Corpo Age

Chapter 43: Logistic Nightmare

“Rollo! We tried contacting our usual shipping company, but they declined all our orders. We’re getting the same answer from all the other shipping companies we contacted.” Claire rushed toward me frantically as soon as I stepped back into the clinic.

“How much stock do we have left?”

“We have enough for a little over a month for the clinic, but we have pending orders to State Care Clinics coming up next week and one another one the week after.”

Shit, this wasn’t just the penalties for breaking the contract at stake, our credibility with our partners will go down the drain before it even began.

“Reserve our stock for the orders. We’ll temporarily stop selling Shades for now.”

“Okay, I’m on it,” She said, as she ran off to the back.

This would only stop the bleeding for now. We needed to find an alternative fast.

I headed back into the camera room, where I found Leo.

“Got any ideas for our situation?” I walked up and stood over his shoulder.

“No… I have tried everything I know. I called up Fitel and some other QGs too, but every corporation out there is looking for more shipping capacity to make a tidy profit.”

“I guess that means buying a boat or plane is out of the question too?”

Leo downed his cup and turned to me. “Nothing. The entire city is sold out, from luxury yachts to old scrap buckets that can barely stay afloat. First large-scale space war in 30 years, and everyone is overreacting.”

“...I’m going to NLA then. If there’s nothing we can do here, then might as well try elsewhere.”

“I’ll come too. I’m not having the company I just joined go down so soon.”

“Book the next flight for us.”

The flights to NLA this time were five times the price and with carry-on only. Vin was waiting for us when we arrived in the same old car he drove.

“Sorry boys, I had everyone reach out to see if there was any luck on this side, but we’ve been getting nothing so far. This may have been a fruitless trip for you guys. Nevertheless, feel free to give it a try yourselves if you want.”

“...I could try looking for some ships to steal from a small company or something. A smaller yacht would suffice for the quantity we’re moving,” Leo cautiously said.

“You think a small business will be able to keep their boat in this current landscape? Only corporations with a decent security team will have anything we could use by now.” Vin turned to Leo in the back seat and replied, much to my dismay, as he was manually driving the car.

We shared a moment of silence as we were each deep in thought. Before we knew it, we arrived at our NLA office, which doubled as a production facility.

There were unfamiliar faces on the security team, but they seemed to know who I was as they respectfully saluted as we walked by. This was true for all the other new employees we passed by as well, while the veterans who I recognized knew I liked to keep it casual.

I briefly inspected our production process and the storage with our Shades, our company’s stealth cybernetic. There was still quite a bit of room in our warehouse, though if we stopped shipping them out, sooner or later it would fill up.

My office upstairs appeared unchanged from the last time I was here. It was apparent someone had cleaned and maintained the room, though. I sat down in my chair and spun around to get a view of the streets down below when I heard the noise of the door opening.

“I got everything on the shopping list you gave me in your room. Got any plans for the rest of the day?” Vin’s voice rang out from behind.

“Where’s Leo?” I asked.

“He’s just dropping off a few things to his room. He’ll be here in a second.”

“I see, by the way, thank you for driving through traffic to make the errand run.”

“You’re the boss. If you want to thank me, then give me a bonus.” From his voice alone, I didn’t need to turn around to see the wide smirk on his face. I fought the urge to look back and took in the view of the city, where cars moved at a snail’s pace due to all the traffic.

The door then opened again as Leo joined us and took a seat next to Vin.

“Anyway, how’s the ground transportation looking around here?”

“About the same as everything related to logistics since the war declaration. Though not as intense, since cars are way more plentiful and don’t require trained personnel to handle. The main bottleneck is security to transport through the wasteland. Any large convoy with weak security is just a prime target to be raided.”

“Have the wastelanders become more active recently?” Leo inquired with interest.

“Yep, they don’t like all the new convoys running through their territory, so I guess it’s in reactionary response. Armored vehicles and security are in high demand right about now and are hard to find, just like our shipping situation.”

“That’s it!” I exclaimed. They both urged me to elaborate with their eyes, “You think we can barter ground transport for shipping?”

“Woah, so that is the wasteland,” Leo’s expression easily betrayed his amazement. “It’s like a wall of sand, but it’s so weird that there is a clear border where one side is a raging sandstorm while the other is so tranquil.”

“That’s what I thought too when I first saw it. You’ll get used to it, but don’t forget how dangerous it can be once inside.”

“Yeah, you don’t say.”

Our Vanguards soon entered the wasteland where the sound of the sand hitting the car overpowered any of our conversations until our ears got used to it.

