by Simon Archer
The girls had the best outfits overall, and not just because looking at their figures was always amazing. Natasha must have had a hand in each of their designs for them to turn out so well. She herself had taken to wearing a flowing white dress that seemed to be lighter than air, the loose cloth of the sleeves and hem never quite hanging down as she moved about the room. Considering that she spent most of her time in fights sitting down on a cloud, the superhero unitard she used to wear hadn’t been necessary, since nothing she wore really needed to be slimline to keep her at full mobility on the field. That, and she easily kept herself entertained watching her clothes float around her. We were going to call that a feature.
Kate had taken to wearing a skintight, black bodysuit underneath a set of combat armor plates strapped to every unmoving part of her body, leaving the joints and waist with their full range of motion. Not to abandon her old style, she still kept a leather belly jacket on, with a few thick combat plates strapped around to match her legs. However, it had since been upgraded to be a military uniform, complete with five stars over her shoulders.
Minou’s outfit, surprisingly enough, had gotten less complicated. She now wore only a pair of tights and a sports bra, both with some patterning matching Kate’s military jacket. However, the biggest change had come to her feline hybrid form, which had gotten a lot fluffier at the forearms and shins, being so thick and soft that they looked more like sleeves than fur. Matching the sleeves was a collar made up of her drastically lengthened tail, acting like a feather boa as it wrapped up and around to hang over her shoulder.
“First, I’d like to congratulate you all on your new positions.” I started the meeting. “You all earned your new jobs, and I’m proud to have seen you all grow into the people who take up these lofty positions now to help me with my ambitions. You may be seated.”
“Why the sudden change of operation, sir?” Yomura asked as we all took our seats at the long meeting table. “Is it because of the new recruits flooding in? I will admit that the new departments helped us to file people away and give them all jobs to do, so I am not complaining. The shift merely piqued my polite curiosity.”
“We’re just going to say that I felt a nudge in the direction of expansion,” I answered vaguely. “I trust that everyone has taken to their new positions well enough? Do any of you have questions about what I expect from you with your new job? From what I understand, you should already inexplicably know about it already.”
Video games were weird like that.
“I am to manage our digital network matters.” Yomura was the first to present his role in the new system. “My people in the TODO carry out all cyber warfare and cybersecurity measures for you.”
“You don’t have to call it that, Yomura.” I couldn’t help but cringe at the acronym that had managed to carry over with the information about the gig. “It’s perfectly fine to just call yourself the Head of Information Technology or something snazzy. Seriously, let’s just forget that TODO is even a thing associated with us.”
“Was that not how you referred to it?” Yomura scrunched his brow. “I could have sworn that you mentioned the acronym somewhere.”
“I assure you, Yomura, that I had no hand in the names you were all given.” I trod dangerously close to the topic of the video game reality they lived in just to avoid being associated with the acronyms. “Feel free to use your own names for these departments and branches. Whatever you heard me tell you is clearly off the table. I release you from any obligation to it.”
“Oh, thank god for that.” Nick slouched in his chair as a relaxing relief loosened him up. “You have no idea how much ‘SWARD’ bugged the shit out of me.”
“Why?” Joe puzzled at Nick’s rejection of the name. “Isn’t that a fancy way to pronounce ‘sword?’ It’s like a foreign language. Exotic.”
“I realize that you are not wise in the ways of words, Joe,” Nick sat back up in his chair, “but I cannot stress enough how wrong you are.”
“Oh, I was joking,” Joe chuckled, “you see, it’s only one letter off from being ‘sword,’ so, when you say it out loud, it sounds funny, like a foreign language. Was it not actually funny?”
“Joe!” Kate put both hands on her hips with a look straight at the mutant man-ape as a quiet set of giggles danced through the other members of the meeting. “Did you just make a joke? On purpose?”
“Yeah, right?” Joe grinned from ear to ear. “These last couple months working for Dantem have been great. I don’t know how to explain what happened, but it’s like the world isn’t as foggy as it used to be. I can follow along with conversations easier, I can read faster, all kinds of stuff. I still don’t get any smart mumbo jumbo, but everything else just seems easier to hear. Does that make sense?”
“I am so proud of you!” Kate hugged Joe around the side, which amounted to her slapping two arms around one of his. “Look at you, getting smarter and all! That’s so cool!”
There were general congratulations from everyone else in the meeting, remarking at Joe’s increased intelligence as they overlapped one another. Most video game RPGs never touched on the aftereffects of leveling up and increasing stats on people’s everyday lives. It was odd to witness it firsthand, to say the least. A series of equations meant to make things more entertaining for players as they continued to play practically changed Joe’s whole life without a seemingly natural cause.
“OH! I know!” Nick’s eyes lit up as the conversation died down again. “Nick’s Nifty New Novelties! That could be my department name!”
“You run a research and development branch, not a dollar store.” Yomura reached across the table and slapped Nick upside the head. “If you are going to change the name, at least make it sound less ridiculous than the first one. Do you want people calling your department quadruple N?”
“Ow! Come on!” Nick rubbed his temple through his matted hair. “It has alliteration! How can you hate that?”
