Outrun - Chapter 454 - (Patreon)

The guard pushed open the door for me, and I stepped into a much nicer event than I was expecting. Corpos droned around tables chattering to each other in extremely high-end button-up shirts, slacks, and dresses like this was some kind of formal work event and not a party. Waiters milled around with wine glasses on ornate silver platters. I expected something more rave-like, not a wedding reception.

Judging by the number of guest badges with the symbols of various corporations, Sentinel had seen fit to invite half the city to this little party. Wish Brunhilde would’ve told me that before I showed up looking like I just crawled out of a pawnshop. 

I felt even more out of place than I already did as the door shut behind me. I hesitated at the door as curious eyes turned my way. As if I didn’t feel uncomfortable enough.

Me: Here.

Brunhilde The Bitch: Splendid! I’ll come find you in a bit. Try to enjoy yourself?

I squinted at my phone. Did she expect to socialize? Me? Shiro? Socializing with a bunch of Sentinel corpo executives? Really? Even just thinking about it made me want to laugh in anger. She really knew how to press my buttons. 

“The staff entrance is down the hall.” Someone finally acknowledged my existence, and approached with his arms crossed in front of his chest. Two people followed him around with fawning expressions like he was the best shit to hit the toilet.

“I’m not staff.” I glanced up from my phone, and casually slid it into my pocket.

The man shoveled a fancy snack down into his gullet. “Then I must ask who let you in here?” 

“Does it matter?” Despite having the eating habits of a grease ball, he looked incredibly jacked thanks to what looked like extensive body mods. As I should've expected from a corpo. Even their bodies were fake.

He laughed and primly brought his hand up in front of his mouth. “Why of course it does. I need to know which department head to write a formal complaint to.”

“Yeah! What he said.” One of his lackeys spoke up with far too much enthusiasm. The exec shut him up with a simple glare.

“Ah, perfect.” His glare vanished as the executive grabbed a cup of wine from an elegantly dressed waiter moving around the place. “I’ll ask again—who let you in here?”

”The guards at the elevator.” Not like I could’ve gotten in here any other way. Not without some serious effort on my part to crack Sentinel’s security.

“Right, like they’d let in some gutter rat.” He swirled wine around his glass and took a breath of the aroma. He closed his eyes softly as if intoxicated just from the scent. “You have three seconds to see yourself out before I call for security.”

“Yeah, whatever.” Fuck. Next time, I’m not coming even if they hold the entire weight of Sentinel over my head. It wasn’t worth dealing with this bullshit. I’d just burn my identity and move somewhere else… probably not, but the point still stood.

“Executive Kyler.” A familiar voice called from behind him. Brunhilde approached wearing a fancy dress that made her look absolutely radiant. Her eyes flicked to me with annoyance before settling on the executive. “Kindly leave the girl alone.”

“Why?” The executive looked genuinely confused. The superior expression he kept with me melted away, and he finally stopped swirling that stupid wine glass of his. His two lackeys, sensing something was off with rat-like survival instincts, instantly distanced themselves and vanished into the crowd.

“Ah, let me introduce our VIP guest and our guest of honor.” Brunhilde’s smile sharpened into something predatory. Her voice lifted to announce it to the entire room. “This is Shiro. Shiro Tsukuyomi.”

”T-Tsukuyomi? A-as in—“ His eyes darted to the centerpiece flyer gently floating in the air just above the hall. 

“That’d be me.” I smiled innocently and picked at my coat like a sweet child lost in the world of adults. “But maybe I should just take the rights back for my Roughrighder and go to Raijin instead? If this is how Sentinel treats its partners.”

“Ah, ah, ah!” Brunhilde played along with me, and wagged her finger as if I was just a disobedient kid. “You know perfectly well you can’t revoke the production license for at least two decades.”

Ugh, she had a point. That contract they sent me at least offered me an out by then, but there was no telling if I’d even care by the time twenty years rolled by. “Maybe. Our contract doesn’t say anything about the new stuff I make, though. I’ve already gotten a few offers from Raijin, so…”

That part was true. Ever since Luna launched the Cold Moon Solutions site, I’d gotten a few emails I’d ignored. Just a few probing ones, probably, but Sentinel didn’t need to know that. All they needed to know was that their number one competitor was eying me. 