Our driver, Vin, switched from looking out the windshield to looking at the recorded map information and the sensors of the car. The drive went on for a while until our sensors picked up several approaching vehicles.

“We’re here boys. Leo, you better stay respectful and let Rollo do the talking.” He nodded in response before we exited the car together.

This time, instead of just the Wells Clan security team coming to escort us, Sarah was here as well. She lightly skipped over and was about to leap at me, only to be stopped by the woman behind her, holding onto the hem of her shirt.

She calmed down to straighten her shirt before greeting me, “Welcome back, Rollo! It’s been a while. How are you?”

“I’d like to say great, but some issues have come up. I’m hoping to find a solution here today, with the help of your clan.”

“So the spacer’s wars are affecting you too, huh?”

“You guys sure are well informed.”

“Well, yeah, we have some people who regularly go out into the cities. It’s their job to bring back news as well. Anyway, follow me. Dad’s already aware of your arrival and will see you right away.”

Leo and Vin silently walked behind me as I followed Sarah and her entourage toward the familiar building where their chief resided. On the way, I continued to make small talk about how she and Caleb were doing, and I learned that he was busy studying. The main difference was that their school was more focused on practical skills that helped with surviving in the wasteland.

When we arrived, we were immediately invited into the room where Chief Eugene resided.

“Welcome Rollo, I hope you have been doing well in these turbulent times.”

“Thank you for your warm welcome, Gene. I actually came here to see if you could help me solve a problem that arose exactly because of these ‘turbulent times’.”

He stroked his beard as she stared blankly into the air, “Speak freely and we’ll see if we can be of assistance.”

“Then I’ll get straight to the point. I would like to request your clan to allow us to operate a transportation business through your territory.”

“Transportation you say…I take it you won’t only be transporting your own company’s cargo?” He stared me straight into the eyes.

“Correct.”

He closed his eyes while he lit his pipe and only spoke again when he exhaled the fumes, “We cannot allow you to assist our foes to circumvent us, so you may make profits. Especially not after they tried to kidnap our children and use them to force us to do their bidding.”

“We’ll be sure to not do any business with the corporations that wronged you. You must understand that corporations are divided and are competitors amongst themselves.”

“I fully understand. Exploiting that understanding is how we’ve managed to survive with minimal interference from any corporation for so long. But what will my people or the other clans say when they see us buttering up to you city folks after the incident with the children?”

Shit, the wasteland political situation isn’t as simple as I thought…

The room stilled as our conversation came to a halt while I tried to think of ways to make it work. The silence was only broken when Gene finished smoking his pipe and laid it down.

“The only way we would approve your request is if you assist us with destroying the evildoers who were behind Sarah and Caleb’s kidnapping.”

“...As much as I’d like to help, I don’t think I can help with that,” Picking a fight with a corporation when I wasn’t even a newcomer yet would do me more bad than good.

“Let me tell you about them first before declining me,” I nodded at his request. There was nothing to lose from it.

“They are a new corporation called QuickLink Logistics. We’ve investigated quite a bit about them and have already been targeting all of their convoys and their partners for quite a while. Although we are doing a lot of damage on that front, we cannot touch them in the cities. Otherwise, the other corporations would band together to remove us. ”

“I see, so you want us to help take them out for you…”

“That’s right. If you attacked them, it would just be another day’s squabble between corporations. If we attacked them, we would prove to be a threat and a target for elimination. We want you to remove their presence from around our territory. Here is the information we have on them.” He got up and went to the corner of the room and found a folder to give me.

I opened the folder to find real paper, something I had rarely seen since coming to this world. I couldn’t help but lose myself in nostalgia for a second, feeling the texture of the paper before I started reading its contents.

“They may be a new corp, but they have branches not just in NLA and Firebird, but in Miles High, and Can Sauce City.” I raised an eyebrow as I continued reading.

“We only want you to cripple their ability to do business in NLA and Firebird to destroy their route that crosses into our territory. Their headquarters are in Miles High, so it should still be doable.”

‘Only’ and ‘doable’ he says, it may be doable in NLA, but going to a new city to attack a corp isn’t to be taken lightly. Plus, this can easily earn us a powerful enemy, if not done right.

“Give me some time to consider it first.”

“Very well, there is nothing we can do without your help so we are not in a position to hurry,” I held back a sigh after hearing his words.

Right, I’m the only one that’s in a hurry here, I’m going to have to discuss this with Vin and Leo, and maybe convince Claire that this isn’t a stupid idea…well, at least it will be interesting to pitch an attack against a corporation to them.