Alpha Agent 2: A Cyberpunk LitRPG | Weak to Strong Progression Fantasy (A Progression Cyberpunk LitRPG Series), page 10
Dan got to see a rare moment of victory, one that was crushing to any enemy. The agent forced himself to calm down and swallow his pride. He didn’t carry out his threat to whoop Dan’s ass. Just to be spiteful, Dan grinned fully underneath his mask.
“So it finally sunk in? How long did it take you?” Dan said.
The Kodak agent bared his gold teeth at him but knew he couldn’t do anything now. “You can leave. Get the fuck out of my sight.”
That earned him an elbow jab to the head from one of his teammates. “He meant to say have a safe trip, sir,” one of them said. Dan could tell the agent who hit him was merely covering his own ass, but he appreciated the sentiment.
“Thank you,” Dan said. Just to be petty, he added, “I saw the way you heckled one of the cars that was ahead of me. Make sure that’s the last time you do any of that bullshit. You were put here because you have a job to do, punk. Don’t you forget that.”
Dan rolled up his window and caught the last glimpse of the Kodak agent he would have shot were it not for Li’s intervention. The agent glared at him with gritted teeth as Dan smirked at him. The car accelerated past the checkpoint and down the road.
“Thanks for de-escalating, Li,” he said. “That could have been messy. You have a way with words.”
Li chuckled. “So do you. You lack subtlety, but I can respect your way of twisting the knife, for lack of a better saying. He knew his position was at risk and couldn’t say anything back to either of us. That Kodak dunce had to stand there and take it. And don’t think I missed that last comment you made.”
“Which was?”
“You ordered him to stop fooling around and to leave the civvies alone. You made this place just a bit more tolerable for the people, even if it was just by one percent. Good to see you’re throwing your weight around like a true businessman.”
Dan gave Li a polite nod. “Maybe it’s best you do most of the talking from now on and I’ll only interject if the bravado is needed.”
“Agreed,” Li said.
As the car continued through the neighborhoods, though Dan used the term loosely, the scenery didn’t get any better after the checkpoint. Dan only saw more and more regular people in the sporadic crowds going about their day. He hadn’t seen a single smile or anyone looking at anything other than the ground.
“I can’t blame these people for being miserable,” Li said. “I've accessed the local news feeds in this city. It’s…”
“It’s what? What’s been going on around here?”
“The red sky is artificial. Kodak chooses to make the sky this ugly and displeasing color as a punishment to its citizens.”
Dan looked at Li as if he was telling him he shot an elderly woman. “The fuck? What kind of punishment is that?”
“According to the latest article, this city is getting punished because thirty-five percent of its citizens didn’t pay their taxes on time. So Kodak artificially changed the sky to be this blood red shade to ruin the mood and atmosphere. I would assume it’s working since I can’t imagine being motivated to go outside and do anything if just looking at anything made my eyes bleed. If you noticed, I’ve had my eyes shut for most of the ride. Looking outside bothers my eyesight a bit too much.”
Dan leaned back in his seat and wondered about the twisted logic Kodak had in governing its people. While doing so, Li grabbed both of their pistols and disassembled the silencers. He placed the weapons back into their respective briefcases.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Li said. “It’s like you caught your kid stealing from the cookie jar, and your punishment is to beat him to near-death. It’s a sick punishment that doesn’t fit the crime. I’m sure somehow it makes perfect sense for Kodak to further crush the morale of its citizens which will surely motivate them all to pay their taxes on time. This is why I don’t take this shard seriously.”
Dan didn’t have a response to Li’s grim explanation of Kodak’s motives. He glanced outside and regretted that choice. He watched as two Kodak agents kicked and stabbed what appeared to be a stray dog on the sidewalk.
“For once, I sympathize with Angie,” Li chimed in. “I wish we could inflict as much destruction on Kodak as possible, whenever I see needless cruelty like that.”
