>>6326094Jonah clears his throat and begins manipulating the holo-display to run through the figures. "You'll have exact figures uploaded to White Rabbit shortly, forgive me for rounding in the meantime, P.T., I know you love your granularity." He begins, and then starts pointing to some graphs. "Current total employment at HOC is hovering around four and a half thousand, but if we remove logistics, support, and maintenance we are left with roughly two thousand infantry units. That means about a hundred or so Faces, and nineteen hundred Numbers. We are sitting on an exact one hundred and thirteen Reds at the moment, which is high, and everything else is Whites." He says, and the graphs continue to follow his words to provide a visual. He crosses his arms, glancing between you and the display. "We've continued your plan of offering rebates and insurance subsidies for Halberd brand combat cybernetics, and now over sixty percent of the force has at least one cybernetic weapon or limb, and over seventy five percent have combat enhancing cyber implants of some kind, typically to a sensory organ, but this includes subdermal armor plating."
You nod, pleased to hear there's been a three percent rise in the last month. <span class="mu-g">"Excellent. How are we matching up then?"</span> You pry further.
"Well, the other regional powers are Yamamori Industries, Cheiron Global, and Waltex Limited. Our worst cards can squash Waltex goons on their best day, and are about evenly matched with most Yamamori infantry, though the elites can give us trouble. Cheiron still has us outclassed." Jonah admits, giving you half a glance as he explains. He gestures to the logo for <span class="mu-s">Argo</span>, their main PMC. "Even their standard infantry are a nightmare to deal with lately. Argo has a new proprietary combat drugs they call Nectar. Definitely cooked up by the FPD. On the occasion we secure a sample, testing is inconclusive. Could be derived from demon ichor or werewolf spunk for all we know." As he explains this, the display shows mercenaries recovering from bullet wounds in seconds, and tearing limbs off of heavily armored combat drones. He sighs. "Argo has a branch for FPD operatives, the Arrows. They take the same drugs, have many of the same cybernetics, plus they've got monster bits stitched onto them. Analogous to our Reds, but twice as nasty, and outnumber ours by about three to one as of this past month, a forty two percent increase in the region. It suggests they're preparing for defensive or offensive action."
<span class="mu-g">"I see. Anything else?"</span> You're terse in your reply, it's definitely bad news.
Jonah nods. "Yes, we have four hundred infantry drones, two hundred heavy combat drones, and one hundred aerial combat drones. Our drone force is larger than any two other PMC's combined, and that's a solid advantage. I've also noted that Dr. Monroe begins work tomorrow at sector six... I want to resubmit the proposal for developing combat capable Androids."
>Cont'd 