Thanqol

No Safe Port

Another squad of four stormtroopers rush into the room. The first group has started pushing their way through the crowd, shoving citizens up against the wall. The line ahead continues to move with its steady monotony, Imperial clerk continuing to chunk through her stamps without glancing up. The entire situation is starting to feel like the moment after the foot has slipped but before the skull hits the pavement.

"Sweetheart, so many words you're saying, and none of them are your name!" said the man. His accent was unplaceable, liquid and liquored, slipping on the starlight of interstellar translation. His hands were always moving, touching this and that, his goatee, your shoulder, the robes of the squarking mystic behind them. "It's terrible luck to be friends without the exchange of names."
"We're not friends," Merskiv said flatly.
"I do so love to be friends with people with concealed vibroblades," said the outworlder, grinning those gold teeth. "Such a lovely wrist augmentic. It must slide like a dream."
Merskiv's eyes went wide and her ears went flat, reflexively clutching her right arm. You didn't know that about her. Concealed weapons were not legal under the new Imperial regulations.
"Friends, aye?" said the outworlder. He said it with five syllables, more song than word.

Breathless Dead

Great treasure halls hath Zeus in heaven,
From whence to man strange dooms be given,
Past hope or fear.
And the end men looked for cometh not,
And a path is there where no man thought:
So hath it fallen here.
- Medea

She descends from the heavens, born aloft by a flight of cranes that hold her extended arms. The Thunderer descends a scene of carnage and ruin, and through the blood her family comes to her.

HADES
"O sister, see how I have been cut,
Through the throat by one I sought,
No life escapes these breathless lips
Heal my wounds with your tender gifts."

ZEUS
"I shall not."

APHRODITE
"O daughter-son, killer mine,
I spit on you and more besides,
But raise my spirit from stalking death
Else your kingdom shall draw no breath."

ZEUS
"Then let it fall."

[The gods of Love and Death cry out.]

ZEUS
"When the throne is silent and throne is still,
When strange gardens grow as they will,
When the Fisher King rots first from the head,
His power does not join him in the land of the dead.

And so it was with I, the king of the gods
Trapped by mercy and love and gambler's odds
No courage could bring me to the use of my throne
And so living power fled and left me alone.

Once I set a chain and bound all the stars,
And all of my siblings, Poseidon to Mars,
All of them hauled and could not lift my hand,
Now I will not either, it has crumbled to sand.

Power is living. It goes where it is used,
And your wicked strength has too long abused,
I did not stop you for that was my curse,
But neither will I raise you up from the Earth.

Rise Hermes."

[She rises]

"You have been dead as long as I,
Stagnant when you used to fly
Your throne, too, has rotted alone
But power has long since found a new home."

Rise Redana."

[She rises]

"In death you sought life,
In life you sought more,
In death you found your wife,
In life a galaxy to explore.

Rise Bella."

[She rises]

"Love and death. Death and love.
You are loved by the dead
And died here for love.

You were born of love
But knew only death
And yet forged new love
Amongst those of death.

Life, death and love.
Thrones vacant three
Take your crowns of death and life
And let love exist between."

APHRODITE
"And what of Vengeance, O King Divine?
Thy blood is still the same as mine
And late it has been spil't."

HADES
"Persephone has no guilt."

ZEUS
"I must answer one last time to my family
And pass sentence on Dolce of Beri
Aphrodite's last curse is his last decree
No more shall this sheep's eyes see."

APHRODITE
"I want more."

ZEUS
"You did not ask for more."

APHRODITE
"I wish to punish the child."

ZEUS
"Which child? Name her."

APHRODITE
"I cannot. She has no name."

ZEUS
"Then go to the House of Bella, and trouble us no longer."

[He departs]

ZEUS
"An absent father has many sins
And so much debt to pay
But a present one can be ever worse
When her shadow hides the day
Rage against my coward's heart
That let this ending pass
I only ask you play your part
And let the wheel turn.
And should this journey have been worth your time
Then I humbly bid you pray
I know already all the pain and tears
And suffering along the way.
This is the end of my kingdom that I could not write
I could not make it alone
And now, at last, where it began,
I break at last my throne."

The Three Mountains

Paradisia scoffed. "Nice try, scammer. Don't call me back, I don't even have a bank account for you to steal. Block and report."

And the call was disconnected.

On reflection, the well of a long out of contact friend or relative calling up to offer a job earning millions working at your own hours has been somewhat poisoned. That's part of the reason the economy solidified so hard around the Megacorporate structure - without a shared pool of defensive resources, smaller companies were always easy prey for sophisticated criminal networks. Even the business trip came back into style, and even the business trip has been targeted. There is an infamous story about a regional vice-president traveling on business, meeting an entire corporate negotiating team, haggling for hours and finally coming to an agreement - only to discover that everyone in that room had been an android and he'd just lost 20MC.

