EMPIRE: Resurgence

by Richard F. Weyand

  “Hopefully new eyes will see something, some way in which we’re missing the mark. I hate to say it, but the plans right now look uninspired somehow. Repetitive. Boring.”

  They both raised their eyebrows at Donahue.

  “Well, I’ll take a look and see what I see. Who’s the lead designer on the project?”

  “Gerard Lavaud,” Hayles said. “That’s what’s so surprising. He’s known for innovative design. I don’t think it’s him. I think he’s lacking direction.”

  “Partially it may be the customer orientation on the project. The Imperial War Museum, which is operated by the Imperial Marine Academy, has called for a traditional sort of design, and it may be chaining down Lavaud’s instincts. We have something of a logjam there.”

  Donahue nodded. He could see the problem, taking an innovative designer and putting them on a major project for a traditional client.

  “There may be a better choice than Lavaud for this project, then,” Donahue said. “If the design constraints are too narrow for him.”

  “Perhaps,” Hayles said. “I’m not convinced of that, but I could be convinced. You have a great reputation, Barry. That’s why I’m so happy to see you here. Get in there and see what you can do with it.”

  “I’m on it. We’ll see where we get,” Donahue said.

  “I can’t ask for more than that,” Hayles said. “I think this project is something we can leverage off of. The refurbished museum is bound to be a big hit. It’s always been popular, but it was getting a little timeworn. The colonel over there aims to clean that up.”

  “Colonel Ryan,” Sharp said. “It’s his project. He has his ideas and opinions, no question about it, but he’s pretty easy to work with.”

  “Great,” Donahue said. “Can I see where they’re at in the project, their plans and all?”

  “Oh, yes,” Sharp said. “Colonel Ryan has been most forthcoming. We have all his plans and simulations. I can even set up a meeting for you.”

  Donahue had spent the morning before the lunch reviewing paperwork, mostly the personnel files and sales figures, to be prepared for the lunch meeting. In the afternoon, he called a meeting of his direct reports. He let them attend in VR, because his message was short. Professionals didn’t need guidance, they needed resources.

  “Mostly, I just wanted to tell you to carry on with what you’re doing,” Donahue told the assembled sales managers. “You don’t need me to tell you what your job is. I’ll meet with each of you individually during the course of this week. You should be thinking in terms of anything you or your people need from me and any ways I can help you. That’s all, everybody.”

  Donahue then turned to the simulations of the museum Colonel Walsh had had prepared. He had both before and after simulations. The ‘before’ simulation was computer generated from a camera run-through of the museum as it had been before the refurbishment began. The ‘after’ simulation was an artist’s rendering in VR, which allowed him to walk through the facility as Walsh and his team imagined it.

  The Imperial War Museum had multiple goals. Certainly the major one was educational. Another was as a tourist destination. It had long been one of the things one ‘did’ when one went to Imperial City, along with seeing the Imperial Palace and the statue of the Empress Ilithyia II on Imperial Mall. Another was as a showplace of Imperial power.

  The museum used multiple means to accomplish its goals. One was in-person visits, of course. Another was visits in VR. There were many VR presentations in the museum, and these were accessible remotely as well, but the museum itself could also be visited in VR. A full recording of the refurbished museum would be available to anyone in the Empire once it was completed, a vast improvement over the simulation previously provided.

  Part of the problem with furnishings was caused by these multi-pronged goals and delivery systems. The in-person visitors had long complained of the lack of adequate seating in the museum. Children didn’t wear out as fast as their seniors, and grandparents in particular needed places to sit while their young charges explored.

  At the same time, large blocks of seating were unneeded by visitors in VR. They represented large chunks of the museum that would be uninteresting – in the way, really – to a VR visitor.

  And the specifications for the seating had further hamstrung the responders to the request for bid. They were relegated to not much more than a ‘this many chairs here, this many chairs there’ response.

