straight out of Arasaka Tower toward the public transit station.
Too many things had happened that morning.
He needed some time alone to sort through them again.
He entered the station and boarded the train.
As usual, Kai stood by the carriage door and watched the scenery pass outside the window, but his thoughts refused to stop.
Little Michiko was treating him like a pure tool.
Arthur Jenkins spent every day thinking about how to crush Susan flat and keep climbing higher.
Susan, stuck at home, was probably thinking of ways to curse Arthur and Kai to death.
The former traitor Carter Smith was already dead and gone.
Deputy Director Caitlin of Special Ops had been blown into chunks of meat.
Maine was still obsessed with that military-grade Sandevistan and refused to give it up.
Jack and Vik seemed to have found their way back to the old days when they had first reunited.
The silver-haired girl was still trying hard to hide her secrets.
Poor David. Who knew whether Katsuo had bullied him at school again today?
After the car accident, Gloria's fate had already changed, but where it would end up was still unclear.
In just a few short days, so many people and so many events had been turned upside down because of his appearance.
"So many threads all tangled together... it's enough to numb a person."
At this moment, Kai truly understood what it meant to have something impossible to cut apart and impossible to straighten out.
"I really envy Johnny's simple brain. From childhood to now, his whole philosophy has always been one sentence: Just do it."
The train arrived.
Kai's thoughts were pulled back to reality.
He stepped out of the station and headed toward his luxury apartment.
(End of Chapter)
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