The room is clean, anodyne. Sterile marble, glass, steel. Clean. Precise. Carefully, tastefully made.
This just makes the spread of papers, empty disposable coffee cups, and hydras of cables, more intensely messy, more intensely dishevelled in stark contrast. The people round the table aren’t a great deal better.
Ajeigbe, Buxton, Santangelo, Mendez, Bridger. The five of them – representing Directorate, Logistics, Operations, Research, and Security respectively – each are the face, the puppet, of a colossal bureaucracy. The most powerful mortals in their world, yet each one’s words, actions, even thoughts, are the summarised and digested apexes of thousands of researchers, managers, experts, and grizzled security consultants.
Buxton presses STOP on the recording, and Amargosa and Sonoran cut out for the fifth time this afternoon.
‘So, what we’re looking at is a rival. They’ve got access to gate tech. Our gate tech, which someone gave them access to,’ a glare at Dr Santangelo, who moves as if to speak, and then steeples her fingers, biding time. ‘They’re planning just the same that we are. Hostile universe takeover in cases that no one will miss. I don’t think what we saw was an explicitly hostile act – I think our ships were just in the way. But even so, this marks a shift in our operational tempo. We’ll have to start building our outreach network sooner than expected. Start directly and openly competing with Emporium. Secure access to energy, matter, wherever we can. Start establishing monopolies …
He trails off, then looks down, checking a message on his tablet. Mendez takes the opportunity to dig the knife in.
‘Something that would be a lot easier if we had a monopoly on long-range bulk transit. Gate technology. Not just pissed it away to the first jumped up AI that asks, giving up, like, our only technical advantage.’
Now that is it. Dr Mia Santangelo, Head of Operations for the Firm, spymaster, racketeer, agent of chaos, who’s logged more time through the Gates than everyone else in this room put together, stands.
‘Annie! Luther! May I remind you how much intelligence we gathered from just that one transaction? And how much it preserved our cover? Stop ****ing sniping at me over things you don’t know the first thing about, and get back to playing with your toy soldiers and trains –‘
‘ENOUGH.’ Ajeigbe is usually a quiet, hands-off boss, and even seems to have shocked xirself at this outburst. A little embarrassed, they continue in a much more even tone. ‘The Directorate regrets the loss of two valuable ships, and all their crew, of course. A review of the Emporium operation is ongoing. But my superiors conclude that the moment we enter more direct competition with our rivals was inevitable; at least this occurred on our terms, and the Firm has learned and received a lot for it.’
‘But that’s the past – review and move on. We’ve heard from our colleagues in Finances about the coming trade war. Bridger and Santangelo – I believe you have a presentation on personal threats we’re going to have to address?’
The pair fiddle around with the presentation – with screen share – with mating a compatible data cable onto their tablets – before starting up.
‘Orbital. A bunch of pretentious entities, playing at running the worlds. But the worlds left them behind long ago. A sleeping giant we don’t want to push – because it will crush us – but they have less of a handle on Emporium, and their other agencies, than they think. Industrial action’s going to weaken them in the short term – make them stronger in the long run, but if we leverage our core competencies hard and fast, we’ll be able to swoop in and eat up a whole lot of their market share.’
Bridger smiles. He knows the many forms that ‘leveraging of core competencies’ can take.
‘In terms of entities observed, obviously, well, they’re all deities. We’re people. We’re going to have to tread carefully around every single one of them – you cannot move for culture heroes, patron genii loci, the like. We should be very careful and do our research before we start pressuring anyone in particular.’
On the screen behind him, a list of hi-resolution surveillance capture images flickers past. A fungal shroud, moving across the ground. A large, floating mask. A rose gold storm of eyes and wings. A roiling haze of static. A bat-winged thing of embers and claws and teeth. A prismatic angel and their marsupial companion. A burning leonine warrior, axe in hand. A shadowy loping hunter, wearing a battered and bloodied employee tunic. A slender pillar of melancholic blue flame.
‘Any one of these is bad news, if they try to interrupt our expansion plans. I’ve sent you all a dossier on each of them, with concerns and suggested inducements. But there are several who are likely to be particularly problematic, who have, let’s say, particularly outward-looking attitudes. Mia?’
Mia steps forwards, starts paging through the list. She talks confidently, and clearly, dissecting the security threats and opportunities posed by staff and employees alike, crushing that part of her that rails against talking like this about people who she’s spent the past year with, becoming – well, not friends, but –1)
Ahem. She presents the following, with their mugshots.
‘We shouldn’t move against any of them directly – not yet, not until we’ve established our own base of power a lot more strongly. That might be months. It will more likely be decades. But all of these – we need to watch out for. I’m inclined to suggest they’re some of the biggest threats.’
Ajeigbe half-smiles. ‘Thank you, Bridger, Santangelo. Well – I think that’s given us a lot to chew over. I’d like a report on your area of responsibility at the end of this week, close of business. But for now,’
Xie raises a half-finished cup of cold coffee.
‘To economic success. To prosperity. To the plucky little underdog. To the Firm.’