December 25th, 202X
“Okay. Right. All that. So the plan is...”
“in order to restore the Ocean, we use Limit’s Spark to imbue the Terminal with the power of a Demiurge.”
“That... has got to be a pretty tough thing to pull off. You said my cousin thought of this?”
“what?” hailey pauses as the dots connect in her mind. “wait, genuinely? i believed the atlas relation was more spread out than that.”
“Nah, I grew up with Trius. Really silly guy. I guess he’s smart or something too. Eh, I didn’t pay enough attention in school, and look where it got me. I must be doing something right that he’s not.”
“... right. well, it is tough, but... well, you want the Ocean back, yes?”
“Sure I do. I mean, half our locations went out with the Ocean missing! If we could get it back, that’d send profits way further up.” I pause, leaning back in my chair and kicking my legs up on my desk. I make sure not to knock over my —people in the office gotta know that this is the real deal—Mnemosyne god damn Atlas-Florencio! I look at Hailey. “And you’re sure this’ll work?”
“weeeeelllll...” she smiles mischeviously.
“WE HAVE NO IDEA,” THE ROBOT SAYS.
“That doesn’t really inspire confidence!” I laugh in disbelief. “I’m looking for more results-based theories here.”
“well,” hailey says, turning her head upwards at a 3/4 angle that she thinks makes her look imposing but really just makes her look like a reference image on some stock photo website, “to be fair, we didn’t know the cellhexes would work either. and cellhex-v2 was insanely profitable for how small-scale it was. we’re talking about restoring the Ocean here—there’s not really a precedent for this.”
“Sure.” I click my tongue. “Well, theoretically, can the Terminal hold the Spark?”
“also no!”
I laugh and cover my face with my hands.
“WELL, SORT OF. STRICTLY SPEAKING, THE TERMINAL COULD POTENTIALLY HOLD THE POWER OF THE LIMIT SPARK, BUT NOT IN THE WAY YOU THINK. IT WOULD OVERLOAD ITS SYSTEMS AND MAKE IT UNABLE TO STORE ANY OTHER INFORMATION. IT WOULD ALSO STORE ALL OF LIMIT’S POWER IN ONE LOCATION. WE’VE SEEN WITH THE AUXILIARY CENTURION HOW THIS MIGHT BE A BAD THING.”
“The Centurions... Oh, god. Are you going to ask what I think you’re about to?”
“UH...”
“maybeee.”
“Eight new Terminals. Is that what you want?”
“precisely.”
I take my legs off the desk, place my arms on the mat in the center of my desk, and bury my face in them. “Hailey. That’d be something like sixteen trillion dollars.”
“WE CALCULATED. IT’D ACTUALLY BE 17 TRILLION 631 BILLION 402 MILLION—”
“Stop stop stop. Okay. That’s approximately 85% of our current funds. Do you know how many Departments I’d have to put on hold?”
“all of them except Mechanical Engineering and External Affairs.”
“Oh, of course. Your Departments. You’re not the center of the company, you know that, right?”
“am i at least its face?”
“No, that’d be me. The center, the core, the HEART of this company is this:” I lift my head and slam my fist into my open palm. “CASH!”
“the v2 series contributes majorly to our funds—are neither of my Departments to help with this?”
“Help! Exactly! This company runs on all its Departments. You’d be nowhere without Financial, you wouldn’t have the Terminal without Architecture, and you wouldn’t have half your materials without Anomalous Materials! To say nothing of Internal Affairs, which keeps this whole damn place running!”
“this company runs on power, not money.”
“Money is Truth to power, Tartarus.” I point at her, making a finger gun. “So. You’re going to deal with this not on your own, but with the supervision of every single other Department. In this time of crisis, I’m going to blend all the Departments. Nobody’s going jobless even if you want a seventeen trillion purchase.”
she looks shocked. “even fucking herodotus is going to be keeping an eye on me?”
“Hey, those who don’t learn History are doomed to repeat it, right?” I return to leaning back. “Anyway, this is my decision, not yours. You have my permission to start making eight new god damn Terminals, but under the supervision of the Department heads. That’s the gist. Other than that, feel free to do your Terminal thing. You’ve got funding. Inshallah, you somehow actually get the Ocean back together.”
hailey squints at me with a pained smile-grimace. saying women should smile more already has problems, but if there was any phrase like it that had a shred of Truth to it, then it’d be that women, specifically hailey, should smile LESS. very icky. no good. “of course. i’ll begin work immediately.” she stands and exits.
THE ROBOT FOLLOWS ALONG WITH HER.
Once they leave, I press the button to shut my office door and sigh. This is going to be annoying. I wonder how I’ll have to put her in her place next time?