On a cold and rainy Plyrist morning, the sole proprietor of Pandion Manufacturing and Artifice looks at himself. Two snarls exist in this characterization of the sole proprietor. First, Pandion is not a sole-proprietorship. As registered with the Board, Pandion is a Corporate Group, incorporated around a board of directors, with the aforementioned ‘sole proprietor’ sitting chairman. However, this is also inaccurate. The board is a conjuration; and a well-managed one at that. It proceeds on by the first and only rule of Unitas with any real weight: Wealth is Health, and a deniable question directed towards one of means is no question at all.
The second snarl is that the chairman is not looking at himself. Rather, Mircea Vedova is looking at a duplicate of himself, one exhibiting (to the uninitiated eye) all of the characteristics of Mircea Vedova, sans any unfortunate qualities which might preclude him from necessary work, such as his well-defended pride. The sole proprietor has instructed his duplicate to match his every move, and then has crossed what was a lavish interior suite to a calibrated series of mirrors. Then, with far more care than he had not so long ago, when presented with the choice between a mere prestidigitation and the time-consuming and inexact task of rinsing his body, he grooms himself.
Through the series of mirrors, his duplicate is presented to him as though a reflection. The glass is imperfect in its reflections. This draws his ire. It wells from a source like perfectionism, until a second thought, like a chaser, calls back to its utility. He sees his own face, a ghostly image, scragglier and leaner than the duplicate. It reminds him to shave. He watches the trailing images of blue fingers lift the razor to his jaw, and draw it clean. Repeat. Tap the gold-plated faucets, lather water. Repeat. Like carving out soapstone, that sallow blue ghost of a face loses its scruff. He massages water into his cheeks, trying to fill out the weightlessness the bolder image had, that of the duplicate. It will have to be enough.
Elsewhere, that Plyrist morning, an agent within the Parsifer Group, Oversight Branch K, draws black hair back in her chalk-white fingers. She has a smaller mirror, which returns her sullen reflection in inverse, with hands that work a knot through her hair perfectly backwards. If you could look close enough, you’d see every follicle stretch near to breaking. If you could see beneath the skin, you’d see how it pulls on the muscles in her face, tight enough to fix a permanent scowl. That’d be the hopeful reading. Otherwise, the face of Luziana Pelcrn leaves a single, dismal option: that the expression is one of grim attentiveness, and Oversight Branch K is always watching.
Of the many myriad in Unitas, at this moment, preparing before a mirror or a series thereof, one more approaches the same strand of preparation as the sole proprietor of Pandion and the agent of Oversight Branch K. He stands in a towel just beyond the threshold to his private bath. The water rolls off his skin and meets the wrap around his waist, or ventures further, finding a bathmat beneath his feet. His skin is not gold, but it is, for this brief moment, lustrous. He stands in front of a window, and he feels untouchable. He is the Fiscal Chair of Helkzen-Vrastthoph Steel and Mithril, and he is looking out at Unitas.
Except, there becomes a point where the term ’looking out at’ becomes inexact, far too clumsy a verb to describe the nuance of an individual’s bearing towards their observation. He is dissecting it with his eyes. He is laying his finger on the pulse, first at the wrist, where his ships arrive daily, and bring in ore from what remains of Wotantu, and his stevedores bring it up the main production thoroughfares. He imagines it traveling further, to his refineries first and then to his metal foundries. His name is Valetriec Helkzen, and when he was a boy he already owned half of what he does now. Today, Valetriec monopolizes the metallurgical foundation for one of Unitas’s brightest, a diamond amidst coal of his own finding.
He thinks of the miles of runework that must be etched into a single lode within an automaton. He thinks of the miles of metal which must be etched, as a lode. Then, he hits a gold-plated tap and rinses his face, and pulls on a shirt. By the end of it, he is golden– sheathed in it, like electroplating.
At this moment, Mr. Vedova and his duplicate retreat from the series of mirrors which had momentarily united them. As they walk in unison towards the exit of the compound Vedova has made a residence in, the real sole proprietor deviates in his course, causing his duplicate to meander pointlessly within the living room. Mr. Vedova has just reached for something his duplicate has no answer to– a little mask kept in a place of security, in this sanctum of safety he has built himself. The duplicate smiles hollowly, it does not know what it’s missing, and moreover cannot care. When the chairman of the board has reached the door, he has decided.
