Two days later.
Ascension Technology, Rocky's office.
Resumes filled his slate in a steady scroll. Lissandra had only pushed the recruitment posts for forty-eight hours, yet the inbox looked like a dam had broken. He had expected a slow trickle for a brand-new company with no history. He underestimated what the Arasaka association did to people's brains.
Arasaka was a world-tier giant. Every day, thousands tried to wedge themselves through its doors. Even a "strategic partner" tag on Ascension Technology drew crowds who wanted to gamble on a fast lane.
"Filter out the pure lottery tickets," Rocky said, and Lissandra did. What remained was a dense stack of real prospects. He paged through them, increasingly impressed: grads from serious programs, staff with stints at major houses. Not absolute elite, but the kind of people most mid-market firms would fast-track into management.
That volume was abnormal for a newborn firm, even with the Arasaka halo. Which meant obvious things: Ascension had already been targeted, and some of the "talent" came pre-wired for someone else.
Rocky had planned for precisely that. He hadn't installed Lissandra to watch memes.
"Schedule interviews," he said.
…
"Yamamoto Daisho. I've read your resume," Rocky said across the desk. "Top of class, State International College. Why us?"
The young man in a neat suit smiled like sunlight. "Your company has strong potential and a clear runway. I need a place to contribute. So I chose to try here."
Nothing in the answer tripped alarms on delivery. Rocky didn't over-interrogate; competence mattered more than patter. He slid a tablet across.
"I'm satisfied. Employment contract. If you have no questions, sign and report tomorrow."
Yamamoto logged his details and pressed his fingerprint for authentication. Contract complete.
"Now plug your link here," Rocky said, pointing to a slim port at the desk's edge.
"Yes."
Yamamoto connected. Lissandra's enterprise client rolled onto his interface cleanly. The new hire's eyes flicked as he scanned the dashboard—HR, scheduling, notifications—a full corporate stack on day two of operations. Someone had come prepared.
"Management, attendance, notifications. All in that client," Rocky said. "Stay connected. The market has a heavy queue."
He waved Yamamoto to the door; more interviews waited.
In his ear, Lissandra spoke. "Background check on employee Yamamoto is complete."
Rocky opened the file. The bow on the wrap slipped off. The "State International College" line was a dead label. Lissandra's quiet, deep dive traced academic records to a different source.
{ Lissandra: Background check complete — Yamamoto Daisho }
{ Finding: Education mismatch • True alumni: Arasaka Academy }
{ External linkage: Active ties to Arasaka }
{ Risk label: Corporate infiltration (Arasaka) • Action: Awaiting instruction }
Rocky wasn't surprised. Cooperation on paper didn't mean Arasaka would stop sending eyes. If you want reliable intel, you collect it yourself. Arasaka already knew he wouldn't lend them anything; they'd come dig it out.
He did wonder which chain sent Yamamoto. Corporate espionage lived under V's scope, but V reported upward like anyone else; sometimes you let the machine run because killing a process raises bigger alarms.
"Do we act on Yamamoto?" Lissandra asked, proactive by design. Absolute loyalty didn't blunt initiative; she optimized around Ascension's growth.
"Don't spook him," Rocky said. "Same for the rest. If they want to steal, give them something to steal. Wrap worthless data to look premium and feed it to their hooks."
He spun his chair toward the rack and continued, "Also hide yourself. Mask our servers as vanilla SME boxes. Isolate anything that matters. Let everything else look open enough to keep them calm."
Fortress walls that look impenetrable are invitations for heavier artillery. Better to look ordinary, let them "win," and guide the story they carry home.
"Understood," Lissandra replied.
A moment later the diagnostics pinged.
{ Defensive layer deployed: Perimeter ICE (SMB grade) }
{ Honey-fortress online • Decoy datasets loaded }
{ Internal access control: Role-based • Realtime policy tags enforced }
{ Server signature: Obfuscated to commodity profile }
Anyone probing Ascension would now trip a believable, breakable ICE, then fall into Lissandra's curated fake vault—packed with harmless numbers and truths Rocky wanted them to "discover." Inside staff access would ride permission tags; what an engineer saw was not what a contractor saw, and neither touched the core.
Rocky scrolled another batch of resumes. He wasn't going to turn away real skill because of embedded watchers. If rival corps wanted to fast-track their best into his org just to get a foot in the door, that was still labor he could use. The game from here was patience: who could hold their breath longer without blinking.
"Next candidate," he said, and the door opened. The company started to take its first real shape.