  Donahue could see why the designer had struggled. There wasn’t much flexibility, and the conflicting goals made an innovative response unlikely to meet them all.

  One of the displays caught Donahue’s eye. It was a cutaway of an Imperial Marines assault shuttle, little models of Imperial Marines in full battle kit seated inside. He had just been looking at one of the seating areas, and did a double take when he saw the model.

  Hmm. Donahue saved a copy of the simulation in his own account, then did some playing around with a simulation editor. There. That actually came out pretty well.

  Time to meet with the designer.

  “Mr. Lavaud,” Donnahue said when the designer came by his office as requested. “Have a seat.”

  Lavaud sat in one of the guest chairs before the desk in Donahue’s large office.

  “I wanted to talk to you about the Imperial War Museum project.”

  “But, of course,” Lavaud said and sighed. “That is always it. The museum project.”

  “It’s an important project.”

  “Of course, it is. I know that, Mr. Donnelly. So everyone wants something brilliant or wonderful. Something luminous, even. But they do not understand. The chairs are not the attraction at a museum. If they are, it is either a very bad museum, or you have done it wrong.”

  Donahue chuckled. Of course, Lavaud was right. But....

  “I thought I might suggest something different. What if we could make the seating more a part of the museum. An addition to it.”

  “That would be wonderful. But how? The existing design constraints are very tight.”

  “I had an idea. Would you join me in a simulation?”

  “But, of course.”

  Donahue pushed Lavaud a pointer and Lavaud joined him in Donahue’s copy of the simulation, but without the edits applied.

  “I was walking through the simulation, and I had just looked at the seating area, and then I saw this model.”

  Donahue pointed out the assault shuttle model. Lavaud nodded, and Donahue went on.

  “What I wondered is, what if we made the seating area look like this.”

  Donahue pointed to the seating area, then applied the edit. What sprang into life in place of the stolid seating area was a life-size cutaway of an assault shuttle, a blow-up of the model.

  “In the real-life museum, we make it a mock-up of a shuttle, and adjust the seating to accommodate people who don’t want to be crammed into their seats like Imperial Marines on a mission. Make the chairs more comfortable and such, while keeping the colors and orientation correct. And in the recording of the museum, we substitute a recording of an actual assault shuttle, with Imperial Marines and all.”

  “This– This is a wonderful idea. Magnifique,” Lavaud said.

  Then Lavaud’s shoulders fell, his excitement dissipated.

  “But it does not fit the imposed constraints.”

  “I’ll get the constraints changed,” Donahue said. “You take this idea and run with it. Some similar concept or idea for every seating area in the museum. Make them part of the displays. Period correct in the recordings, and evocative while comfortable in the real museum. Can you do that, Mr. Lavaud?”

  “Certainement,” Lavaud declared and then rattled on in excited French.

  When he wound down, Donahue cut the channel and they were both back in Donahue’s office.

  “You have your assignment, Mr. Lavaud. Get to it.”

  “Yes. Yes, of course. Thank you, Mr. Donnelly. It will be wonderful. You will see. You will see.�
�

  Donahue met with Colonel Daniel Ryan at the Imperial War Museum first thing the next morning. He had Odom take him in the car, and waited around the corner until the correct time so he could appear at the museum’s street-level main entrance two minutes in advance. Odom got out of the car, walked around and opened the door for him. Donahue walked up the short flight of stairs at the main entrance to Colonel Ryan, waiting at the top.

  The chauffeured limousine was a calculated maneuver. Not just anyone got to be a colonel in the Imperial Marines. Not just anybody was an Imperial City planetary manager for a division of Galactic Holdings, either. Donahue wanted Ryan to know he was getting top-level attention from the firm.

  “Colonel Ryan?”

  “Yes. Mr. Donnelly, I presume.”

  “Yes, sir. It’s good to meet you.”

  “And you.”

  They shook hands, then Ryan gestured back to the doors.

  “Let me show you what we’re up to,” Ryan said.