To lock this in you're going to have to go down to the Street. Get a little mud on your chrome.

No Safe Port

"Twenty minutes," Merskiv's pupils went from slits to gleaming round. "Calculating. As long as this guy doesn't fuck around, we might actually make that. As long as -"

Somebody cut.

Triangular hat. Sixteen eyes - no wait, those are painted on, a halo of eyes all around his skull. A goatee that looked like it had been trimmed with a blaster pistol. A smile with two gold teeth. A suit hooked up with cables and tubes and hissing gasses. Human, somehow, underneath it all, "Don't mind me, loves," he said, opening a wallet that you were sure wasn't his and tucking a fifty credit chip into the front of your shirt. "Just act natural. We're friends, right?"

A doorway suddenly opened and four more Stormtroopers emerged at a jog. Merskiv looked like she was about to commit murder. Talk fast.

No Safe Port

Ortug Outer Point Imperial Checking Station
Arib Sector
1BBY

The line moves slow. Slow slow slow it goes.

You now know the propaganda reel that plays on every screen in the line by heart. "Due to acts of hideous terrorism increased security measures are now in place. These measures are for your protection. We ask that all Imperial citizens for their full cooperation. And to the rebel terrorists hiding amongst the population: We will find you, and we will bring you to justice."

Ahead of you in the line is a ten foot tall serpent creature, hunched to fit under the low ceiling, dressed in fine blue silks and yammering non-stop into a hand-held communicator. Behind you is a formation of sixteen white-robed mystics, waving censers that had to be running low on incense by now. Back and forth along the line patrol the same two stormtroopers. You can hear in the distance the click-clack of the lone Imperial clerk's stamp. The small, plain wall clock is ticking ominously closer and closer to five.

You've been in line for two days now. You're not sure you can handle a third.

"Here's the plan," Merskiv said, scratching her claws on the floor. She was crouched low, feline eyes glinting, tail swishing. "Tomorrow morning I ambush one of the stormtroopers. Snap his neck. Shoot the other one. Two shots, center mass. Take his blaster too. Open fire on the crowd. Guns akimbo. Low spread, full auto, wide angles, maximize casualties. Retreat through the west door. Reload. Storm the guard station. Blow away everyone in the waiting room. Get shot eight times. Stormtrooper comes and prods me with his foot. Hand opens to reveal a thermal detonator. In the confusion, you get to the end of the line and complete your paperwork."

The Three Mountains

There's still something familiar about your old friend, despite having gone through two entirely different biomorphic structures since you last spoke. Something alien too. Last time you'd seen them there had been a certain sadness and anxiety that had never left their eyes. Now there was a deep, profound sense of chill ordinarily only seen in a cat on a higher elevation than everyone around it.

"Andrea," they said, blinking their feline eyes. They'd come back to humanity a bit after going full werewolf; more skin than fur, mostly normal face, but they'd kept the big slitted eyes and the indifferent predator stare. They were wearing a stained wifebeater and an ankle-length tartan-patterned skirt made out of a carpetlike fabric that strained against her decision to sit cross-legged. "I'm guessing you need to borrow money?"

The Three Mountains

Lhotse's primary revenue source was not, as previously assumed, mineral extraction, materials science or even construction. Lhotse's primary revenue source was insider trading, subsidies and political patronage and the entire rest of the corporation existed to launder that money.

It's unambiguous, looking at the detailed records. In fact, many of the legitimate industries run at a loss - overpaying for employees, underpaying for equipment, logistics broken up over dozens of electoral districts. In a lot of cases it feels clear that this is State-subsidized make-work or porkbarrelling rather than legitimate industry. As an interesting side effect, the corporation's best years are always during eras of crisis, disaster or shortage; there is a huge amount of slack inside Lhotse which can be activated in the event of a crisis. Sometimes even before a crisis starts - even with the inside view you can't determine if Lhotse just so happened to be correctly placed to take advantage, or if it was forewarned.

This arrangement means that Lhotse has a lot of everything except money; its structure calls to mind the old state-owned enterprises of the Soviet Union more than anything. Overall the corporation is comfortably in the black at the cost of acting as a shadow welfare state. This does give Lhotse a unique ability: the power to crash the economy in any region, market or city on demand simply by withdrawing its support.

The annual budget has given you 100MacroCredits to spend at your discretion. That is enough for an ambitious reform programme, a medium level corporate war, or a breakthrough into new market segment or technology. Every human being on the planet is going to pitch you their cool idea for what you could spend that money on.

