I understand our discussions may have been cut off rather prematurely, but you had some words of note. If we have further business to attend to, then let us continue. If not, I hope you now have enough resources to remedy any damages that may have been done.
"Who washes the washer men?" Nishi wondered, barely suppressing a sneer she let die in the cooners of her eyes. "Who washes those who dabble with both shiz and soap with such indiscretion as to pass one off as the other? What keeps the world sacred? Price tags?" Her implants flared as she buckled her cage of a flight suit into the blossom's cockpit. It stank, oddly, of bakelite and roses, as if the very naked metal carried it's own musk. "Here, here is reality..." Wondered Nishi, taking an unconscious drag of cardamine, sighing as the fumes kissed her heart. Metal, true, naked metal. No electron money, no lies.
Did you get your secretary or your under-butler to write this? It’s so generic it could be straight out of your calling card. Perhaps this is your calling card. Really, I’d thought better of you. For a businessman who is all about profit, your linguistics is so heavily bereft of personal fervor as to actually owe me a debt – I feel cheated. Typing out your messages in a delightfully illegible scrawl does little to enliven my mood.
The fact is, IND, you hadn’t harmed a hair on my metaphorical moral forehead until the point where you decided that the most expedient way to win my favour was with a significant wad of money. Favors appreciated, but all that’ll go into is bankrolling the salvo of torpedoes I never had the honour to discharge at your hide. In short, you attempted to bribe me, and you bandy it around as compensation. No smoke, no mirrors, no lies here; just clean, straight talk between respectable human beings who understand each other perfectly – I spit on your credits. I spit on your bribes.
Ya’ ever heard the pre-colonial phrase: “Money can’t buy you happiness”? It’s batcrap, money can buy you happiness. It’s not required for it, like you don’t need vitamin supplements to help ya’ get over malnutrition, but it helps. What it cannot buy you is omnipotence. Contrary to the lies you and your ilk disseminate to the body politic, money will not make you everything to everyone. For every person you pay, somebody else is getting shafted – it’s called free market capitalism, babe. But it’s not my place to tell you your profession, any more than it is yours to think you can dictate the terms as to whether I get to shoot you nor not, with your blood money.
You have a moral compass that ran through a magnetron, and it shows in every stitch of your suit, every stench of your cologne, every decorative lace in your twill. You will stand and deliver for anyone, anytime, hauling anything, anywhere, any data for any buyer, so long as the profit motive remains intact. You’d ship for saints, or ship said saints to Satan, all for a credit chip proportional to the pit of your hand.
Thing is, for every time you make a transaction in this world, you end up with a fistful of something called a moral receipt. And that whilst being the proprietors of the Renzu cooperation must doubtless bestow the interior of your umpteenth penthouse with the winning sparkle of a self-made man, all you do is showcase your inherent shallowness. Your lack of substance. Your lack of any real power. You see, you people, you are the brain of this bloodsucking, parasitic leech called a monopoly, which ingests the money of the people, and spits none of it out. You are gorging yourselves on the lifeblood of Kusari – your only true competitors are Samura and Kishiro – markedly different corporations run by a different set of men from a different Babylon of penthouses with a different set of domestic servants, mistresses and whores, it is true. But ultimately your differences remain skin deep. Like you, they retain an internal dearth of substance – oh, I am not calling you soulless, IND, or even heartless. No – I convict you of being nothing. You have no bones, no supporting frame. You have no flesh – no trust from the many multitude of the thousand thousand expendable wage labourers you employ other than control over their salaries, the basest of connections, and ultimately, you have no brain. You pursue profit with the blind dedication of an animalistic, none-sentient thing, like a bee, frenzied to gather pollen. You, in IND, are a queen bee, sitting on your gigantic reservoir of honey, gorging yourself. You are a big man – the social construct of money has turned you into a godlike statue of yourself – but ultimately mortal. Be under no allusions, a torpedo will vaporize you just as succinctly as it would your physiotherapist, or your pencil-sharpener, or your domestic cleaner, or your cook.
You see, people like me, what are we?
