TBoB - Book 3 - Chapter 10 - The Full Picture

So... I wasn't sure about this chapter at the start, but I think it worked out in the end. Suprise! Can you figure out where this storyline is going yet? I got the idea from Cyberpunk originally, and when I asked birb about it he was all for it, so here we are.

As I followed Mirage through the halls, I couldn’t help but notice how tired everyone was. Mirage wasn’t the only one who looked worn out, pretty much every staffer that I passed looked like they hadn’t slept in days. 

“I hate to tell you this, but I don’t think replacing your staff with zombies is a good way to increase productivity,” I remarked as I watched one girl walk into a closed door. 

“Har dee har,” Mirage sneered. “Do you honestly think we’d be running this organization into the ground if it wasn’t an emergency?”

“I just figured that’s how all the corps worked. Run the employees into the ground, and replace them when they’re no longer useful,” I explained. I noticed one of the staffers turn, and look at Mirage in horror, but the man just shook his head and waved the man away.

“I still don’t understand your vehement hate for corporations, and the need to bad mouth them every chance you get. Not all corps are bad,” Mirage sighed as he pushed open a door and held it open for me.

“Yeah, well, my experience says differently. Sweatshops designed to drive their employees into debt, mines using IS workers to mine illegal materials, and industrial hellholes barely paying their employees a living wage. You’re right, corporations are great,” I said sarcastically as I slipped into one of the comfortable boardroom chairs and slumped down. Unfortunately I was so short that when I slouched, I could barely see over the table. I decided just to wait until the meeting started before I sat up.

Bob pushed his way into the room after me, then took up a position behind me, standing menacingly. Helen followed afterwards, and quickly found a place on the other side of the table. After she was seated Mirage finally made his way up to the head of the table.

“Normally I’d wait, and try to bring everyone up to speed at the same time, but considering the situation,” Mirage said, glancing in my direction. “I’ll just record this and pass it out to the others.” He flicked on a projector, and called up a display. It just looked like a bunch of random lines to me. “As you can see over the last few months, ever since the incident in Jasper, the big four corps have seen consistent, major losses in their profit margins. At first we thought it was due to market fluctuations, due to Global Rare-Earths… unfortunately closing, but now we know otherwise.”

I stared at the squiggly lines for a long moment before yawning. “I get it, someone’s fucking with the corps. Why is this a samurai issue?” I asked.

“Because the corps pay for the PMCs, and between Global Rare-Earth going under, and profit losses, the city’s standing military is down more than thirty-five percent,” Mirage explained.

I blinked, “Is that a lot?” 

“Over seven hundred people? It’s enough to compromise our perimeters during the next incursion,” Mirage said. He flicked to a new display, which displayed a complete list of military units from four months ago compared to today. It was quite a difference.

“Can’t you just, I don't know, tax other corps to make up for the lost profit?” I asked, sitting up for the first time.

Mirage sighed. “Helmar Electronics, Telnet Aerospace, Alliance Bio Tech Systems, and Great Northern Info systems, not only employ about fifteen percent of the city, but they either control, or have interests in most of the other major institutions in the city. They’ve already tapped whatever resources they could to keep things stable, if we don’t figure out who is trying to bring them down, and why, the city’s defenses could be at risk.”

“That sounds…” I started.

“Catastrophic?” Mirage interjected.

“Like it’s not a fucking samurai issue,” I completed. “Sure, it sucks if they go under, but how is that different than replacing a mayor elsewhere? Did you ever consider asking for help from the family elsewhere, bringing in help to cover the lost PMCs?”

Mirage froze for a moment. “Calgary can’t survive without the corporations,” he said quietly.

“Is that empirical fact, or your opinion?” I spat. 

“Okay you two, enough!” Helen yelled, causing both of us to turn towards her. “As much as I like to watch you tear each other apart every chance you get, it’s getting old.” She rubbed her eyes for a minute before looking up again. “Teddy believes that the guy we captured was from out of town, can you think of a reason why some outside force would want to mess with the city?” she asked Mirage.

“I can only think of two, neither are good,” Mirage admitted. “Either another corp is making a play for more market share, driving the supply of product of a competitor down, but if that was the case I think the attacks would have been more focused.”

“And the other option?” Helen prompted.

“Complete corporate take over,” Mirage admitted, locking his fingers and putting his hands up to his nose.

“Again… I don’t see how this is a samurai issue,” I muttered.

“Teddy, for all intents and purposes the corps control the city, and its defenses. If they go completely out of business the city will fall to the antithesis before their opponents have a chance to take control of their assets. So, the best way to take control is to perform a hostile takeover, when their opponents are weak,” Mirage explained. 

I just stared at the man.

“He’s saying that corps go to war Teddy,” Helen finally said, “Someone might roll up to the city with a column of tanks to take over.”

I glanced between the two for a minute, looking for any sign that they were lying. “Bullshit! No one would be stupid enough to throw their defensive forces against another city, decimating both, on the chance they could perform a coup.”

“It’s happened before,” Mirage signed. “People get greedy.” 

“Why the fuck would someone want to take over this shithole anyways? What’s so good about it?” I yelled.

“Calgary has some of the best mining, processing and production capabilities on the west coast. We have contracts from Cascadia to New Montreal, and everywhere in between. There are a lot of corporations that would love to have their hands on that production power,” Mirage said softly.

“Well… maybe you should interrogate that cyber ninja we just delivered to you before jumping to conclusions. Maybe the man was just a nutcase, or maybe he was hired by a local corp and just never heard of me before. There could be a ton of reasons he was running around besides destabilizing the city for a take over,” I said. 

“Don’t worry, I’ve assigned my best people to ‘talk’ to him. We’ll get answers out of him soon enough,” Mirage replied darkly.

“Alright… don’t say it like that,” I muttered back. “It’s creepy.” 

“Is there anything we can do to either prove who’s behind this?” Helen asked. “Besides waiting for the interrogation to end.” Mirage glanced her way, but she just locked eyes with him. “Don’t try and sugar coat it, we all know what it is.”

“The best thing we can do is try and prevent more disruptions to the supply chains, and production. If the corps can get back on track, they’ll be able to hire more PMCs and that’ll dissuade anyone from trying to mess with us.”

“I guess I could use my contacts to look out for more issues in the industrial sectors. I’ll make sure to emphasize not to get involved, so no one ends up like Alex,” Helen mumbled. “With your permission of course.”

“Absolutely,” Mirage replied. 

“Yeah, well, good luck with that. I’m out,” I said hoping out of my chair. 

“Wait, you’re not going to help?” Mirage asked, flabbergasted. “Didn’t you just hear what we said here?” 

“There may be a war, because a bunch of greedy fucking assholes hate each other,” I replied. “But it’s still a corpo issue, and I have no idea why I should be involved, as a samurai. I’ll help with the lack of PMC forces, until things stabilize, but don’t expect me to run around and do chores for you.”

Mirage stared at me for a minute. “You have over six hundred bears sitting around?” Mirage asked. It was obvious that he didn’t believe me based upon his deadpan voice, and half lidded eyes. 

“Of course not,” I replied. “I have around a thousand, so there are spares.” I turned and started walking out of the room, “Have someone figure out the best place to station them, and let me know,” I said, waving over my shoulder. Of course Bob was right behind me, so they couldn’t see it.

When I finally stepped out of the room, and into the hallway I stopped, and looked around. “Fuck…” I muttered. “I forgot to keep track of the path again.”