“It will remain here,” he says to the air. “It should go. I will attend to today’s matters,” never once referring to the simulacrum but as an object. The simulacrum does not rebuke this categorization. It is an object, after all, and even though it looks like meat, it cannot feel or think. Furthermore, there is much to be done in the real Vedova’s absence.
The moment broke. The rain on that Plyrist morning stopped. Mircea Vedova stuffed the mask somewhere deep inside a messenger bag, and threw it over his shoulder, over his coat. It was a far nicer coat than the kind he used to wear, but luxury no longer bothered him. It was merely part of the performance, he told himself, to abey thoughts he might genuinely have begun to develop a taste for it. The coat was chased with gold, with the sigil of Pandion inscribed in the middle-back. It befit the young, bright-eyed inventor he was not. When he exited the door, he befit it. As he walked, he threaded his little finger through a bespoke hole in the bag, until the meat just by his nail touched the mask.
Two hours ensued, by carriage once Mircea reached the edge of his compound. Money exchanged hands. Attendants pulled the doors open when he arrived, the doors were massive and banded in brass. They were drawn open by ropes on gilded runners. Counterweights giving in slid the doors shut behind him. A lobby came and ended, and he wound higher up until he stepped trimly inside a boardroom. He swept a glance across the room. Nobody of consequence, a pencil-pusher, a sycophant… a prize but weak-chinned investor, and Mr. Helkzen. The other side went after the same fashion. Two lackeys of Helkzen had joined them, and to their left…
Someone new sits in a chair. Mircea notes this, in the span between a second and another. Someone else is still raising their hand to their mouth to furtively cough when his eyes flit away, and when his brain begins poring over the details it visually recalls. Black hair, a trim suit. Nondescript tailoring, a standard pattern. The first tip-off he registers is the cut. Brief regret follows the realization, he hates that the frivolous and miasmic trappings of wealth in this place register in his mind so quickly. The cut is standardized, patterned, without prior tailoring. Someone below the boardroom in a company large enough to standardize a cut.
Parsifer Group, or Clydsring. She’s long in the face. Her hair is tight. She isn’t dressed to stand out. She’s here late in the stage. A lackey of Helkzen, or… Board-sent. Mircea reaches for his chair to pull it out. He swings the bag around and nudges the mask. The black-haired woman pulls her chair out. Mircea smiles. Helkzen rises, all rise. In the space between neurons, Mircea makes contact with Veil, inside the mask. He imagines his own voice.
It echoes out into a new space, a between-space.
“Helkzen-Vrasttoph has grown bold if he thinks he has the reach at this juncture to bring in a new partner. Well, it surprises me that anyone involved should have the nerve. If that’s what he’s done, Veil, I will bring in my arbitrators and he will have much more difficulty making this sort of play in the future. She’s too pared-down to be Bahn. And this isn’t about Archilo, I would have smelt it by now. No, the alternative is that the Board has taken an interest. This needed to be smaller than this smells, Veil.”
He imagines another voice. Rather, by the mask, another voice is imagined within him. I do not feel failure for us, in this, it says. You should listen.
Mircea jumps his gaze over to Helkzen. His retinue sits largely to his right. Had she been here when he arrived, too? His voice continues: “That would mean they mean to constrain my movements. They want to ensure I do not get what I want from Helkzen.”
You are getting upset. You know that you cannot play this like Zeeman.
“Well, Zeeman was never an object. I am saying they should not have taken notice so soon. I cannot face risk of hostile takeover by Dwer Baan’, if Unity and Parsifer are in bed together,” Mircea returns. He clenches the top rail a bit too hard. He pulls out his chair, and then he sits.