Why, we’re here to remind you sometimes that you people bleed out from all the same orifices we do, esquire Preston.
Don’t spill your vodka mojito.
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)
Now this, this is good. So much more than the typical folding we often get. The character, the emotion – excellent. How rare to cross paths with someone in such tune with human nature. Well met, my dear sister, your observations are all correct. Let me begin by apologizing for my rather insulting communique. While things remain. . . .open, so to say. . . . I’ve found that generic texts are those that get responses with little scrutiny. I have clearly underestimated you.
Indeed, the Division has no power other than the power we are granted by others. As you well know, credits sit on the throne of perceptive authority for the time being. Should that change, I can assure it would not be our pursuit. Perhaps you may bring about a world in which this is not so, and please accept my warmest encouragement in your efforts. Until then, though, we must deal with things as they are. I beg of you to create a world in which we are no longer appreciative of how well our pockets may be lined.
But I admit, you misunderstand where we may fit “morally” in this spectrum of yours. Such a spectrum is highly subjective, which is why we concern our efforts on those things which are true. I am sorry you view us so poorly.
I will certainly keeps tabs on our “moral receipt,” as receipts seem to be what you associate us with. However, I shall also do the same with yours, which totals at a minimum $20,000,000 for the time being. I hope that will be it. As tainted as you believe our resources may be, you’re more than welcome to return them. I doubt such will be happening, as the rhetoric of “bribe” and “lies” has more value to you in your marketing efforts, not to mention addressing your more, as noted, "material" needs. As I understand, a bribe typically necessitates a mutual promise in our favor – something we have neither asked for nor received. We may always revisit the issue, should you like. Perhaps over a vodka mojito.
I hope we will meet again. You’re a bright, intriguing woman, my dear Sister Nishi. Don’t disappoint me by talking out of both sides of your mouth.
*Gesticulates* “The Character, the emotion… Magnifico, meraviglioso, ancora, ancora!” Please. You make it sound like I’m auditioning for Isolde. As for being in tune with human nature - culture is a social construct. Nature is defined in more lurid, distinctly saxon verbs: crapping, defecating, killing, raping. Be mindful which you invoke.
*Her eyes execute an aileron roll Quintilian would have been proud of.*
I’m loath to seem contrary, but you didn’t insult me; you bestowed me with an insight into your methodology. By attempting to sound me out with a - frankly default - missive, you were able to observe my -equally default- responses to such stimuli. It’s a diplomatic cliché; and whilst the technique is passé it never fails to illicit some response from your counterpart.
We can par each other with our respective world views until the stars explode; we are professionals, not prophets - our life goal is not to convince each other. Never-the-less, be mindful of this: You pursue power through liquidity, which, as you state, makes you constantly beholden to others. I pursue power through ideals, which only makes me beholden to those I share commonality with, and thus greater compatibility. You can argue that everybody has a fundamental demand for money because of the nature of the system - as you state, you want power, not the mere embodiment of it that money is. But mere power alone is useless unless you project it to influence events. In your case, you wish to earn money to earn more money. You use the power you accumulate to better your accumulation of power - ultimately, you do nothing with it; you take, you spend, you take, you spend, and as the great economic machine cartwheels on down the insensibly bumpy road of shareholder impulse, you are given the liberty to occasionally shave a little off the top for personal use.
The fact you want power for no other purpose than to accumulate power is the very reason why I find it difficult to find you in tune with the earthy necessity of human nature - since every desire you could ever demand is catered for by your wealth, legal, unregulated or illegal, except for the desire for more money, which can never be quenched. We do not oppose this perspective - I enjoy my vodka mojitos as much as the next citizen, and we understand it well, as you say. Do not view me as etherial and dogmatic - we appreciate the value of material needs. Yes, our spectrum is subjective, but so is the value of money: interest rates, for example. The fact that this… perspective… that we have, namely, the ideology that Kusari would be an infinitely more prosperous house if we were holding the proverbial flightstick, is one we are quite prepared to orphan people over.
