Chp2.0

I spent a significant portion of the night setting up my body, everything from font, size of font, color of font, background of font color, to the interface system that distinguished between whether I wanted a physical prompt to continue with an action or merely to think of the action itself to complete it as well as the feedback said action would provide me, auditory, tactile, visual or a combination thereof all with varying settings for each.

Apparently I had no prior setting history or importable settings available to me and Raven Micro cybernetics, the manufacturer, did not have default settings already installed so it went through the boot up process of my preferred displays.

The rest of my night and part of the morning was spent researching. At least half of that time, it felt like more, was dedicated to closing full page pop ups, closing banner ads that were on a five second timer and covered a fourth of the screen placed above and below the content I wished to see with an additional video banner on the right side of the ad free space on a seven second timer. Apart from the ads and sponsors already present in the search engine. As well as the closing button taking 2 seconds to load at least for each and every one with the closing buttons taking time to load and being obnoxiously small, which felt akin to a personal slight when my thoughts did not stray or misclick even once. Perhaps it targeted the less disciplined or the more impulsive?

I was offered everything from guns, video games, sex with a prostitute, sex with an android (a masturbatory aide?) that I could buy or rent, rental cars, gunsurance, retro clothes, modern clothes, a paid audition for an acting career, software to do house chores without conscious effort, and always without fail a subscription service to receive an ad free experience for a site that sometimes had different tiers of subscription for additional features. Meanwhile the one thing that was never on offer was an ad blocker.

By the end of my research session I could feel my eye twitch having spent so much time learning so little.

Ericka Watanabe is a researcher born in Japan gifted in the field of genetics and biology, she worked for Akaromi Biocorp and was moved to Night City a number of years ago to develop a new branch. Why would a head researcher be in charge of opening a new branch in a different continent rather than a research center in Japan? Probably had something to do with office politics. The article I read kept giving her backhanded compliments like a new opportunity for her to develop herself in a positive direction with an environment better suited for her… and it is with much anticipation that we at Akaromi await the meteoric rise of a new branch led by the most outstanding amongst us.

No recent advancements, no breakthroughs, nothing to herald her as the next big thing, just an attempt to cultivate fish in a toxic plot of land outside the city that ended up being closed for health and safety reasons ten years ago.

Had she given up growing the business after that or did the branch receive budget cuts? Natural for an underperforming branch to be pruned but with the recency of its establishment I would imagine there should have been multiple attempts to establish this foothold in a new market rather than just giving up on it. A change of management would be in order yet if there was I could not find it.

Akaromi Biocorp was in charge of the production of genetically engineered fish and rice for Japan, supplied the majority of the Philippines and Indonesia with the same and had a much smaller share of Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos markets. Which is a verbose way of saying that they should have enough money to throw at a problem to solve it as well as more than enough skill and practice establishing themselves in different markets to properly integrate.

I would need to take a proper look at the finances to find out what intention our mutual employer had for us. Or was Ericka paying my salary directly? I would need to see where the deposits originated.

The local branch was also located on the forty-third floor of Arasaka Tower and Ericka is in her mid thirties. I narrowed my eyes mulling the information over.

The more I thought the less this seemed coincidental. Viewing it through the lens of intentional sabotage made it make more sense than not. A gifted researcher shafted to an underdeveloped location and told to succeed in an area not of her expertise. Why it is almost like she was set up to fail and extremely sloppily at that.

Someone had it out for her and I wanted to know who, it would not do to unknowingly burn bridges by associating with her… The bridges were already burnt, Miyuki had insured that. I instead needed to know who would wish to target Ericka through me.

So many things that needed to be done and so little time.

In a few hours I would have to go to Arasaka Tower, sort out my debt and employment, sort out the house finances, do something about my brothers education and nutrition, figure out my own education, if the first meeting went badly then I would need another source of gainful employment and that meant setting up interviews, sorting out transportation, working out whatever work history I had to present the best curriculum that I could. Applying at Arasaka? I would need to use my access to the building to network. And buy a firewall, or some ad blocker that doubled as cyber protection, couldn't forget that. I felt much too exposed with strangers able to connect and trace my internet usage. Could sellers see my thoughts on their website or where I focused my attention? A way to break my body's connection to the wider web and use a computer and a phone to work instead would be an acceptable work around, not even have to interact with any viruses floating around. Good internet hygiene was paramount to my health.

Well there was nothing to be done about it, I needed to get to work. I had a busy day ahead after all.