The Bobo’s facility was a towering testament to ambition, a sprawling research institution that housed numerous departments, each working on wildly different projects. The sheer scale of the operation was immense; specialized labs occupied different floors, dedicated to various esoteric fields of science and engineering. Reports were mandatory, compliance was strict, and funding was seemingly endless, yet, despite the staggering resources poured into the structure, not a single department had managed to produce a breakthrough result yet. The constant pressure was a tangible weight in the air.
In the heart of one of these high-security production labs stood a man named Ramon. He looked deceptively young, yet the stress of his work or something darker had already caused all of his hair to prematurely whiten. Ramon was the meticulous mind in charge of this specific, highly sensitive production line. He had his own dedicated team of scientists and engineers, all dressed in standard-issue lab coats.
But today, their secretive sanctuary had a visitor, and he looked entirely out of place.
The visitor, a man known as Evon, wore a short white jacket that seemed more fashionable than functional. He hadn’t bothered with any type of lab coat, a clear sign of his elevated status and disregard for protocol. He was lean with short black hair and a small, almost arrogant cut on his lip, giving him the look of a street fighter dressed for a business meeting.
"So, how are things going?" Evon asked, his tone impatient and slightly rough, lacking the polite cadence of the scientists around him. "Is the product finished yet? You’ve managed to still stay under the radar with everything, right, Ramon?"
Ramon, the man with the shock of white hair, calmly reached up and pushed his glasses back onto the bridge of his nose, a practiced, stabilizing gesture. He allowed himself a small, chilling smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
"It’s been over a year now, Evon," Ramon replied, his voice a low, self-satisfied drone. "And she is none the wiser. Who would have ever thought these Stern family members were such easy, arrogant targets to make money from?"
Ramon walked over to one of the central consoles that was currently displaying various benign research reports and endless spreadsheets on its multiple screens. With a few precise button pushes, a low hiss of steam escaped from a concealed vent in the wall. The metallic wall panels then began to flip over, quickly revealing what was previously hidden: a massive array of equipment, information displays filled with diagrams of different herbs and biological notes, and finally, the actual project.
The equipment on display was highly advanced, almost alien in its design. It looked like various pieces of specialized, mechanical armor meant to be worn directly over the human body. They were mechanical exoskeletons designed for the legs, the arms, the hands, and the rest of the body. Each piece was sleek, metallic, and deadly in its precision.
"We managed to successfully obtain the seed money from Chad Stern and the Black Hounds, the money he foolishly wagered on that ridiculous event," Ramon explained, gesturing to the gleaming tech. "And we have been using that substantial war chest to develop our latest, greatest product."
He walked over to the now-exposed wall rack. Ramon then picked off a single piece of the prototype, a glove-like device that went around the user’s hand. It clipped around his forearm with a soft hiss and then encased his entire hand in metallic plating, forming almost a gauntlet over each of his fingers. He flexed his hand slowly, opening and closing it. The device moved naturally with his fingers, not hindering his dexterity at all. It felt like an extension of his own bones and muscle.
"And then, there’s the money that Bobo has given us to conduct her own legitimate, and frankly, fruitless research," Ramon continued, his voice dripping with contempt for his employer. "We have designed a method to systematically divert those funds elsewhere. We have been moving that research money around for our own personal use and development for quite some time now, and she hasn’t been able to notice a single thing. And she never will notice until it’s far too late for her to stop us."
"I heard there were problems, though," Evon cut in, his eyes fixed on the metal gauntlet. "That the company was supposedly struggling to find new funding."
Ramon smirked, turning to face Evon fully. "Right. I thought it might have been a good chance for the Gilt Rats to actually initiate a takeover of this entire facility and acquire all of Bobo’s infrastructure at a bargain price." Ramon paused, his white hair glinting in the lab light. "But I want to push her even harder. I want her to use more of her own money before we make our move. I want her to bleed dry."
He walked a few steps, his voice becoming conspiratorial. "Some of the other experiments in her other departments? The ones that are on the cusp of being successful? I have been cleverly holding them back for a while now, subtly sabotaging their progress just enough to allow more money to flow into this place in desperate bursts. When she eventually thinks all is hopeless, when she realizes she’s poured every last penny into this pit and doesn’t want to invest one single penny more into the company, that’s when the Gilt Rats will finally come in and make her an offer that will seem quite pleasant and merciful to her desperate eyes."
The Gilt Rats, an insidious syndicate-level gang, had managed to sneak their most trusted operative, Ramon, into Bobo’s supposedly impenetrable facility. Using the enormous amounts of money meant for her own high-level research, they had been funding their own, darker creations in secret, and their efforts were finally starting to bear fruit. They had vast amounts of money from their usual criminal work, the money from Chad Stern’s disastrous betting with the Black Hounds, and now, all of Bobo’s private research funds. Their power base was growing exponentially.
"Even if they do somehow manage to get more funding, we will just keep doing as we have been doing, diverting and sabotaging," Ramon said with finality. He walked back to the console and picked up a piece of ordinary rock, a small, heavy stone, with the hand wearing the mechanical gauntlet.
He then gripped his hand tightly. With no discernible effort at all, the rock instantly cracked, shattered, and crumbled into small, dusty pieces that fell harmlessly to the floor.
"We have managed to make a successful prototype product. With this single success, we can start to develop a few more of these specialized gauntlets and exoskeleton parts," Ramon boasted, his eyes glowing with ambition. "And if they work out as well as I predict, I’m sure we will be able to mass-produce something that makes us even stronger than those so-called super-humans."
He clenched his fist again, savoring the feeling of unstoppable force. "Then, at the next Invitation event, we will show all of them who truly holds the most power in this city."
Ramon had a massive, manic smile plastered across his face. He carefully took the powerful device off his arm and handed it to Evon.
"Here, try it on," Ramon instructed. "It will clip directly onto your wrist."
Evon took the gauntlet, his eyes wide with avarice and excitement as he fitted the device to his forearm. "Haha, this is great!" he exclaimed, flexing his fingers with newfound, terrifying power. "I’m already plenty strong, but with this thing, I’ll be unstoppable! Who do you want me to test it on first, Ramon?"
Ramon thought about the question for a while, tapping his finger against his chin, considering the most impactful and secretive test possible. He finally came up with an answer that would serve both a discreet test and a dramatic statement.
"The Black Hounds are having one of their underground events soon," Ramon said. "Why don’t you join in and use the device there? It will be the perfect test to see its full capabilities in an actual, high-stakes combat environment without raising suspicion about its true origin."