Shortly; we don’t approve of your actions because you create revenue for whatever house you operate in, both directly via taxation, whenever your accountants fail to diddle the government, and indirectly through the wages of your Kusarian employees. You also produce many of the escort fighters your cooperate competitors use to murder members of my sisterhood - frighteningly good escort fighters, if I may compliment you on that, and the liners the Hogosha use as a template for their… hideously tacky… casinos.
We are attempting to install a regime change in Kusari - we cannot do this if the Republic is economically prosperous. It doesn’t matter how many conscripts we shoot out of the sky, how many tactical successes we have, how many coffins we send home, conscription will always substitute manpower and will inevitably drive the Kusarian people against us. No, victory will be won off the backs of deteriorating living conditions, rising unemployment, and the failure of the Kusari electoral system to appoint a representative that can see these problems off for good. Democracy will die, not by the sword, but by the credit chip.
So; your current activities constitute a loss for the sisterhood. We have to expend manpower at the drudgery of shooting down your escorts, sabotaging your depots, rupturing your liners, and generally wasting assets we could employ elsewhere. It is not a feud I take to heart - quite the opposite; you, at your core, are not our nemesis, which is the Kusarian government. But you do indirectly nurture our nemesis’s survival, which, in turn, makes you indistinguishable. The activity is a thankless one on both sides - just as much as we cannot be everywhere at once, and cannot prevent the vast majority of your transports from safely reaching their port of call, your revenue is harmed significantly by the necessity of having to employ cooperate security grunts, heavier insurance rates, and paying your employees hazard pay - quite apart from the human factor that people regularly die on both sides as par de course of just doing their jobs. Now, extrapolate that relationship dynamic to each one of your competitors and you understand why peace between us, under its present terms, is impossible. The objectives of each party are so opposed to the other as to make an agreement irreconcilable.
Irreconcilable, certainly. That is, of course, until the subject of those pesky “material needs” become a component of the dialogue.
As you say, morality is subjective, controversial, and subject to change. For us, as with everyone, it is a tool, as is money in your own hands. Morality is a force which compels innumerable Kusarian female postgrads with no future employment prospects to strap explosives to themselves in the middle of public terminuses. Terrorism is a wonderful tool for, well, terrifying people, and winning the newly morted Chrysanthemum their five minutes of prime time media fame, but there are a godawful lot of terminuses. You see, the same EMP missile I could use to nullify the shields on a KNF fighter for, say, twenty seconds and give me a slight possibility of ending the life of the faceless young man concerned, well. There will always be more faceless young men, as aforementioned. However, if I were to position the exact same EMP in the middle of the New Tokyo Exchange… You see? The damage is amplified. The art of terrorism is the art of knowing who to terrify - and a terrified rich fat cat will perform infinitely more damage than we can. It is the terrified economist, the businessmen, the salesmen, the men of the desk, which will do most of the damage for us. All we need to do, is be the first kick which sends the entire domino train crashing down.
You do appreciate what happens to a nation recovering from a revolution, don’t you? The state enters a temporary period of bankruptcy, from which the conventional method of escape is to sell public assets to the private sector, and to liquidate monopolies. Phrases such as “exclusive defence contracts” start to appear. Essential services, such as the police force, become privatised, as witnessed by our beloved neighbours in Liberty house. Agencies such as Kishiro, Samura and the GMG will lose considerable assets and contracts - and who will walk in to take their place? That, my friend, is for you to decide. A revolutionary Kusari would be benign to those who preserved her in the years of her birth. To those that ignored her, they would doubtless be purged - and it is always preferable to be on the side of the future, would it not?
Put bluntly, offer us significant, constant support by sating our (sizeable) glut for hardware and consumable goods, including fighters and munitions, and you will find that our attacks on IND shipping become significantly less - diligent. Of course, this is to be a work of discretion - It would not suit a publicly traded cooperation to be seen to be investing in terrorism, any more than it would suit us to see a publicly traded cooperation to invested in by terrorists - it would be a rather embarrassing turn of events. So, for the sake of showmanship, if any agents of the law are seen within moderate distance of both parties, please be understanding if we attempt to blow you into fine grain dust in the manner to which you are accustomed.