As for the website… Well, it was pretty useless. I’d originally been planning on making sales through it, but Sentinel took that over entirely. Now it was just a basic webpage with the company’s information on it, and even then not much. Maybe once I figured out a new product, it’d become useful again.

“My sincerest apologies, Miss Tsukuyomi.” The man looked like he was about to have a breakdown in the middle of the party. His trembling hand clutched at his wine glass. “I-I don’t know how I didn’t recognize you. I n-naturally meant no disrespect—“

”Kyler.” Brunhilde cut the man off with the shake of her head. “Instead of continuing to bother Miss Tsukuyomi, why don’t you go report to HR instead?”

”I…” After a few moments, his training finally kicked in and the man’s expressions died behind a polite corporate smile. The life in his eyes wilted as the cold reality settled in. “I understand. I’ll be going now. It was a pleasure to meet you, Miss Tsukuyomi.”

”Can’t really say the same.” Not that I was too offended about it. I’d probably forget all about it once I left here.

Brunhilde clapped her hands lightly, and shuffled over to my side. “I really am sorry about that, Shiro. Sentinel’s like one big happy family. It’s just that, erm… malefactors show up every once in a while.”

”You can keep your propaganda to yourself.” My innocent smile broke, and I glared coldly up at the woman. “I’m already signed with you guys.”

”Ah, so you are.” She let out a laugh, and shrugged. She leaned down to whisper to me, though the smile never left her face. “You couldn’t have dressed a little nicer?”

”I didn’t realize this was a black tie event. You’re lucky I even cleaned the soot off my face before coming in.” The water had been black for a while when I got in the shower. Yeah… I’d been working too much recently. Maybe it was for the best I got outside for a bit.

“So I am.” She crossed her arms, and tapped her nail against her jacket. “Should I get you a personal attendant to help in daily matters? Like buying new clothes?”

”Pass. I couldn’t care less.” Though as I spoke, my cheeks warmed a bit. I was planning on embarrassing Brunhilde, but just wound up doing it to myself. She looked totally unbothered by my attempts.

“Eccentricity is a common trait among geniuses.” She nodded knowingly with that same smile that somehow looked mocking. “It wouldn’t hurt.”

”I’m not a genius.” It took literally slamming my head through countless textbooks in the learning space to get where I was now. Though I was maybe a bit eccentric compared to the norm. “‘Sides, your attendant would really just be a spy trying to steal all my secrets, chek?”

”Come now, there’s no need for such paranoia between us partners.” She patted my shoulder, though obediently backed away once I shook her off. “Sentinel is all too happy to treat you the same as any other of our valued partners despite your smaller corporation size.”

”The same as in planting bugs and trackers in everything I do?” I likewise crossed my arms, and arched a brow. I was still a little annoyed about them trying to spread spyware into my stuff back when I handed over CEO Gale.

Our conversation wasn’t exactly quiet, so the surrounding partygoers were already starting to whisper. Brunhilde glanced at them, and her smile abruptly turned much more corporate. Although most of the important looking people were hiding it quite well, everyone’s attention was on us arguing.

“Ah, I do so love our little verbal spars. Keeps my mind young.” She quite apparently tried to shift the topic. How could I let her when a chance to go for the throat finally showed up?

“Young. Chek, you would need help feeling that way again.” When in doubt, attack a woman’s weaknesses. It was the only way I could get a leg up on her, cheap shot or not. Maybe I should bring up her weight too?

”You…” Her smile dipped slightly before it was replaced with that same corponess that the rest of the people here radiated. She turned to an approaching woman and waved her hand. “Ah, Valerie, my dear. This is the one I was talking to you about.”

Valerie approached, and nodded her head to me. She adjusted her glasses to inspect me like I was a piece of meat. “Valerie Voss, Aythryn City R&D. I was the one tasked with getting your Roughriders up for production.”

”Were they too much trouble?”

”Not after I got the prints without the anti-tamper countermeasures.” She casually admitted to trying to break open one of my Roughriders even before I officially handed them over to Sentinel. “You whipped up some really nasty toys. Based on our own tech, if I’m not wrong?”

”A bit.” So she could see the similarities? Maybe she wasn’t like the rest of the people here. “Sentinel had a strong baseline, but it’s definitely my own tech.”

”Of that we’re in agreement.” She crossed her arms and sighed heavily. “I nearly got electrocuted the first time I disassembled the gravitic chambers.” 