“To be fair, no one would expect the R&D department to be based inside a dollar store chain,” I remarked in Nick’s favor. “Could help throw people off the real intentions of the department and help us launder some of our ill-gotten gains as legitimate.”
“What if people come looking for an actual dollar store when they hear the name?” Kate interjected. “We don’t want random people to stumble upon anything Nick might come up with now that he’s got a team enabling his fever dream inventions.”
“I could easily rectify that.” Minou defended Nick’s strange naming convention with her assistance. “A few of my men could keep any nosy people far away from Nick or his fever dreams.”
“You could direct them to an actual store with the same name that we set up!” Natasha added to the growing snowball of ideas. “A positive economic contribution with our financial thumbprint could really help create a desirable public image for us, especially if it feels like a mom-and-pop shop, you know? We could establish ourselves as part of the identity of the community. People will overlook a lot of small things if they like you well enough.”
“We could sell some of the benign failed experiments from Nick’s department there.” I decided to continue the snowball with my own thoughts. “Turn all those ideas into profits again, and we don’t have to worry about trading with too many outside traders. You do have failures that can be benign, right, Nick? Something that won’t explode when a child plays with it, for example?”
“They are not likely to maim immediately.” Nick’s guarantee provoked no confidence in me. “And they are less likely to kill outright.”
“Tabling that for now,” I tried to regain some control of the meeting, “I can get the general feeling that you all have an understanding of your jobs, based on how you plan to contribute to our new store acting as a cover for our R-and-D department just on an offhanded suggestion of a name only. Freddie, Cane, you haven’t spoken up. Do your tasks confuse you at all?”
“I’mfinewithwhatever,boss!” Crazy Cane stood up stiff as
a four-foot-rod and saluted. “Justgivemeanenemyandletmeloose! Meandmyboyscanhandleanythingyouneedcrushedoranythingyouneeddefended!”
“If you don’t get any targets for my new boys or me to take out, my dude, I’ll be keeping them all busy with some training,” FrickaFresh shrugged, “bunch of newbloods couldn’t point the right end of a rifle at the mark yet, my guy, so we’ve got some work to do before things get serious.”
“That’s what you should all be focusing on while we get the next phase of the plan into play.” I addressed the group to return the meeting to its original purpose. “Make sure that your houses are all in order and running as smoothly as possible before we finish. The real work begins once we acquire the last few pieces.”
“So, um, can you tell us this next phase of the plan again?” Nick asked as the meeting truly began. “I know you probably sent us an email or a message about it, but I just wanted some assurance as to why we aren’t just a massive target for the world to pick on right now.”
“We have a lot of troops now, Nick.” Joe curled himself over the back of the chair he was sitting backward in. “We can handle anything that comes our way. They’ll have a bit of trouble fighting against us now that we have enough soldiers to conquer anything that we need to. We even have those robots, right? If we’re afraid to lose people, just send them out first.”
“We’re not declaring war against the world yet,” I answered, “that comes later, when the world is ripe for the picking. For now, we need to establish something that the world can’t attack while we build our empire further without any interference.”
“Could we not have done what we had been doing with the other cities, if that was the goal all along?” Yomura suggested, “establishing economic roots and subsuming them through our business connections has proven significantly more effective and efficient, and does not risk any of our soldiers in the process. More to the point, this approach looks much less conspicuous in relation to our greater efforts to conquer nations than a couple of invasions on sovereign soil.”
“And it would have been a great game plan for those other two cities if it didn’t take so damn long for each one,” I explained again. “It’s efficient in all things but time, and that is something we were running clear out of well before we had half the cities we do now. We also can’t be complacent in our strategy if we want it to succeed. Depending solely on the fact that no one’s smart enough to see what we’re doing is a recipe for disaster.”
“No one’s smarter than you, though, right, Dantem?” Natasha rested her head on her palm as she looked at me. “They’d never see you coming from a mile away.”
“Thank you, but I’m smart enough to know that thinking I’m the smartest one around will backfire,” I replied, “At best, sleepily taking cities carries its own suspicions to the nosy among our enemies, and it’d only be a matter of time before someone caught on to the fact that a strange and shadowy organization somehow controlled the economies of one of the coasts of Numania and worked against us in a similarly quiet fashion. Playing dirty is our battlefield, and we need to be the only ones fighting there if we want to win. We need a good counter to their attempts to work against us, and many other forms of attack they’ll come up with, very soon. Now, if we timed our invasions right, then we should be just in time for the Aggregation of Countries meeting coming up.”
“Did you have something in mind?” Minou chimed in, “you are always quite prepared for these things, and everything has happened according to your plan.”
“Do you need me to cross off some ambassadors?” Freddie offered. “I can clear out half of that whole room before anyone suspects a thing if you need.”
“An international incident can wait until we're finished.” I declined the offer. “No, we’ll be needing a softer, more delicate approach, though it will still include your talents, and it’ll still be one hell of a show. Like most of my plans, this one involves a bit of flair and a lot of power to move many parts at once. Joe, Cane, how well do you think you can compose yourselves at a fancy party?”
