Sitting alone in his office, Victor stared at the ceiling for a while, lost in his own thoughts. It took him quite a while to snap out of it. Sighing, he reached into one of the drawers and took out a small jar, gave it a disgusted look, then took out one of the pills contained inside.
Dante's unexpected visit had caused his blood pressure to rise and those pills were the only way to get it down. The problem was the horrendous taste. A shot of vodka would've helped him wash it down, but that would've defeated the purpose.
"Boss," Boris peeked his head through the door. "How was he? Got anything new?"
Victor thought for a moment.
"He's trying to tough it out. It seems to have taken a lot out of him."
"Yeah, I got that feeling as well." Said Boris.
In a way, the two of them were thankful that the kid had kept what happened to himself. It would've preferrable it if he hadn't shown up at all, as cruel as that might sound. He could've spared them the guilt of not helping him that way.
"Still, what did he do that pissed Eidolon so much?"
"Who knows?" Victor shrugged. "Well, I think I have a guess or two."
It took some digging but he was able to track down the client who came to Gaspard with that last gig. Things were no different through that route, however.
The chain of command that got the job down to him was as long and convoluted as the one snooping around for his sixth crewmate. No one had an idea of what was in that white suitcase either, only that it was a valuable relic of some sort.
That relic was now in the youth's hands. There was no evidence pointing to that being the case, but Victor was confident in his guess.
"For now," Leaning back in his seat, the broker closed his eyes and tried to relax. "Neither we nor the kid have anything to do with whatever happened that night, and we will keep it that way. Let's wait and see where this goes."
[Dante, I do not think this will work out.]
Volcan had stayed silent throughout the entire visit to Victor's office. Only once they were back on the streets did he speak again.
[The pay for this job.] Said the AI. [It's far too low.]
'Didn't I say we will start small?'
[But...] A small screen appeared on Dante's OAM. [It's not even a tenth of a tenth of the cheapest bionics on the market!]
'... you really shouldn't be looking at the corpo sites...'
Shopping for bionics through a retailer was nothing but a bitter pill. Dante tried to close the screen without looking at it but still got a glimpse of the numbers. A single prosthetic arm, and one not made for combat, was almost double his savings before he had to pay Larry.
The intention was never to sell such things to ordinary people, or to rich ones for that matter. Anyone who could afford to pay those prices had ways to get better products tailor-made for them. The commercial stuff is meant to drive people into accepting loans and decade-long payment plans, trapping them in a cycle of never-ending debt and having them slave for the rest of their lives to pay it back.
[Then... how are we supposed to get those bionics?] Volcan asked. [Don't tell me you plan on doing the same as that aggressive person from earlier?]
'Nah...' Arriving at the train station, Dante stopped to look at the sky. 'Let's just focus on getting the money first. We can worry about the shops later.'
When starting out as a mercenary, not having the right qualifications makes it very difficult to find jobs. One can't just walk up to a fixer and ask to be hired, after all.
Most mercs get their foot in the door by working for the military or some gangs. Some just pick gigs off the dark web. One thing all of those routes have in common is that the early jobs are often dangerous, dirty, and morally questionable, all while paying next to nothing.
Unlike when they first became acquainted, Victor knew what Dante was capable. Though he gave him something from the beginner list, it wasn't from the very bottom like catching someone's adulterous husband in the act.
The gig was simple: a loan shark needed someone to track one of his runaway debtors; a gambling addict who had a recent stroke of luck, but instead of paying what he owed, he vanished shortly after getting the money. Victor had done the hard part by tracking where the runaway went. All Dante needed to do was narrow it down and shake the money out of him.
The target, a man named Michael Jason, chose a very odd place to hide in. Factory Town was a housing area right next to the Westpoint fabrication ward. The residents were mostly factory workers who rarely left the area. A stranger trying to mingle with them would stand out like a stripped cord so Dante was confident he would be done by the end of the day.
Soon after getting off the train, the first thing he noticed was how different the air was compared to the rest of the city. That wasn't to say Hollowgrid had clean air, but compared to the smog-enshrouded town, one could at least breathe without feeling that their lungs could catch on fire.
As if to prove his previous theory, eyes began following Dante around the moment he stepped out onto the station. Even an area meant to house factory workers had plenty of jobless bums who did nothing but loiter around like vultures waiting for easy prey.
Those kinds were the perfect source of information as they would've kept tabs on any outsiders. Of course, they weren't going to give out such info just because he asked nicely. With that in mind, Dante decided to play the role of the clueless tourist and walked right into a narrow side alley.