Your VI chimes as it locates your candidate. It had taken a while because Brevander Tochman has been through several major life experiences. Recent experience included membership in several cults, including a stint in the ateks, then a swing hard in the other direction where they transitioned into a buff jaguar anthro lady and joined the military, before settling into an androgyne catperson with a career in professional gambling. They go by Paradisia now.

On the one hand, they will not be the corporate type - but on the other hand, you struggle to imagine how a corporate type could convince this genuine Cyber Punk to betray you.

The Three Mountains

"As you were," said Everest. Her maids fell in around her. It was an eerie effect - they did not move like a central dronemind controlling multiple nodes, a precision that stopped being interesting once the novelty wore off. They moved like a superlatively well trained team. There was a synchronicity of purpose and not simply action.

Without a second glance, Mrs. Everest departed.

Your inbox had messages from all of your various department heads requesting meetings. There was also an action item to select a secretary and a chief of staff - there were a list of excellent candidates ready for an interview already appended if you did not have someone in mind already. There was a physical paper report in a drawer that had a full report of Lhoste's full and redacted financial situation and asset list. And there was an external meeting request from the COO of SLAM! *Click*.

SLAM! *Click*. Logo: A video of an employee expressing the company name. Brand aesthetic: Experimental, Disposable. All SLAM! *Click* employees are required by contract to express the company name in full with proper form whenever it comes up. Express is the right word because SLAM! *Click* is not the words 'Slam' and 'Click' - the 'SLAM!' is the speaker banging the table, clapping their hands, or otherwise making a slam sound, and the 'Click' is them making a clicking sound with their tongue. Dead-eyed corporate lawyers will engage in this silly little ritual in court. Their stomping area has long been the gig economy and startup culture, the financial network that bets on a billion moonshots and folds them into larger companies when they take off. They are fast, agile and always on the bleeding edge, but hand in hand with that is the squandering of phenomenal amounts of resources on bad bets.

The only reason SLAM! *Click* organized into something remembering as a Mega at all instead of a decentralized network is to safeguard its market position from a reformed State. Taking corporeal form with a headquarters, postal address and permanent assets is a recent change for them - they're not used to it and they don't like it.

The Three Mountains

"Very good. My contact information is in your desk. In the meantime, my personal attention will be directed towards achieving Lhotse's market entry into the Darwin Special Economic Zone. Crown and Slate is vulnerable there and a great deal of production is downstream of cheaper iron ore."

Crown and Slate. Corporate logo: the words Crown and Slate on a neutral grey background. Brand aesthetic: We are not interested in selling this to you. One of the big causes of the Red Decades, and the biggest loser of its conclusion, Crown and Slate started as patent trolls - a legal company that purchased promising intellectual property, patented it, and then waited to sue anyone else who tried to invent it. This process accelerated particularly in the fields of medical science, genetic engineering and agriculture. This paralysis of the life sciences contributed to the crisis and made Crown and Slate the chief scapegoat and sacrifice on the altar of the refounded State. Laws were introduced forcing them to activate their factories and sell their products, and some technologies were nationalized outright. Crown and Slate has kicked and dragged its heels every step of the way, producing unmarketed, tasteless, user-unfriendly products to meet the bare minimum of legal obligation - products that are, despite their unattractive packaging, positively miraculous in effect.

The Three Mountains

"I leave the details to you," said Everest. "Not least because I have attempted my own investigation in the past and bungled it. Again, I spare you the history so as to not contaminate your process, but I attempted something similar targeting BlackSun's auction records, which was what tipped my hand in the first place."

She did not flinch from her confession of failure. Mrs. Everest certainly had her faults, but that alone put her far from the worst supervisors you have dealt with.

"If this is something I could have handled myself, I would have. It is not. In this matter, if you achieve results you will have surpassed my abilities. That achievement will be worth a great deal of consideration in the future."

BlackSun. Corporate logo: A black sphere, haloed in gold. Brand aesthetic: Luxury with collateral damage. A union of multiple private spaceflight interests that together took control of NASA during the early phases of the Red Decades. Their wildcat approach to orbital mining and trailblazing approach to android design produced great wealth and was instrumental in the establishment of multiple orbital habitats and a permanent luxury city on the surface of Luna. In the process, carelessness or malice caused a Kessler Syndrome chain reaction in several critical orbital bands, wiping out huge swathes of critical satellites. They are profoundly unpopular amidst the general public, not least for their fairly blatant fascist aesthetics and sympathies, but they are the only serious players in space which puts them above a lot of concerns. Their mission is Mars and they are perfectly happy to burn Earth and all its people on their way there.