When he sat, the black-haired woman spoke. “Mr. Vedova, Pandion, associates,” she said, and lifted a briefcase onto the table. She clicked it open and withdrew a journal. Then she put the briefcase back down. “I have already spoken with Mr. Helkzen and his associates. My name is Luziana Pelcrn, on behalf of the Parsifer Group, Observation Branch K. As we are signatories to Pandion, financial stratum, particularly where acquisitions are involved, Parsifer group has elected to send myself and my retinue as auditors. Your arbitrators will receive notice of grounds,” she continued, and after a pause, asked, “Do you agree you have heard and understood this introduction?” Mircea merely said, “Yes, I do,” and sat down.
The woman picks up a pen in chalk-white fingers. She takes a deep breath to clear the last of the notice out of her mouth. It tastes like bile, manufactured and sick. She opens the journal. A continuous scrawl tumbles down its pages. Mircea can’t make them out, and in any case, he withdraws a sheathe and puts on spectacles from inside. They sit evenly on the bridge of his nose. He sees his reflection on the dark surface of the table.
“Parsifer Group,” are the words he says in his mind as he laces his little finger back into the bag. “Then they may take an interest and form a bloc with Unity. This would represent a more overt kind of hostility, the kind–” he exhales through the bridge of his nose, so softly nobody else hears it– “I had hoped to avoid by ending my arrangement with Archilo. Nevertheless, that only moves things up.” The black haired woman uncaps her pen and begins to write. “They want to see how I’ll play this, if surveillance will keep me manageable. Therefore, it cannot be fruitful, or they will always integrate this restrictive strategy. But it must also be civil. Parsifer’s interest alone is dangerous enough.”
I tire of a little… an imagined voice trails, then digs through his mind in movements he feels for a suitably-barbed moniker, …prodigy, cowed this deeply. He has forgotten what we have helped him accomplish.
The room is harder to read through the glasses, but nevertheless, the chairman prefers what he sees through them. One look confirms that his artifice is still the dominant presence in the room. There will be no tricks, and his heart settles. No, he has donned the spectacles more as a show of command. They have become a part of him. There are those that favor his work elsewhere in Unitas. He is seldom seen without them. For this reason, he does not take them off. “Nevertheless,” he says, out in between his thoughts. “Parsifer’s involvement is too little, too late. Rather, well, they have bought themselves prime seating. We were never going to give them anything to pin on us, though I am certain they will see what we are doing, they can no more afford to preference Helkzen than we. I will chance a guess, Parsifer’s interest is in prolonging the negotiations. A pity; I almost agree. But I don’t fully. My interest is in finishing this matter. The way is clear, Veil. Helkzen will not see the ploy. I suspect Parsifer shall, but they can do nothing. Of this, I am certain.” I ever have been watching, nestling, the mask says, and the bag– as though by chance alone– resettles. His finger is no longer touching it.
“Mr. Vedova, members of the board of Pandion. Of course, the good Ms. Pelcrn, here from Parsifer. And do not worry yourselves, we are already acquainted,” said Valetriec Helkzen. He steepled his fingers, speaking as easily as if he stood in one of his foundries. Mircea’s lip curled at the presumption. “I’d like to thank you once more, chairman, for your courtesy in providing the space for this meeting. As much as I’ve relished our many discussions on the matter, I believe it’s time to reach a decision. With that in mind, I have prepared a few projections regarding each of the ‘styles’ we have outlined, where progressing our business cooperation is concerned.”
At long last, and at great cost of wind, blown in through a long switchback of ducts to avoid the factory smoke clogging the districts without, Mr. Helkzen reached his point: “My only question is, are you ready to elevate our cooperation?” Mircea unclasped his hands. He smiled, like the simulacrum did, and spoke: “Yes, I received your projections. Logistically speaking, the agreement is watertight. But, I trust you’re not leaving out my tweaks in error?”
“Watch,” Vedova says to Veil. The Parsifer girl inhales; she shifts in her seat, she fiddles with her pen. She hasn’t received a copy. She’s going to submit an inquiry. She’ll see the ploy, but Helkzen smiles. He’s read it all. “Helkzen knows what he’s playing at, but I’m leagues ahead. The fact he’s here at all is proof of it. ‘You godsdamned son of a gun!’.”
