Somnus V - Chapter 26

“We simply need more deuterium.” Kat tried to tune out the nasally voice of the scientist. “It helps that you’ve stopped wasting precious resources on crassly commercial pursuits, but you’ve still lowered the research and development allotment to little more than a trickle.”

 Kat kept herself from smiling at the man, barely. Unlike the more mundane corporate security and employees she had to deal with, there wasn’t any deference there. Willard was one of the best scientists on the planet with an impressive array of kidnapping and assassination attempts under his belt to prove it. As annoying as he could be, Willard was an asset and only one that an idiot would kill over something as minor as impudence, something he knew all too well.

 “I’ve seen the numbers in our deuterium reserves,” Willard continued, his beady eyes flaring with light. “You have enough to triple our rations and it would still last for months. Just think of the experiments we could perform with the extra material. I can assure you that the new technologies we would come up with would more than justify the cost, if you can even put a cost on scientific progress.”

 “Unfortunately,” Kat replied, finally allowing herself a tight smile, “those reserves are going to have to last us a while. There have been major supply disruptions, and although we have taken steps to fix the problem, those steps aren’t necessarily quick. If we’re lucky, you’ll start to see our reserves refilling in four months. If we’re unlucky, it might take more than half a year.”

 The scientist frowned, clearly unsatisfied with her answer.

 “Look Williard,” she continued, her tone softening a little. “We both know that if I gave you full control over the research facilities’ resource vaults, you’d spend all of them on expensive and massive experiments in the first two weeks.”

 “Those are important experiments, Shareholder,” he replied, shaking his head and sending his disheveled dirty blonde hair flopping from side to side. “We are redefining physics right now and you are asking me to slow down. That is like asking a man to slay his own son, an athlete to remove his own legs, a painter to blind himself, a-”

 “Yes,” Kat cut in. “It is. I am not happy about this either, but we both know that careful allocation of the resources that are actually available will go further than simply using all of them in one or two massive and gaudy experiments.”

 “I suppose,” Willard agreed, grudgingly. “You are asking me to cripple myself, but if that is the only option, the research must go on.”

 The hologram in front of her winked out, and Kat leaned back in her seat. She closed her eyes, letting out a deep sigh as Emma, and Whippoorwill plopped down in the chairs on either side of her. Heather leaned against a wall some five paces in front of Kat, her metal arms crossed in front of her chest.

 “He didn’t seem happy,” Whippoorwill said. “Still, he’ll make do with the resources we provide him. He has to know that with the value of the research he’s doing here, any attempt to leave GroCorp employment would lead to his speedy death.”

 “I don’t know,” Heather replied with a shrug. “I’m not sure if Williard cares. He might be willing to die in order to complete an experiment he’s truly invested in. The man’s brilliant but I suspect he’s more than a little insane.”

 Silently, Kat agreed with her security chief’s assessment. Willard had personally adapted the magnetic cores and power systems of the stallesp into something her engineers could use to make the advanced magnetic rifles that her personal military used. The idiot had taken it upon himself to test the final product, half frying himself in the electrical storm produced by the ultra energy dense batteries as they charged for the first time.

 “You’ll keep him from defecting, right?” Kat asked Heather, a bit tiredly. Neither of them needed to add the unspoken qualifier, ‘alive.’ Heather nodded back.

 “I’ll try to keep him happy,” Emma offered. “We can shower him with gifts and more mundane research while we wait for the enrichment facilities to come online. I’m sure he’ll still be a giant crankypuss, but I don’t think anything will fix that. Even if we literally buried him in the resources he wanted, he’d still probably complain about their purity or something.”

 “True enough,” Kat replied, “but that’s enough complaining about Williard. The sun will go out before that man decides to stop being frustrating. How are things going on our stock market project? Are we ready to proceed?”

 “Ready enough,” Whip said. “The program is good to go, and according to Emma, VodCom is in a bit of a frenzy after we hit the maglev. We wouldn’t be surprised if they’re willing to double the maximum prices we’ve already programmed in.”

 “Wouldn’t be surprised isn’t enough.” Kat said, shaking her head. “This is a blow that will halfway bankrupt a megacorporation. Our single branch of GroCorp can’t handle that sort of financial strain, even if we are the richest faction in the most wealthy company.”

 “It feels ironic to talk about playing it safe when we’re taking this big of a risk,” Heather chimed in with a shrug, “but that doesn’t mean that Kat is wrong. We’re taking a calculated risk. No need to go for the throat when a knife in the gut will deliver the same message with fewer potential consequences for us.”