“I don’t know if the ape parts will make people uncomfortable,” Joe lifted up his tree-trunk arms to convey the hairiness properly, “but I’ll be good, I promise.”
“IthinkI’llhavetokeepmymouthshutthewholetime!” The manic energy Crazy Cane constantly exuded juxtaposed his self-reflection on his own behavior. “Aslongasyoudon’thavemetalkingtoanyone,Ishouldbefine!”
“That’s all I ask.” I accepted their answers. “You’ll both be directing the majority of our forces under Kate’s instruction. We need a proper military display, with uniforms, synchronized marches, quick commands, security detail, the whole shebang.”
“Yessir!” Another salute from the miniature man canvas. “They’llbewhippedintoshapelike theywereallborninthem,sir!”
“Excellent.” I turned to Yomura. “You have the floor plans for the Hall of Unity in Harkishton, right? And you already made sure to move the meeting there? And the messages, too? You planted them already? I know I’m asking you for a lot.”
“Just as you ordered, sir.” The giant tapped against the table a few times, activating the screen display on its surface to show me the documentation of everything I’d asked. In front of me and everyone, there were blueprints of the massive gathering place labeled ‘Hall of Unity,’ along with several documents with official seals and stamps, all stating information about the meeting in a few days. “Everything is in place, and everyone seems to be behaving accordingly, with no trail leading back to us. And the research that you inquired about has official documentation, as you expected.”
“Good work,” I said, “the next part is a little tricky for you. During the AC meeting, I’ll need you to hack into several government servers at once to do what we discussed.”
“That will take longer than the meeting will last that day, sir,” Yomura informed me. “If you plan for me to make use of the whole meeting, I could make it work, but I am severely limited without some kind of access directly to them.”
“That’s where FrickaFresh comes in.” I looked at the sniper. “You will be leading a team into the meeting hall covertly to find five specific ambassadors and tamper with their smartphones, implanting a special device into each of them that will allow Yomura to hack into them. They’ll have all the access that Yomura will need to get into the servers and do his work.”
“I haven’t gotten to training my boys, yet.” Freddie resisted his role. “If we send in one of our veterans or one of the new boys from Perignon’s old crew who’s good at this, they might get in without a fuss, but he’ll have to bring along a hacker to get the actual job done fast enough to get out without being seen. The problem is getting that hacker in and out just as quietly. Might be a stretch, but we can make it happen. Just be ready to improvise if something slips.”
“It won’t have to be as quiet as you think.” I corrected him, “the security will be a lot laxer, since we’ll be providing more than half of it. That reminds me!” I turned to Nick. “I’m sure that asking this is just dumb, but I will anyway; do you have any flashy bombs that we can use?”
“Does Joe have a hairy ass crack?” Nick puttered his lips in mocking defiance. “You insult me, my fair employer. I’ve got the market cornered on flashy bombs.”
“I thought that it’d be harder to clean than before I got powers, but no,” Joe remarked, “it’s not even that much hairier, to be honest.”
“Ew.” Natasha crinkled her nose. “Monkey butts.”
“Please tell me you at least read the message to get the explosives planted inside the Hall immediately, and that they’re already in there.” I tried to change the subject with a desperate hope for Nick’s uncharacteristic action. “The whole point of moving the meeting was so we could have the home-field advantage.”
“You know, I actually did!” To everyone’s surprise, Nick did not disappoint. “It said ‘BOMB’ in big letters, so I actually clicked on it. They’re already set and ready to g
o. I even made it look like professional work without having a specific operational style of any one nation. Thought that was weird, but hey, you’re the boss.”
“Speaking of nations and bombs, you said you weren’t planning an international incident, and that you needed a subtle approach,” Kate accused with her inquiry. “How are bombs going off during a peace council a step down from an assassination of a representative of a foreign government in that same meeting?”
“Because we’re not trying to start a war between nations,” I answered, “we’re trying to unify them against a common enemy that I choose. Without anyone substantial to blame for the death of one of them, the ambassadors will start pointing fingers at each other, pulling on old rivalries and scarred histories to breed conflict. Hell, they might point some fingers at me if we’re too sloppy about it. The dynamics of the power struggle will shift unpredictably, which we can’t have. They’ll also immediately lock the place down, move the ambassadors somewhere safe, and hold the meeting away from our controlled environment where we can’t reach them. We’ll get the wrong kind of attention in every way. However, if they’re all alive, and the attack on the Hall of Unity is big and aggressive, there’ll be more than enough panic to keep them dazed long enough to get everything we need out of it. More importantly, if we do this right, they’ll all be looking in the same direction, towards the culprit of my choosing.”
“So you want to fake an ostentatious terrorist attack on a meeting of nations so you can use the distraction to hack into several foreign government servers and get what you need from them, along with some kind of elaborate scam.” Kate summarized the situation. “What is in these servers that is so important that you’ll bomb an international institution in use?”
“I think it’s better that only Yomura know what needs to be done there.” I refused to answer. “It’s going to guarantee our future. Granted, what he does only serves to help me with my part in this, but I’m dead in the water without him.”
