The council room’s ceiling towers above, high enough to echo the quartet’s footsteps against the polished granite tile. The walls are lined with paints and photographs of equally colonial subjects, but, bigger. British redcoats against the Ashanti near the Gold Coast and Napoleon’s victory over the Mamluks in the shadow of the pyramids and a particularly stunning one of the crusader conquest of Jerusalem in the last year of the eleventh century.
Opposite the entryway doors is an enormous, arched window that serves as the only source of light, the bars holding up the glass arranged into a five-pointed star within a huge cross. It faces south, away from Mosul and towards the interior of the Republic, towards their attempts at industrialization and environmental rejuvenation. Roman columns are carved into the marble walls, floor-to-ceiling.
A dozen and a half people occupy the room and it still feels empty. Their fashion senses range from ‘modern’ to ‘cowboy president’ to ‘early 20th century generalissimo’ to ‘ancient Roman/business casual fusion’ to ‘I cannot be fucked to put on a suit today.’
There are a few familiar faces. President Archer sits at the head of the table, the cowboy president, wearing an Armani suit and a Stetson hat atop his head, a bushy caterpillar of a moustache atop his upper lip. Commander Davison sits about as far away as he possibly can from him. Fletch is there too, going over and over documents. An empty laptop sits next to Davison, the seat behind it empty until Ash sits down.
There’s also America’s firstborn moron, wearing desert-suited military fatigues that suit him better than an all-denim getup. Sophia would be slavering at the sight of him. His hair hangs loose; either Apex has looser standards than C-SPEAR or he gets a pass because of his father. Speaking of his father, a man who looks suspiciously similar to Ryan Witherspoon sits next to President of the Council Archer. Same broad shoulders, skin tone, solid jawline, and electric blue eyes. His hair is cut short and his hairline is starting to creep towards the back of his head, presumably the reason for the short hair. This must be Colonel Witherspoon of Apex Security.
There are others; Dawn vaguely remembers some. Zhao Fu, the firstborn son of Zhao Zedong; Ilya Maximovich Voronin, Russian warlord and President of the Voronin Group; a Saudi prince with an extraordinarily beautiful woman as his assistant; Matthew Maddox of Palantir Private Surveillance. The rest aren’t important enough to warrant a permanent place in her mind.
They’re all gathered around an enormous wooden table, stained ochre, carved into the shape of the modern Middle East – north to Georgia and Armenia and Azerbaijan, easy to the Iranian-Afghan border, south to Egypt and the southern cape of Yemen and east to Turkey and the Dardanelles.
The three Janissaries all position themselves next to their respective benefactors – Davison for Dawn, by the Iranian-Afghanistan border in the east; Voronin for Anastasia near the western Egyptian border with the Governate of Cyrenaica, the Italian-controlled part of Libya; and President Archer for Eva, north of Georgia and Azerbaijan. The Saudi prince – bushy ‘stache, white thawb, red and white scarf over his head with a black rope, an agal, holding it in place – sits near the Iranian border with Turkmenistan, one of the provinces of the recently formed Russian-controlled Federation of Sogdia and Transoxiana.
The woman with him is enchanting, maybe Dawn’s age or maybe a few years older, skin like polished copper and dark brown hair that was shining auburn due to a stray ray of sunlight. She looks the part of an ancient Egyptian princess. She wears two-thirds of a three-piece suit, a red vest over a white shirt, a black tie around her neck. Her sleeves are neatly rolled up to her elbows, compared to Dawn’s; she just pushed the cuffs as far up as possible. Something about her screams Janissary.
The air is thick enough to chew on; the accumulated rage and fury condensing it into something with the approximate consistency of taffy. Dawn inhales it through her nostrils – it smells like salt. The room is quiet, now, but who knows how long it’ll be until people start yelling at each other? Some people take sips from water bottles, faces still red, frowns and scowls still worn. She glances across as Davison. He looks cool and calm and collected as possible. A thin sheen of sweat shines on his forehead as the light hits it. He takes a pull from a nickel-plated flask containing god-knows-what; maybe vodka. Nods at Dawn.
She puts her hands deep within Iranian territory. All eyes turn to her, friendly and neutral and hostile.
“You better not have brought us here so you can gawk as us.”
The sound of papers shuffling and tablets being picked up and put down ring around the room. Nobody speaks. They’re all waiting for one man.
The President of the Council of the Twin Rivers Republic Corporation clears his throat. Adjusts his stupid fucking hat.
“I need to know: What on God’s green Earth where you thinking when you detonated a fucking Aether Warhead‽”
Dawn’s quiet for a moment. She looks at Davison. He nods again. Takes off the leash. She’s free to go.