 “Fair,” Whippoorwill replied. “I just wanted to make sure that everyone was on the same page. I didn’t want anyone moaning about what could’ve been in a week.”

 “We won’t have to worry about that,” Kat said with a smile. “If this works out, we’ll make so much money that we’ll be able to buy any two shareholders in GroCorp. It’s hard to be upset when you’re that rich.”

 “As long as I get my own pet shareholder as an anniversary present, I’m fine with that,” Whip replied with a lazy smile.

 Heather practically choked, her calm demeanor rapidly devolving into a stream of uncontrolled coughing.

 “Don’t worry,” Kat quipped back. “I’ll make sure to get you something meaningful and classy. Maybe a mug that says ‘best girlfriend ever’ and a couple coupons for free back rubs.”

 “As much as I would like to continue with whatever this is,” Emma interjected, her voice as thick and saccharin as honey. “Should we call Dorrik over before we begin? I’m sure he’ll want to observe and take notes on a move this big.”

 Kat shifted her head from side to side, pursing her lips as she thought. After a second or two she started musing out loud.

 “Well, he is in the middle of a Chrome Cowboys marathon with Michelle, but I suppose you’re right. Both of them should probably be here. Dorrik will complain forever if he isn’t, and it’s about time Michelle starts to learn the family business. If she doesn’t learn business management from me, she’ll learn it from the streets or worse, someone like Belle.”

 “Didn’t you basically learn how to be an executive from Belle?” Emma asked. “You don’t have quite as much of a light touch as her, but there is a similar aura of abject terror amongst the other shareholders whenever your name comes up. It's like they treat the two of you as bogeymen that will come and take them away if they are naughty little boys and girls that refuse to eat their vegetables.”

 “Exactly,” Kat replied, eyes flickering as she sent a quick note to Dorrik and her sister. “Belle has been an awful influence on me. Michelle needs better role models in her life. She’s not nearly as good at sneaking into her political opponent’s houses and murdering them in their sleep so I’m afraid she’ll need to find a signature style all her own.”

 “Sometimes I think you resort to ‘killing everyone just to be sure’ a little quick Kat,” Emma said with a theatrical roll of her eyes. “It makes things a little hard for me. I spend forever putting together complex and layered schemes to defang and pressure your political opponents only for you and Whippoorwill to go on a date and kill all of them. It’s a little frustrating to be honest.”

 “Sorry,” Kat said, trying to turn her face into an image of cherubic innocence. “I’ll do my best to make sure that Whippoorwill takes your feelings into account the next time she proposes going off on a multi-day killing rampage.”

 That drew a sputter from Whippoorwill and a chuckle from everyone else. Before the comment could inspire a full tangent, the door to the conference room opened and Dorrik rushed in with bright eyes and a light step. About ten seconds behind him, Michelle staggered in, gasping for breath.

 “You said there were some political maneuvers?” Dorrik asked excitedly. “Schemes and plots are afoot? Are you going to be using light magic to pretend to be the lover of a rival executive in order to drag secrets out of him only to taunt him with your discoveries later, all while he realizes that he was secretly in love with the you underneath your illusion the entire time rather than his mistress?”

 “No.” Kat wasn’t sure how Dorrik had managed to get that entire sentence out without taking a breath, but somehow he had. Must have been a passive psi ability or something.

 “I’m going to leverage my massive wealth to manipulate the stock market like an ordinary executive,” she continued. “With any luck, I’ll be able to force VodCom’s market cap down by five to ten percent in a matter of minutes.”

 “Oh,” Dorrik said, clearly disappointed. “How will you be manipulating the stock market? Does it at least involve sending a team of spies to steal an agricultural report on orange harvest yields so that you can act on that secret information before the market opens? Maybe someone can disguise themselves as a gorilla or something of that nature?”

 “We’re going to use a computer program and shell companies to generate an artificial run on a product only to back out at the last second,” Whippoorwill replied, an apologetic note to her voice. “VodCom has tipped their hand that they’re using their own program to buy the isotopes we need, and their purchasing habits have gotten even more aggressive since the train heist. With any luck, we’ll be able to completely fleece them before they know what happened.”

 Dorrik crossed both of his arms in front of his chest, crest hanging limply from the back of his neck as he somehow managed to pout despite having a scaly muzzle rather than a mouth. It was impressive really.