Chapter 11
The rest of the car ride was uneventful. Dan had enough of seeing how Kodak agents acted and treated the general populace of this city. He followed Li’s playbook and simply leaned back and shut his eyes. Dan heard a light beeping noise which indicated they had arrived at their destination. He opened his eyes and saw the entrance to the hotel.
The car door slid open on its own and Dan stepped out of the vehicle. Dan’s boot hit pieces of broken glass and that cracked beneath his feet. He looked down and saw that the glass was mixed in with spent shell casings.
Looking up, Dan didn’t see a hotel. This was a skyscraper. The building had to be at least sixty floors tall if not much taller. The building was a giant monolith sticking out of the ground, its deep black appearance seemingly absorbing whatever light happened to hit it. The only source of light from the hotel was a sign that said “Revelation.”
He turned and the car’s backseat doors opened for Dan and Li to grab their briefcases. Dan continued checking out his surroundings and saw the area around the hotel was surprisingly sparse. The number of buildings and normal people out and about was barely higher than the suburbs during the car ride.
“I wonder what would happen if the budget for this hotel was instead put towards the rest of this city,” Li whispered as he grabbed his briefcase.
Aside from the darkness of the hotel, Dan could have admired the architecture and engineering put into the building had it not been for the red skies that provided little to no proper lighting on the structure.
Dan spotted two Kodak agents who both stood at least two meters tall, dwarfing both him and Li in physical stature. He stared at the guards as he and Li walked towards the short steps to the front entrance. They received no polite greetings as they passed the guards.
The lighting underneath the entrance also showed more cracks in Kodak’s level of engineering. The right side of the entrance flickered while the left side was completely dark as a technician on a ladder worked to replace the light bulbs.
Dan received a notification of an incoming private call from Li.
“And this is supposed to be a secret meeting place for Kodak VIPs,” he said. “What a joke.”
Dan walked past the ladder and stepped in front of the automatic doors. Both slid aside, but only halfway. Dan squeezed himself through the gap and Li followed afterwards.
“The service just keeps getting better and better,” Li mumbled.
The interior of the building was far more impressive than the exterior. The carpet was a smoothly textured red without any hint of stains or imperfections was stitched to the highest quality. The high-rise ceiling featured elaborate chandeliers that shined brightly and gave the room a warm ambience.
Dan looked ahead and spotted two giant walls of reflective marble as tall as the ceiling that almost met together in the middle, save for a gap. The numerous armed Kodak guards around it indicated it was a security checkpoint before entering the main lobby.
Both Dan and Li made their way towards the gap, walking with confident strides to fit their status as businessmen. The Kodak guards looked at both of them with varying degrees of animosity.
One of the guards put his hand up at Dan and said, “IDs please.”
Both took out their ID cards and handed them to the guard. Briefly checking out both of them, he handed the cards back. “I assume you have weapon models packed in those briefcases of yours?”
“Correct,” Dan said. He thought about what additional details to add. “The officials at Kodak requested some hardware so they can check it out in person for the meeting.”
The guard’s steeled expression didn’t change. “Hold out your briefcases.”
Dan lifted his and held it sideways. The same guard took out a device that resembled a handheld vacuum cleaner and scanned the case. He did the same for Li’s as well.
“Okay, that checks out. Now we need to pat you boys down. Get ready and we can move this along.”
Dan lowered his briefcase and set it on the ground. The guard pointed him in the direction of another guard and he walked a few steps over to him. When he stood in front of the guard, Dan spread his legs apart and raised his arms to point outwards from his body. The guard frisked him, his grip much more forceful than Dan thought was necessary. After about thirty seconds of the guard’s heavy-handed checkup, he stopped abruptly.
“You’re good to go.” He looked towards the guard with the metal detector and gave him a thumb up gesture.
Li had also concluded his frisking and picked up his briefcase. Dan walked over and picked up his gear. The guards stepped out of their way without saying a word and the two walked through the gap and into the main lobby.