She inhales, deeply. Smells the sound and fury in the room. These people are used to gladhanding and circlejerking and ass-kissing.
“Look at fucking Maddox!” she yells right back. With an outstretched hand she gestures towards the regional President of Palantir Surveillance. Maddox is fair-skinned and brown-haired, clean shaven and utterly nondescript. The perfect looking guy for a private intelligence gathering corporation.
“Me?” he protests.
“You said that there was a nuclear bomb and we had to strategize around that!”
“Our agents –”
“Do you have any fucking idea how much difference there is between an aether-enhanced warhead and a motherfucking nuke?”
“Why did it make a difference to your operation?”
“Because a nuke would’ve destroyed the whole fucking city! That’s what! When you operate under the assumption that a weapon that’ll kill a few million people is in the hands of people –”
“Terrorists!” Archer slams the table with both hands, crushing the city of Tbilisi. His voice wears a Texas drawl, a large overcoat over a shrill Oklahoma accent.
Dawn pinches the bridge of her nose.
“Would a bunch of people block traffic up and down the Tigris River for a holy war? Or just a ransom? Fucking think about it.”
“You of all people should best know how these people think. There’s no logic with them, just, chaos and destruction and enslavement!”
Dawn sighs, hangs her head. What’s that supposed to mean anyways? Eva steps forwards.
“the important part is that they had them” she says. She still sounds half-asleep. But she always sounds half-asleep. Dawn can’t tell if she sounds more half-asleep than usual. The length of someone’s aether poisoning symptoms usually depend on the dosage. A particularly high shock can put you down for a week with symptoms similar to high-rad radiation poisoning – skin lesions, blood leaking from every orifice, the works. That’s just the aether rebuilding your internal anatomy.
“Them?” Colonel Witherspoon asks. His voice is strong and powerful and doesn’t need to fake a goddamn thing for political points.
“rpgs” Eva replies.
“How many?”
She shrugs. Too tired for math.
“lost count”
“Wait, they had aether-enhanced RPGs?” Dawn asks. None of the three mentioned that. A warhead could be a rogue actor. Crates of RPGs implies large-scale support; logistics and supply chains.
Eva nods, then deeply yawns.
“Jackson...” President Archer sternly says.
“sorry sir”
Near the Iranian coastline on the Persian Gulf, Ash stands up. She walks around the Arabian Peninsula and shows her laptop to Anastasia and her benefactor. He claims descent from an old – 19th century, before the Soviet Union – Russian general named Mikhail Skobelev, and he looks the part. Broad shouldered and strongly built, with a furious white beard and hair slicked back. But age is turning him into Santa Claus and has given his gut a paunch and his cheeks and nose a permanent rosy-red stain. Now that Dawn thinks about it, it resembles Anastasia’s perpetually soft-pink cheeks. A grin creeps across his face.
Meanwhile, south of Istanbul in the Aegean Sea, another figure speaks up. He’s short, stout, round and robust and tan, and firmly in possession of the worst facial hair in the country. His beard is entirely situated on his neck, shaven above his jawline except for a moustache and soul patch. He says it’s paying tribute to an ancient Brazilian general, the Duke of Caxais, but Santiago Castilla y Borbón isn’t Brazilian. He’s Spanish, and Spanish royalty. Three or four cousins removed from the actual crown and throne. But he possesses the kind of psychic miasma that only a Habsburg could possess. A negative je nais se quios.
“If I may, why did you bring her and not Sophia?”
Dawn rolls her eyes.
“She’s aethersick.”
“Isn’t Señorita Jackson aethersick as well?”
“sophia got the worst of it” Eva replies. “closest to the blast”
“When will she be better?”
“She’ll be fine,” Dawn replies. She’s probably dragging Jake around town, finding every excuse to stay as far away from your ass as possible.
“No-no-no, she’s my prized investment, I need her for tomorrow –”
“She’ll be fine for tomorrow, Jesus,” Dawn interrupts. “Do you have anything constructive to add about yesterday’s events? Or can we move on, we have other things to talk about.”
Another councilmember speaks up, from Egypt’s southern border with North Sudan. His sideburns are enormous and connect to his moustache. He looks like Ambrose Burnside, bungler-in-chief of the Civil War-era Union Army at Fredericksburg. Dawn can’t recall his name off the top of her head but a placard sits in front of him. Randall Tyler, a representative of the Twin Rivers Shipping Corporation. Someone with something to lose from the Tigris being clogged up.
“Your hostility is unbecoming.”
You look like a fucking moron, Dawn wants to say. But she looks over at Davison before speaking her mind, and he loudly exhales and bails her out of this wretched situation.