“You godsdamned son of a gun!” Helkzen applauds. He’d slap Mircea on the back if he could, the chairman wagered. “You’re just as savvy as they say.”
“Don’t… patronize me,” Mr. Vedova replied, but smiled, like the double would.
“Of course, Mr. Vedova. Your logistical mind is sharp as ever, and I have implemented a plan that will bring costs in line with your directions,” Helkzen finished. He was still cavalier. The easy reading was that he’d already put the necessary groundwork in place, perhaps before Mircea’s direction. But Helkzen was a brute. He’d grown accustomed to working with Pandion, and he tolerated Mircea’s balder plays on the assumption he could leverage him into a long-term partnership.
“It’s only that…”
And so, the thread snarls. Mircea doesn’t smile, he looks at Parsifer, who is still silent. Helkzen waves, a briefcase hits the table, and Unitas holds its breath. “If he’s smart,” Mr. Vedova says, “this means he’s picked up on how tightly my materials specifications situate his costs according to my financing plan, supply lines I’ve already dominated. He’ll want to unsnarl it, but that means broadening his dependency on mining labor.”
The Parsifer girl knows this, little blue.
“Doesn’t she? She can’t torpedo it, either, because my financing plan is her supervisors’, and Parsifer sets the rates of manual labor-hours. I only ever said she meant to stop me from getting what I want from Helkzen-Vrastthoph. But she cannot. That’s the genius of it, Veil,” Mircea thinks, and studies Helkzen’s face. He’s undoubtedly spent hours putting himself together, only to pick it slightly apart. Helkzen is cavalier in that way. It’s what made him an ideal mark."
“I wonder, though, what he’s thought of. I wonder if it’s close enough to matter. Impress me, Helkzen,” thinks Mircea. “Or don’t.”
But you don’t want that.
“No, it would be inconvenient. But why wouldn’t I?”
And then Helkzen spoke. “Cooperative financing is a big step forward in terms of our partnership, don’t you think, Mr. Vedova? We’ve taken it upon ourselves to have our own analysts look at some of your proposed supply routes, and I’m afraid we’ve prepared a counter-proposition.” One of the Helkzen-Vrastthophs opened a briefcase, and produced a few collected reams of paper, circulating it around the table.
Mircea read.
“I think we should move forward with provisions A, those pertaining to the hiring of some of your automata for labor purposes, but we decline a full contract out of hand. We’re going to be taking the Parsifers’ offer instead on the matter,” Helkzen said.
“Not savvy enough,” Mircea echoes inwardly.
“Unless you would be amenable to a counteroffer, Mr. Vedova,” Helkzen said.
Interesting. “Go on,” Mircea said.
“Three squads of your automata, for the mine-teams,” Mr. Helkzen proceeded, “with belayed payment plans for two calendar years.”
As the light of the suns upon mine own countenance, my little fledgling. Too rich, and too rich by far. He has taken up your bait, but not the one he ought to have. See the Parsifer. Veil’s words bubble up to the surface of his mind. Mr. Vedova glances to the Parsifer girl, whose interest stands plainly bared. It gleams like the roots at her temples. The obvious move is far too overt for this. Wait. Watch.
Laughter wells up in his chest, where none but Veil can hear. “That wasn’t the trap, either,” Mircea says, inward. “You were watching. Yet you don’t seem to follow what I’m doing.”
Where, we wonder forlornly, might be the fun in that?
“Parsifer has no counterplay for the obvious move, because the obvious move is entirely fair. Helkzen has dared me to make him my dependent. He doubts I’m capable of it– he prepared a poison pill within his finances for this exact outcome, far earlier. It’s the opening play for a hostile takeover,” Mircea said. “and we will accept the gambit.”
Oh? I had given up on warming you to the prospect of your own demise. Perhaps it must be reconsidered.
Mircea reaches. He slides the paper back across the table, smiles genially. He gestures to his attendants in turn. “Do you forget, we’re both now plainly in bed with Parsifer? The girl has documented this all. They’ll have to go through both of our finances thoroughly, now. But, see, we’ve been drawing him into some unscrupulous deals for months. He’s insulated them against Parsifer’s observation, but we haven’t. He’s done all the work I need to bring himself down to where I need him. Where he’ll accept my idea of this deal.”
