Melbourne walked into the Amonian Bean at 6:50 and noticed Agent Rune already sitting in a booth.
"Order anything you like, it will all be on me." said Rune politely.
"Thank you." said Melbourne shortly.
Melbourne proceeded to order a frappe and a breakfast sandwich.
"Do you like Chinese?" asked Rune casually.
"Love it." said Melbourne. "It's named after a region of Earth where this food was originally made, yes? It's based on the style of cooking that was traditionally popular to that country."
"So they say." said Rune. "I've heard that the modern version has been heavily adulterated to appeal to a broader range of customers. I know a great restaurant in downtown Olympia called the Green Dragon Buffet. You start at the Academy on Monday of next week, right? We should celebrate. I'm thinking a little more towards the evening, maybe 5 o'clock in the evening?"
Melbourne nodded gravely, understanding that the niceties were designed to deter suspicion from the crowd. "Sounds great!" Rune smiled acknowledging the agreement to the appointment.
The two finished eating breakfast and walked out of the restaurant together, finding a quiet place to talk about their actual business.
"Anything interesting to report from the last few days?" asked Rune as they walked through an empty park.
"Nothing." said Melbourne. "Things have been pretty peaceful since returning and being interrogated. You mentioned a potential contract today?"
"Indeed, Mr. Acliate." said Rune. "Like I said, most assets are not allowed to hunt for bounties without cybernetic augmentations since our bounties are usually cyborgs who are engaging in violent activities that put innocent civilians and our reputation in harms way. You, however, have been approved to fight Level 1 targets."
"What do you mean by 'Level'?" asked Melbourne in shock, wondering if Rune's leveling system had anything to do with his own System's level tracking.
"The Galten Level System." reiterated Rune. "It's a system developed by an obscure scientist from the Artilect War named Professor Galten. It measures the combat strength of fighters and soldiers and is designed to assess threat levels and combat fitness. As far as our assessment of you goes, you are a Level 2 fighter, though your augmentations give you advantages that have allowed you to defeat Level 3 marines from the Jovian Navy."
Melbourne nodded, realizing that they were using the exact measuring system that his aclito gauged him by. He wanted to say that his system was using the Galten Level System and that it was created by this obscure cyberneticist, but he held his tongue. He didn't want to be too transparent with the Red Cyber Rebellion if they were not going to be fully transparent with him. They already knew many of his secrets, but this would be enough. He'd take the crypts and maybe use them to buy a submarine and make his journey into the ancient sea base, but he would not yet fully dedicate his life to them until he fully understood their motives and ambitions.
"Alright, what's this mission?" asked Melbourne.
"We've got a little bit of a gang problem in downtown at a club called Skin of Metal." explained Rune. "The club is known for hosting metal raves with loud rock music, but is financed by a criminal gang. They primarily get their funding from that business and selling illicit drugs, but they also engage in other more violent activities such as robbery. Coincidentally, one of our other assets discovered a human trafficking operation where people are kidnapped and taken to some warehouse where they are experimented upon like guinea pigs. Most of the victims are customers who drank too much and were coerced into following them out into a dark alleyway where they were promptly sedated and thrown into a van and tied up. The culprit of this experimentation is a rogue cyberneticist named Daniel Schoff. Schoff is a 22 year old cyborg who operated upon himself to make himself super strong and slightly more intelligent than the average human. Our asset managed to get him to confirm that he didn't know what he was doing when he first modified himself and the augmentations gave him a genetic illness that will cause him to die miserably within the next decade. Unfortunately, he is trying to solve this problem by having his thugs kidnap people and perform the same modifications on them before running experiments to cure them of the aging problem. All of them so far find themselves dying in horrible ways. The thugs that follow him are being persuaded not only by money but by the promise of augmentations for themselves when the problem with his modifications are resolved. We of the Red Cybers find this form of experimentation upon unwilling subjects reprehensible and wish to have it stopped. We also fear a group of cybernetic gangsters popping up to wreak havoc on the streets of Olympia and cannot allow this shame to push our already negative public image deeper into the mud."
Rune pulled up a holographic image from his smartwatch which showed the image of a man with a green mohawk and muscles with metallic fibers bulging out of his arms. His eyes were glowing and his face was so obviously unnatural that he couldn't walk five feet on a public street without being arrested.
"This is Daniel Schoff. He never leaves the warehouse where he experiments on people and he is supplied with whatever he requests by his thugs. The Red Cybers would like you to assassinate him and destroy his body in a vat of acid to destroy all evidence of his affiliation with the Skin of Metal gang. After that, inject this serum in any of the victims to cause memory loss from the last month so they cannot witness to the police that there was a cyborg inside the facility. Destroy all laboratory equipment and sanitize the place of all evidence of cybernetic experimentation. After that, anonymously contact law enforcement to raid the facility. The gang members will be reluctant to expose themselves as working for a cyborg given the fact that this will change their human trafficking sentence of ten to twenty years into a death sentence for treason against the Artilect Protocol. Do you think you can take care of this, Asset?"
"Yes sir." said Melbourne.
"Very good." said Rune. "I will send you the address of this warehouse and I expect you to finish the job within the next week. You don't start school until next week, so your schedule should not be a problem. The commission will be 500 crypts upon successful completion. If you fail to hide all the evidence and the law discovers that they are experimenting with cybernetics, you will forfeit 300 crypts and only receive 200. Good luck."