  Ryan unlocked the door behind him in VR and pulled it open, waving Donnelly through. Donnelly heard it lock behind him once it closed.

  They were in the cavernous main entrance hall. All the armor was gone, and the flooring had been removed down to the epoxycrete.

  “I’m surprised you pulled all the armored vehicles out, Colonel,” Donahue said.

  “You have to understand, Mr. Donnelly. The Imperial War Museum hasn’t had a thorough going-over in a hundred years. Everything needed at least some cosmetic attention.”

  “Where did they all go?”

  “We trucked them down to the Imperial Marines Combat Training Center. They always need make-work projects down there, to build unit cohesion in new units. This is less make-work and more work to a purpose. Even better.”

  “Ah, I see. Very good.”

  They walked across the space to the escalators, and took them up to one of the exhibit floors. The entire space was empty, and people were bustling about, measuring and tending to minor damage here and there before building up the new interior.

  “You certainly have a lot going on here, Colonel.”

  “We don’t have time to waste, Mr. Donnelly. We have to be complete and open to the public at the beginning of next summer’s vacation season. June 1 looms large to me, even now.”

  Donahue nodded.

  “That certainly makes sense,” Donahue said.

  “I have a question for you, Mr. Donnelly. Why your interest all of a sudden?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Colonel. I didn’t know they hadn’t informed you. I’m new in Imperial City. I’ve been with Premium Interiors for years, out in Odessa Sector. I’ve just transferred in as the new planetary manager in Imperial City.”

  “I see. So you wanted to see the big project.”

  “Yes. I want it done right, and I want Premium Interiors to be a part of it. I think the direction we were taking was too prosaic. Too much ‘oh, it’s just chairs.’ I want to use our expertise to enhance the museum experience, not simply be part of ‘walls, floors, chairs.’”

  “That sounds good, Mr. Donnelly, but do you have specific ideas?”

  “Yes, Colonel. All of these floors have the same footprint, is that correct?”

  “The exhibit floors? Yes, they’re the same.”

  “So let’s look at the tenth floor, as an example.”

  Donahue pushed Ryan the unedited simulation, and they both opened it as an overlay on the floor they were on.

  “So I was looking at that seating group over there. In this artist’s rendering. And then I turned, and this model caught my eye, and I had a flash of insight. What if we did that seating like this model?”

  Donnelly applied the edit, and the seating area converted to a life-size cutaway model of an assault shuttle.

  “Now, for the physical museum, we make the chairs more comfortable, spread them out a bit, but we keep the color scheme and the overall gestalt. The assault shuttle itself is a mockup. Perhaps we just three-dimensionally print this small model full-size.

  “But in the virtual museum, where we don’t need the seating, we edit into the recording a snippet from a real assault shuttle. With the Imperial Marines in the seats and all, just like this little model. So what is seating in the physical museum becomes an exhibit in the virtual museum. And the seating in the physical museum is themed to fit the space, not just ranks of chairs.”

  “Now that is an inspired concept, Mr. Donnelly.”

  Ryan looked at the artist’s rendering, then the edited version, back and forth a few times.

  “I like it,” Ryan said. “I like it a lot, actually.”

  “It doesn’t fit the constraints, however, Colonel Ryan.”

  “I understand, Mr. Donnelly. But this, this is worth stepping outside artificial rules. And our costs?”

  “We don’t anticipate any changes to our bid structure, Colonel. We want this job.”

  Ryan nodded. It was what he hoped would happen. The big players would step up to create showpieces for their marketing efforts.

  “All right, Mr. Donnelly. If you can handle all the seating areas in similar ways – not all the same mind you, but a similar idea – you can mangle the constraints without being ruled unresponsive to the bid request.”

  “Thank you, Colonel. That’s all we ask.”

  Once back in the office, Donahue summoned Lavaud.

  “Yes, Mr. Donnelly.”