Parsifer will see you as complicit.
“Parsifer will not self-report. Ostensibly, they have been screening our finances for months. This makes them look bad. Not to mention, Financial Observation Branch K has ties to Clydsring. Clydsring makes Helkzen-Vrastthoph redundant, but not Pandion. The Board would have other concerns if their negligence in my affairs were unearthed. The only crime, Veil, in Unitas, is getting caught.”
Mircea rose. “Three squads is ridiculous,” he said, “and you know it. One year’s financing, or two squads.”
Helkzen considered. “Eighteen months.”
So quick to agree, nestling?
Mircea hums. Black laughter wells up and he traps it, but Veil hears. “The particulars of the deal don’t matter. He’s clearly blinded by the genius of his own strategy, and he’ll never see that my defense has been already prepared.”
You’re showing a lot to the Parsifer.
“So it would seem. But the Parsifer apparatus is slow and inflexible. Think over what I said. Parsifer has control over Pandion’s financial deals with Helkzen-Vrastthoph. This deal has clearly raised enough interest that they’ve sent an auditor, but they haven’t shut it down. It’s like I said, they want this deal with Helkzen-Vrastthoph to cripple me, to slow my rise. They don’t want it to destroy me, there’s no profit in that. I’m showing them what they’ve hoped to see. That for all my bluster, I can be strung along and baited. When after all that, I’ve been lucid to their ploy the whole time. In my time working with the Parsifers, they have been reticent to engage with overtures of business collaboration. Their board stifles any transaction where Parsifer does not hold a dominant position. But I am now broadcasting I am far more manipulable than I am, in reality, and by the time they see it, Helkzen-Vrastthoph will be no obstacle,” Mircea says, and removes his glasses. Then, he puts his hand out, but stops, midway through.
“Well, one concern, before we go through with this,” Mircea said. He felt a little smile wriggle up through his mind, one from Veil. “Helkzen will fund a small automaton manufactory, by the necessary mining district. In this sheaf–” He gestured, and an attendant popped the latches and slid a briefcase across the table– “You will find the initial surveys and plans for such a facility, and I will require no less than a 55% stake in any excess profits reaped. I intend to be liable, in addition, for no more than 35% of operating costs.”
“Mr. Vedova, as you would have seen in the outlined provisions, we had intended to bring in a private party for all repair needs.”
“Out of the question. There will be no special provision afforded for private repair. I believe you will find this consistent with all prior deals on the subject, I have always and will always maintain sole right to the repair and construction of leased automata,” replied Mr. Vedova.
Veil laughs, and the Parsifer girl’s interest seems to dim. How… contradictory, little blue. You could have had him there.
“My financiers estimate the costs associated with such a facility to be consistent with an extra six months paid-for on the lease,” Helkzen replied.
“You ought to have known this provision existed when you offered ’eighteen months’. Now you want two years?”
Helkzen put out his hand to shake. “Three squads of automata. Two years reprieve, no interest.”
In Helkzen’s hand, out over the center of the table, is a financial poison pill braced against the sole proprietor of Pandion Manufacturing & Artifice’s acquisition interests in his business. The Parsifer girl bites back a sigh– this means more paperwork, should the Vedova be naive enough to accept it. She is preparing to inform the rest of the auditors. Helkzen doesn’t even shiver; he hasn’t realized how deeply the chairman is prepared to bury him with this single choice. Mr. Vedova smiles, like the simulacrum. “Once his mines are operated by Pandion automata, Pandion’s stake in their operation will grow considerably. His investors will pressure him to reinvest, and he won’t decline.”
The solution is more automation. His automation. Mr. Vedova smiles, like himself, and he hears, in the basin of his mind, Veil sing. A dangerous play, nestling.
Mr. Vedova is slow to reply. He takes Helkzen’s hand. He shakes firmly. Once, twice. The details finalize before him. “He believes he has insulated himself against my attempts to ramp my stake. But Helkzen thinks he’s winning. Well. It’s easy to defeat someone who has never lost. They never think that they can.”