 “I cannot believe that this is the event you are letting me witness,” the lokkel grumbled. “You robbed a train without me, and now I get to watch a bunch of changing numbers. I am sure that this scheme of yours is very well planned out, but-”

 “We aren’t actually going to look at the numbers,” Kat said ruefully. “The program is going to be moving too fast for that. Whippoorwill will be monitoring everything through her direct connections. We’re going to review the report after it's done and make further plans from there.”

 Dorrik didn’t bother to reply, simply deflating as he sat down and let his body slump bonelessly into the chair.

“Fine,” he said unhappily. “I’ll keep a record of your activities for my logs, but I’m not going to pretend that I’m happy about it. You have to promise to bring me along on your next daring raid.”

“Deal,” Kat replied, doing her best to keep herself from chuckling. “I don’t know how we’ll manage to find a mission that you can tag along on without it being incredibly obvious that you’re not human, but I’m sure we’ll figure something out so you can tag along.”

That finally drew a smile from the lokkel, giving Kat all the permission she needed to proceed.

“When you’re ready Whip,” Kat said with a nod. “Let’s make ourselves rich.”

“Richer,” Michelle chimed in, her eyes shining with excitement. “You’re already rich.”

“The best credits are more credits,” Emma chimed in. “Especially if the credits used to belong to someone who was annoying you.”

Whippoorwill leaned back in her chair, eyes going distant. Her lips moved slightly as if she was saying something, but even with Kat’s enhanced hearing she couldn’t make out anything but the sound of her girlfriend breathing.

After a couple of seconds, Whip spoke quietly.

“I’m linked with the commodity exchange in Singapore Prime, trading is going normally other than a slight price spike on silver and cobalt, but that’s well within expected margins. Our Hydrogen isotopes are still at grossly inflated prices with commodity futures for the next eighteen months not even being traded. VodCom and NeoSyne are content to hold what they have at the moment, but there is some pretty stiff trading about the next six to twelve months after that. Looks like speculators are anticipating the big corps buying those supplies out at inflated prices as we get a little closer to the date in question. Our little stunt with the train seemed to tip everyone off that something big was going on with the major players so even the smaller groups are trying to get a cut of the action.”

“Release contracts for five percent of Belle’s projected output in the next year,” Kat replied. “Let’s start the bidding war. Once everyone’s in a frenzy we can target the rest of the commodity futures. VodCom will step in to protect their monopoly then, I’m sure of it.”

Whippoorwill blinked.

“Market is going wild for new isotopes,” she remarked, voice clipped. “I don’t think anyone was expecting more deuterium to hit the market.”

She licked her lips, eyes still distant.

“Price is around 300% up,” she continued, “shifting to long-term future’s markets.”

“Wait.” Whip frowned. “That’s not-” She sat up in her chair, eyes still vacant but her hands were gripping its arm rests tightly.

Kat prowled closer, her eyes fixed on Whippoorwill. Her girlfriend’s fingers dug into the hand rests, her nails going white as the pressure restricted her blood flow.

“No, no, no,” Whippoorwill muttered. “How did they find that one? Need to reroute, and-”

Kat glanced over at Emma and Heather. Neither of them seemed to have any idea what was happening either.

Whip’s face screwed up into a frown, her gaze still vacant. Her mouth moved silently, muttering something to herself that even Kat’s enhanced hearing couldn’t make out.

“What’s going on?” Michelle asked only for Whip to jump up from her seat fistpumping wildly. Kat opened her mouth to reply only to be cut off before she could say anything

“Got 'em!” Whippoorwill yelled exultantly, “if you tag twenty of our twenty five shell companies that doesn’t stop us from rerouting all of our transactions. Eat gravel and bugs, you washed up losers!”

Kat cocked her head to the side, looking around the room to see if anyone else had a better idea what was happening. Heather didn’t even bother to pretend to know what Whippoorwill had been doing. Emma at least looked like she was trying to track the market through her smart glass, but reading along was nowhere near as fast as Whip’s direct connection.

Dorrik seemed interested, his crest fluttering as he made eye contact with Kat, but it looked like he knew as much about Whippoorwill’s excitement as her.

Whip reached over to the center of the table, unplugging the cord that connected to the back of her head. She blinked a couple times, a huge smile still lighting up her face.

 “Well?” Kat asked. “That certainly sounded a bit more exciting than an algorithm fleecing some idiots and making us rich.”

 “That’s because I am the smartest woman in the whole world and planned four steps ahead,” Whip replied triumphantly.

 Kat couldn't help but smile back at Whip. There was something about the girl when she got excited about a topic that just filled her with warmth like a big mug of cocoa on a cold winter day.