Dan was greeted with more beautiful scenery, so much so that Dan lifted his glasses to admire the surprisingly intricate details such as marble flooring, more expensive chandeliers as well as every surface that was seemingly either reflective or matte with no in between.
“Let’s get checked in before we do any sightseeing,” Li said.
“Right.”
The two walked up to the curved front desk. A line of eight people stood in their way. One of the ladies at the desk glanced in Dan’s direction and quickly elbowed one of her coworkers and pointed at them. Immediately, the lady raised her voice and asked, “Are you two from Cresh manufacturing?”
“That’s us,” Dan muttered to Li. He responded to the lady with a polite nod before walking over to her side of the desk. “Do you have our reservations?”
“Yes sir, Mr. Phillips. You and Mr. Sung will be sharing a room. Your suite is 5812.” The lady had a concerning pale skin tone and seemed a bit too skinny even through her uniform. She took out a card and said, “Here’s your keycard, sir. The elevators are along that way past the bar. Enjoy your stay.”
“Thank you,” Dan said. While the lady was professional and allowed them to skip the line, he couldn’t help but feel something was off with that interaction. He and Li walked away from the receptionist desk without saying a word.
“Did that chick seem a bit malnourished to you?” Dan asked.
“She did. Then again, I would rather not imagine what it would be like to work for Kodak outside of being an agent.”
The duo walk towards the elevators. Dan looked around and saw more ambient lighting that shined from along the floor edges up to the walls and more polished and reflective marble flooring. The bar itself appeared off to the right though had nothing but wooden planks that made up its “walls,” making for gaps that customers could easily peek through inside the bar. An odd stylistic choice considering the more polished and clean aesthetic of the lobby.
Ahead of them was a narrow path that had shallow pools on either side, along with a fountain that ran water down into the pools. Dan continued walking and got a closer look to admire the intricate design of this part of the building. The shallow pools had floors with various square tiles raised to varying heights to give the flooring beneath the water a more blocky aesthetic. Ambient ground lighting gave the water an ethereal and strangely angelic look.
“I’ll give credit where it’s due. Whoever worked on the fountains and pools here should have worked on the lights at the entrance,” Li said.
Dan’s admiration of the hotel’s aesthetics didn’t last long as he spotted two Kodak agents at the end of the left pool. One sat on a raised block while a female agent with long flowing blond hair stood facing the other agent.
All it took was the blond agent adjusting her hair and Dan saw the hoop earring. The same earring he had ripped off of Kate Razor when she had tried to convince him to surrender himself after revealing herself to be a traitor who had defected from the Alpha Corp and joined Kodak.
Kate was now wearing the Kodak body armor that was all-black with spikes jutting out from the shoulder pieces and razor blades along the elbow and knee guards. He also saw some barbed wire wrapped around her arms and shoulders. It infuriated him to see that bitch wear the armor of the enemy shard.
Dan immediately put his sunglasses back on over his eyes and averted his gaze. He glanced one more time in their direction and confirmed the same skull-painted helmet he had seen before on Adam Torrent.
Those two motherfuckers had caused him so much grief and injury. One for killing two of his teammates and betraying his trust, and the other for almost killing him if Allen hadn’t arrived to save him at the last moment. The memories of his first mission together with the newly assigned team came flooding back.
Dan tried to keep his cool and not jeopardize the mission. He knew he was no match to fight either Kate or Adam, especially not the two of them together, even with Li’s help. Walking past the two, Dan’s ears picked up a curious exchange.
“Do you think they can do it? Bring him back, I mean?” Kate asked. Her voice seemed inquisitive, nothing like the fake bubbly persona nor the cold demeanor after her betrayal.
Adam’s reply to her question was even more confusing. “I’ve seen their methods in action before. Hell, you saw what happened to me. Jane killed my ass and I would have been dead if I wasn’t put into a resurrection chamber. Colleen actually died once a while back and they brought her ass back from the dead too. It’s possible.”