  “How is it going, Mr. Lavaud? Have you found similar scenarios for the other seating areas?”

  “Oh, yes. An attack ship pilot briefing room on an attack ship carrier, a battlespace simulation viewing room in Imperial Navy Headquarters Center, one thing after another, there is always a solution.”

  “Excellent, Mr. Lavaud, because we have been given permission to violate the bidding constraints to propose this version of the seating solution.”

  “By your management, Mr. Donnelly?”

  “No, Mr. Lavaud. By the Imperial War Museum’s director of the refurbishment. You have free rein to design a creative solution. Make the seating a part of the museum itself.”

  “Excellent. Excellent. Thank you, Mr. Donnelly. It will be magnifique!”

  The various exhibits from the Imperial War Museum had been sent out for refurbishment to various companies throughout the Center Sector. With the whole museum being refurbished at once, there was just too much work to be done for it all to be done on Center. There just weren’t enough outfits on Center who knew what they were doing with such work, and Colonel Ryan wanted it all done properly.

  The decommissioned nuclear weapon was one of the exhibits sent off-planet. The shipping container from Imperial City arrived in Silver City on Argent, the provincial capital of the Argent Province, and was delivered to a warehouse there.

  Teamwork

  Lina Schneider’s Investigations Office continued monitoring the communications of the DP plutocrat family leaders, their close family members, the unlinked aliases, the unlinked aliases’ contacts, and the middlemen. Slowly they found more middlemen, even a couple of links through two-stage middlemen.

  They had not, as yet, found any links to Colonel Daniel Ryan or Imperial Academy cadet Sean Boyle, also known as Ian Walsh and Thomas Doolan. They were still completely off the Imperial government’s radar.

  Thomas Pitney and the Department’s headquarters team continued to work on the problem as new data came in. It was frustratingly slow, but they were compiling a list of hidden family assets. The distribution was the same, with a lot of people in Imperial City and others strewn across sector and provincial capitals, primarily in the former Democracy of Planets.

  The team of Donleavy and Odom was working out, and they were connecting video footage from their surveillance cameras with the aliases that had been linked so far. They had been successful getting video footage of those people who were using their communications alias as their working alias. They had been less successful, though, finding those whose working alias and communications alia
s were different.

  Ambrose Dickens would be arriving on Center soon. While Donleavy and Odom might well be Pitney’s best direct-action operatives in Imperial City, they were not communications and data analysis specialists. Dickens was. Would they be stronger acting separately or together? And what about their history with each other?

  Pitney considered, then directed a couple of messages be sent.

  Donahue received a message from the Department.

  To: Troy Donahue

  From: Peggy James

  Subject: Contact

  Expect contact from arriving asset Ambrose Dickens. Form three-man team under you.

  Interesting. He wondered what skill set Dickens would bring to the team. Clearly something Gilley wanted him to have.

  Donahue got in touch with Ms. Greenlee, the apartment agent.

  “Hello, Mr. Donnelly. How can I help you today? Is everything working out with your new apartment?”

  “Yes, Ms. Greenlee. It’s exactly what I wanted. Right in the middle of things. As a matter of fact, a friend of mine is coming to Imperial City for a time, and I’ve recommended this building to him. He wants me to set him up so he can go straight home when he gets here. He’ll be arriving in a week or so.”

  “Very well, Mr. Donnelly. Let me check what’s available. Did he want something like your setup, with a servant’s quarters?”

  Donahue thought about it. He had no idea if another team member might not show up at some point.

  “Yes, Ms. Greenlee. That’s exactly what he wants. On this floor, if we can. He and I are close. We go way back.”

  “I see. And furnished, I assume?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Well, Mr. Donnelly, there is a vacant apartment on your floor. Right next door, actually, but it’s unfurnished. Let me check with the apartment manager.”

  Her image paused for a few minutes, then reanimated.

  “They can furnish that apartment for you, Mr. Donnelly. Do you want me to go ahead and get that started?”