 “The first step of the plan went off without a hitch,” Whippoorwill continued excitedly. “The entire market went into a feeding frenzy just like you expected. Five or six of the bigger holding companies that we’ve identified as NeoSyne and VodCom cutouts started buying up our entire supply the second it hit the market. Half of the smaller players could only get a single purchase order in. We barely were able to push the price up to 300% before the new supply of isotopes simply ran out.”

 “Why would it run out?” Dorrik questioned, cocking his head to the side. “If people were willing to buy the products at a higher price, wouldn’t it simply be more efficient for those who were holding onto the commodities to sell at that price?”

 “Yes and no,” Kat hedged. “If someone is just trying to make a quick credit, buying low and selling high is the right way to do that. Of course, that doesn’t account for situations where the goal isn’t making a short term profit. If someone thinks a product will go up in value, they can buy and hold onto it, waiting for an eventual high water point to exit at. Usually this isn’t that big of a deal as there is almost always someone willing to sell, but right now-”

 “Right now it’s corporate warfare,” Emma finished for her. “The goal isn’t for them to make a profit. They just want to deprive us of the resources that we need to run our production lines. VodCom will fill up a warehouse full of the stuff and not touch it just to spite us.”

 Her face twisted into a quick wry grin. “Especially after that stunt with the maglev. No one could pin it on the two of you, but your identity as Erinyes is an open secret as is the fact that you’re trying your hardest to get your hands on the isotopes that were on that train. The Vods are hopping mad after that. I’m not sure exactly how many hundreds of millions of credits it cost them, but I’ve caught wind of at least three hits that have been put on both of your heads in the last couple of weeks. Pricey ones too.”

 “ANYWAY,” Whippoorwill interjected, eyes burning as she glared at Kat and Emma for their respective interruptions. “After we made an absurd amount of money selling off a fraction of Belle’s projected yield, we’ll have to make sure to get those credits to her by the way, she’ll get upset if we pulled a sca-business deal and left her out of it, the scene was primed for us to start on the distant futures market. Vod and NeoSyne hadn’t really made much of an effort to lock down the market that far out.”

 “Where things got interesting was when I actually tried to use our shell corporations to make purchases.” Whip was practically hopping up and down with excitement. “I don’t know how they managed it, but someone was tampering with our purchases. Every time I’d try to purchase a specific isotope contract, the actual order would be delayed by a couple of nanoseconds and VodCom would scoop it out from under me.”

 Kat frowned. That shouldn’t be possible. There were a lot of crimes that the corporate world ignored for the sake of shared profit, but interfering with the stock market wasn’t one of them. Too many important things depended on the market being fair and accurate. Every mega corporation contributed jointly to its security systems. Interfering with a purchase order in real time should be harder than swimming from Earth to the moon without a spacesuit.

 “How in the name of Milton Friedman did they manage that?” Emma asked, voicing Kat’s inner thoughts. “The market is supposed to be beyond impregnable.”

 “I don’t think they managed to actually hack the exchange” Whippoorwill responded cheerfully. “I tried breaking in while this was going on in order to figure out what was happening but it was like throwing an egg at a brick wall. It didn’t matter though.”

 “I had a couple spare shell companies that no one found out about,” she continued, her grin practically consuming her face. “I barely used them except to transfer money in and to make some minor unrelated purchases. All orders went through couriers rather than the communication network, just in case. As soon as I started using them, we were able to lock up everything for a couple of seconds before I managed to sell it at a huge gain. Our opponents got pretty desperate there and I think we managed to fleece VodCom for almost 10% of their annual operating capital. Whatever executive was dumb enough to authorize this, they’re about to be in a world of hurt at the next shareholder meeting, especially if VodCom manages to figure out that in about six months we’ll have the entire supply chain issue solved.”

 Kat felt a predatory grin blossom on her face. Ten percent of VodCom’s operating capital was… a lot of money. Almost too much. Her fellow shareholders might start getting worried that she would try to start elbowing them out. Being rich and powerful was good, but being too rich and powerful could be a problem of its own unless you eclipsed your peers by so much that they couldn’t threaten you even if they managed to work together. Of course, that was a problem for another day.

 “Now we just have to figure out how they managed to intervene,” Kat said thoughtfully. “Ice Cobra has known a lot of things she shouldn’t, and now someone managed to interfere with the stock market itself. We don’t know what organization we’re up against, but whoever it is, they’re certainly more capable than they should be.”

 “More capable than any human should be now that I think about it,” she finished, frowning slightly.

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