The only thing Dan gathered was that the two talked about bringing a supposed dead person back to life. But that was impossible. Dead was dead no matter how much someone wished it otherwise. Death was the most inevitable fate for anything that breathed. Somehow, Adam had survived the beating he’d received from Jane Sunheiser when she’d stepped in and saved Dan's life in his last encounter with the Kodak agent.
And what the hell was a resurrection chamber?
Dan and Li continued to the elevators and Dan pressed one of the buttons. He waited a few seconds before the nearest elevator to their right opened. Dan had no desire to stay in the lobby any longer and scurried inside. Li gave him a look before walking into the elevator with him.
The doors finally closed and the two were taken up into the hotel.
Li glanced at him and asked, “Was there a problem back there?”
“Those two Kodak agents around the pool, I know those fuckers,” Dan said. “It was during my first mission with Jane Sunheiser. Kate is that blond bitch who betrayed us and sided with Kodak. The guy with the skull paint job is her boyfriend, and he almost killed my ass.”
“I see. You handled yourself well, both during that mission and now. You got to live to see them a second time.”
“That’s… one way of putting it.”
The dull ache behind his eyes began flaring up again. Then, Dan’s HUD popped up an incoming call from their hacker Tim Corsair. He accepted the call.
“Have you two arrived at the Revelation yet?”
“Affirmative,” Li responded.
“Good. Angie and Michael are on their way. For now, get into your hotel room and wait there for further instructions.”
“Why do we have to wait if we have less than four hours to get this job done?” Dan asked. Since landing and accounting for the ride here and going through security, they only had about three hours left.
“This is part of Michael’s plan. Simply put, making a grab at the container without full backup will not work. You need Michael there to keep the majority of the heavy-hitting Kodak forces occupied while Angie accompanies you two in escorting the container.”
Dan thought back to Kate and Adam sitting next to the pool and fountain. While Dan was relieved that it would be on Michael to keep agents like those two distracted, it was bittersweet. Dan wouldn’t have the opportunity to crush those two himself.
“Michael and Angie won’t arrive for another half hour. I suggest you two get settled and prepare your equipment. And keep a low profile. The last thing we need is our covers being blown,” Tim said.
The elevator finally arrived onto the fifty-eighth floor without any interruption for the whole ride. Both Dan and Li stepped out and took a left. Assuming a basic order from left to right, their room had to be on the left side since it was designated suite 5812.
The two made it to their room and Dan put his keycard onto the reader beside the door. It unlocked with an audible beep and Dan twisted the handle and opened it. As he entered, the room’s lighting automatically brightened and they were warmly welcomed into their room.
Dan immediately threw his briefcase onto the floor and simply walked over to a small couch within the kitchen area and sat down. The dull aches in the back of his eyes had now ballooned into a returning headache. He leaned back while rubbing his eyes and forehead with his hand.
Li walked down the short hallway towards the bedroom.
Dan had made the assumption that his blackout during the training session with Allen was because of exhaustion. He was wrong. Whatever this condition was, it was serious enough that his headaches have been flaring up since the start of this heist.
He could not afford to jeopardize this mission. Michael Cynosa and the rest of his teammates were counting on him. The only thing he could think of that could ease his headache was possibly sleeping it off or some meditation. Since Li was a stealth specialist, it probably wouldn’t be a stretch to think he might have some expertise in relaxing himself.
Slowly standing up, Dan walked away from the couch and down the small hallway to see what Li was up to. Looking around the bedroom, his teammate wasn’t around. Then he saw Li outside on the balcony, sitting in a cross-legged position. Dan removed his disguise and threw his clothes on the bed. He walked up to the door and slid it aside.
He remembered Michael’s warning about a thunderstorm when he saw the light drizzle that already blanketed the outdoors. Li sat unmoving in his chosen spot, ignoring his hair and face being drenched in water. Dan didn’t expect watching rainfall from a red sky would fill him with a strange sense of dread.