Of course, if you do not care for my proposal, you need but say, and you may have your twenty million credits back. Receipts are revoltingly fragile things, and we can get back to the orifices, the bleeding, the us tearing you a new one, etcetera.
Talking out of both sides of my arse my proverbial ass.
Talk turkey or don’t talk at all. It’s all business now.
THE SYNDIC LEAGUES
(A co-operative of Rheinland's Shipping Unions, retired from a life of piracy.)
I wouldn’t say you performed poorly. It’s quite easy to forget one’s humanity, if you will, in a position such as mine. I serve an entity, a creation of imagination and contract, and am sworn to protect it from those who seek to disturb its primary mission – the ubiquitous pursuit of wealth for its shareholders. Many of those may support your cause. Others may despise you with every fiber in their beings. It matters not to the Division, as its sole purpose is to keep the cogs of the sector turning while proving, in some measurable manner, that it has value. Another of those social constructs you reference. The Division is merely a slave to its masters.
As you note, it could easily be said that we create revenue for “whatever house,” although indirectly through its citizens. However, the Division has an existence outside of any individual House. It stabilizes itself through diversification, and as such, has even less concern for the political or economic to’s-and-fro’s of the sector than many believe. I apologize if you misunderstand what we are – we manage invisible numbers, digital entries in virtual books. I’m certain our payroll is smaller than yours. However, the companies shuffled about as the Division’s assets may be a different concern. I was under the impression the Sisterhood was fond of the Renzu Corporation. If not, we can certainly pull some strings below.
Regardless, all assets, governmental, private, or public are cut from the Division’s body like a cancer when they drain resources instead of producing them. If such a thing occurred within Kusari, regardless of cause, then I’m sure our assets would shift elsewhere to leave a “void,” if you will - until the situation changes, of course, through whatever means that may be. Whether this is a benefit or a hindrance to you is something for the Sisterhood to decide.
As I said earlier, we have a propensity for making numbers increase or decrease in one’s various accounts, nothing more. We reserve most of the functional work to other entities or individuals properly insured and trusted to do so. If we have allowed a concurrent increase in an account that you retain access to, than we shall let it be. However, I have a suspicion the Sisterhood may have skills that would be useful, if not uncouth, for the Division.
In that case, let me be blunt.
Should the Sisterhood agree, we shall send similar monthly contributions to an account of your choosing as advance consideration for information on all native and foreign corporate activities you may witness within Kusari; employee identities, commonly used routes, cargoes, destinations, and any information concerning a “witness’s” corporate entity you may be so inclined to extract. Samura and Kishiro are of particular note, as are any foreign organizations you may encounter. Should you be able to gather information on encounters between these entities and current Kusarian governmental forces, please consider such fair game. Information of particular value may serve as a precursor to increased contributions. We also require advanced notice of any terrorist activities that may affect the Division’s currently limited assets in Kusari. The Division does not oppose or support every possible event in our sector but merely seeks to be aware of them. All of the above shall be subject to a particular level of discretion you have already referenced.
The Division has left its backyard unkempt, so to speak, and that simply cannot do.
Time to get on the sit-down mower and see to that, then. You have a deal, IND – The Sisterhood will scope out your competitor’s convoys and send you the scan data. Interrogating shipment leaders as to the intended destinations of their cargos is already parcelled into our standard operating procedure; we'll send you the results of that, too. As to the monthly sum of credits you’ll be wiring the Sisterhood – that’s your territory. Set a reasonable value and we’ll tell you if we think you’re ripping us off or not.
Of course, you didn’t specify in the fine print that all of the parties present at the aforementioned “encounters” are contractually required to proceed about their business unmolested post-encounter – for your discretion, you have our thanks, Mr Preston.
We will begin wiring shipping and diplomatic data on your competitors through a dedicated channel that we will encrypt ourselves. We will start data mining actively upon reception of the first payment, along with the accompanying proof.
May your piggy-banks fatten accordingly, IND. Do you like 20th Century movies – if not, we’ll enlighten you: to imitate Casablanca: I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
You’ll see we are a reliable subcontractor.
All payments are to be wired to the:~*~Empress'.Purse
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