Chapter 173: Ascension Day
David moved before Adam Smasher could react and turned him into a limbless stump. Without his arms and legs to brace, Smasher's head slammed into the floor.
Small hands clamped around his throat and hauled him up. Rebecca lifted the now-helpless hulk, glanced at his face, and snorted.
"Ugly."
"What a weak body," David added.
Rebecca dragged Smasher away. Per Rocky's instructions, she was going to throw him into the cage prepared just for him.
She didn't know why Rocky wanted it done this way, but she trusted he had a reason.
What awaited Adam Smasher there was an eternity of neural-sim torment. He'd live through endless cycles of hatred and fury aimed squarely at him. He'd be killed over and over, his limbs torn off without mercy, crushed by bodies falling from the sky, forced to taste pain and fear he hadn't felt in years. In that unending grind, his soul would be worn down bit by bit, until the only ending left was agony.
That was Rocky's sentence for Adam Smasher.
Just as Rocky wanted to change the world, breaking Smasher a thousand times over had become its own obsession.
When Rebecca carried Smasher out, the meeting fell silent for the first time.
Yorinobu Arasaka remained composed. Over comms to Arasaka's top brass, he said, "Do as I say, or you'll end up like Adam Smasher. Power or life. Choose."
Arasaka became the first megacorp to bow to Ascension Technology, one of the strongest companies on the planet, now bending the knee. No one else in the room could make sense of a decision like that. Capital never yields by choice.
But with Arasaka taking the lead, other powers started to waver. They hadn't forgotten Ascension Technology's terms: obey or perish. It felt like their fate was no longer in their hands. If surrender could avoid a war and keep them breathing, surrender could be the smart move.
Of course, not everyone could think straight. These were the world's top power brokers. How could they willingly give up authority and capital? Greed makes people reckless, especially men and women of capital.
"I disagree! Ascension Technology's plan is simple: put us under your rule…"
Some hesitated, but others immediately stood to object, following orders from their boards. The first protest didn't get to finish.
"You don't agree?" Rocky cut in, voice flat. "Great. Next time, keep it to yourself. Who's next?
"Anyone else opposed, stand up together."
Hearing that, the hardliners seized their moment. One after another, they rose, called for unity, tried to rally a front against Ascension Technology.
"Good. That's all?" Rocky smiled. "Fewer than I expected."
The smile hadn't faded before the opposing delegates' heads snapped back, neat bullet holes blooming dead center.
At the same time, in low orbit and at sea, ships locked targets on the factions those delegates represented. Troops deployed. Titans dropped out of the sky. The purge began.
Against the shock assault from Ascension Technology, those forces couldn't even lift a hand to fight back. The airborne strike turned the slaughter into a cold, efficient operation. In under ten minutes, the upper echelons of those groups were wiped out. Not one survived.
Everyone else saw it happen.
Ascension Technology was really meant to rule the world by force.
What could anyone do about it?
The hall stayed quiet. Across Earth, executive boards scrambled for a plan. How do you break a deadlock like this? How do you resist domination like that?
There wasn't an answer.
Aerospace fleets worldwide were already in position. The numbers dwarfed everything anyone had imagined. Even the alliance of megacorps formed to counter Ascension Technology had no way to meet that kind of power. The first purge had already proved the ships weren't empty
showpieces. They were battlefield hives packed with terrifying troops.
As for those troops' capability, the demonstration spoke for itself.
The worst part was simple: no matter what they tried, no one could hurt Ascension Technology where it lived. How do you destroy a headquarters satellite parked at the edge of the solar system?
By the time the shock wore off, every faction in the room understood the truth. Ascension Technology wasn't playing on the same level.
This was a blow from a higher plane, and they had no counter.
Whether they were cowed by the fate of the first rebels or just smart enough to see the ending already written, the room went still. No more speeches. No more plans.
Rocky took in the faces and finally spoke.
"Looks like no one's in the mood to talk."
"Then I'm declaring it now. From today onward, the rules set by Ascension Technology are the rules everyone follows."
He paused, smiled, and asked, "Who's in favor, and who's against?"
…
History would remember this meeting. On this day, a company above all others was born in full.
That didn't mean every faction knelt the moment the doors opened. There were still wars, large and small. In the end, domination came the way it always does with overwhelming force.
This meeting marked the point where Rocky finally achieved the goal he'd carried through the cyberpunk world. From here on out, with the world under his hand and power to match, he had time, real time, to change it.
People slowly realized something else. The day they'd feared as a new disaster turned out to be the beginning of life without corporate chains, the start of ordinary happiness.
The date of this meeting would be remembered as New World Day, also called Ascension Day, in honor of Ascension Technology and the legend who built it.
(The End)