“Yes, well…” Back then, I designed them with bypassing the countermeasures through my Kinetic ability in mind. Brunhilde started to smile as I talked to Valerie, and it totally ruined any desire to continue the conversation. “Ahem. My check, Brunhilde?”

“All in due time, all in due time.” The Valkyrie offered absolutely nothing to me. I knew this was a trap. I shouldn’t have come.

Valerie glanced between me and Brunhilde, and then backed away with a polite smile. “It was nice to meet you, Miss Tsukuyomi. I have a feeling we’ll see each other again.”

”Chek chek.” I shook my head, and once more glared at Brunhilde. “If you think you’re going to distract me with networking, then you’re dead wrong. What’s with calling them Sentinel-Tsukuyomi’s? I never agreed to that.”

“Blame the marketing team.” The ever-so-responsible-and-reliable Valkyrie immediately shifted the blame. “They shot down Sentinel CMS Roughrider. Something about initialisms being so 2089.”

What the hell was an initialism? It was an acronym, chek? I shook my head. It didn’t matter. “I don’t exactly appreciate being dragged into the limelight.”

”It’s a good thing, really. And you are the bike’s designer, so what’s the harm?” She brushed off my concerns easily. “Your name will spread far and wide, which’ll just make Cold Moon more popular. People remember names way better than letters.”

“Still…” Maybe she had a point. Tsukuyomi certainly had a nice ring to it, though that might’ve just been pride. “Was it really necessary?"

”Of course! With our advertisement team’s efforts, Tsukuyomi is already becoming synonymous with lux goods. Isn’t that exciting?” 

“You’re overhyping it, aren’t you?” No way my little hover bikes were becoming that renowned. From what that guy in the flyer bay said, they weren’t even being shipped out quite yet.

Brunhilde just laughed, and nodded to a lonesome man on the far side of the party. “You see that guy over there pretending not to watch us?”

“Chek?” The man abruptly gave up the charade and just lifted a glass toward me in greeting. He had on a cheerful grin for some reason.

”He’s from Raijin’s acquisitions division.” She said. I instantly felt heat flood my cheeks. You mean you’re telling me that I claimed Raijin was trying to get me in front of Raijin? Thankfully, she didn’t seem to notice and shifted targets to a woman in a cheongsam off to the side. “See her?”

I eyed the woman in question. She likewise tipped her head to me. ”Where are you going with this?” 

“She’s from Shen Kang.” Brunhilde pointed to a guy taking shots at a bar. “And that guy over there is Mystech, and—“

”Why are you inviting competitors to your party?” To a party supposedly in my name. More worryingly, why were there so many of the Big 7 here? The Roughrider was just a simple hoverbike.

Brunhilde stared at me for a long moment like she was seeing some innocent teenager. “Oh, Shiro. Half the point of corporate parties is to make your competitors watch you succeed and rub it in their face.”

”… got it.” Corpos were just fucking weird. Everyone here was playing dress up instead of doing something even mildly important.

“Oh! Come come.” Brunhilde abruptly shifted the topic. This time, I let her. “You should meet my nephew! You guys are about the same age, so you’d probably hit it off well.”

”I highly doubt it.” I eyed the Valkyrie weirdly. Somehow, it took me totally off guard that she might actually have family somewhere. Like, it made sense. It was just kinda weird to think of her as a person? That didn’t sound right. “My check.”

Brunhilde stuffed her hands into her pockets with a bright smile on her face, and snapped her fingers. “Ah, won’t you know it? I must’ve left it with my nephew. Clumsy Brunhilde, am I right?”

”Really? Are we really doing this?” Was she seriously trying to set me up with some teenage boy at a time like this? I wasn’t interested.

”Are we doing what?” Brunhilde looked away from me, which was probably the strongest sign of guilt I’d ever get out of the woman. “I’ve been absolutely dying for you two to meet. Please? As a personal favor to me?”

”Fine.” I snapped at the woman. She was supposed to be a Valkyrie, not an auntie playing matchmaker. What the hell had my life come to? ”Where is he?”

She lifted her wrist, and checked an ornate watch. “Should just be arriving any minute now—“ 

The doors to the hall were tossed open as heavily armed bodyguards entered the place. Voices throughout the room cut off at the sudden entrance. The guards split apart, and allowed a person to step into the room. My face instantly paled as I recognized him.