“Are we really going to waste our time on this?” he asks, standing up.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Santiago asks.
“We have, in order: aether weaponry in the Ikhawn’s inventory; human trafficking into this city from a ship that was granted access past the blockade; bad intel from a company we pay eight figures to; another emergency powers discussion; you advertising your newest business adventure’s grand re-opening or whatever; our newest investor–”
Voronin, the large Russian, rises to his feet. Anastasia steps closer to the table and takes the laptop from Anastasia.
“Speaking of investments,” he starts. His voice possesses such a baritone that it shakes the room. Or at least Dawn’s bones. Russian Orson Welles. He even looks the part, at least a little. He turns to Colonel Witherspoon. The Colonel stands perfectly still, but his kid visibly braces himself for what’s coming.
“We should talk about how you almost blew up two of mine!”
“We were operating off of intelligence provided to us by Palantir –” the Colonel tries.
“So this is my fault?” Maddox interrupts.
“You said that big warehouse next to Mosul docks was storing weapons, which was right next to where my Janissaries were operating!”
“That’s what our sources said!”
“Did your sources say that you needed to murder twenty-five hundred people? Were they correct? Were there weapons? Was it worth it?”
“It doesn’t fuckin’ matter anymore. If there were, they’re gone.”
“You just murdered two thousand people!”
“And how many Russians have died because of your wars?”
Maddox doesn’t have a Janissary to usher him back from the brink, but Anastasia gently pulls Voronin away from the incompetent spymaster.
“Why is he even here?” Maddox asks, thrusting his hand at Voronin.
Come on dude.
Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.
“Why is he here?” Voronin does the same, nearly decapitating Anastasia with the thrust of his arm. “He was wrong about nuclear weapons, and he made you look like genocidal maniacs! What are odds that he is wrong about this too‽”
“Enough!”
The Colonel finally speaks. His voice is like a howitzer in the enormous room, echoing off the high corners and silencing the combatants. He remains seated.
“Both of you! I’ll have your investments seized if you keep this up!”
The threat backs down both parties. Voronin returns to his seat and skulks, while Maddox remains unreadable.
In his seat at the head of the table, President Archer looks impressed at his vice. Or at least entertained at the scene. He looks at the young man next to him, bored with vibrant pink hair. The two look remotely alike. Next to him is a young, freckle-faced woman with bright orange hair who looks miserable. Both wear matching black suits.
Dawn looks towards the Saudi and makes eye contact with the woman. Her eyes are violent, amber, like an inferno contained entirely within her irises. There’re flecks of gold within. Is she…
The woman just shrugs at her. Hell of an introduction, but it’s always like this even on the good days. They just find different reasons to yell at each other. If its not twenty-five hundred incinerated Iraqis it’s a three-percent drop in stock price.
“Is there anything else of import? We do need to talk about our economic situation,” another says. Red-haired, freckled, vaguely Irish sounding. Titus Kerrigan, economic advisor, and a regional executive at LionsBank. Thick, round glasses, an ill-fitting sweat and jeans, business casual. Something else to yell about. Terrific.
Anastasia looks at Ash. Wolfe mouths ‘control shift eff-four’ at Anastasia and she hits the corresponding keys on the laptop. Ash pushes a cubical holographic projector into the middle of the table, near the Saudi borders with Jordan and the Twin Rivers Republic. The digitized hologram of the contents of the shipping manifest appear, floating a foot above the cube. Thousands of mortar shells, rockets, hand grenades, 7.62x39mm rounds for AK-type rifles, two, two dozen crates of landmines, a couple hundred RPGs and thirty of the launchers, even a pair of Stinger missiles and the MANPADs systems that fire them. Food, clothes, construction supplies, concrete and steel and wood. The kind of arsenal you’d need to besiege an entire city. And three Vulcan-IV ballistic missiles.
The Vulcan-IVs are highlighted, flashing red, the rest of the text black.
She turns to face the individual seated at the Southern coast of Oman. He looks extremely similar to Ashara. Alexander Wolfe just glares back at Anastasia, his violet eyes knifelike, deeply set in his face. Anastasia smiles at him, humourless and full of malice.
“Why are missiles manufactured by your company being shipped in, unregistered, on a boat that was allowed past Ikhwan blockade?”
Wolfe – more accurately Wolfe-Hohenzollern – is silent.
“I don’t know. Do you think I have something to do with this?”
“Only little bit,” Anastasia replies. “But we cannot find these missiles. They are on manifest, but when South Seas inspectors looked through every single crate they did not find anything.”
The Wolfe looks at her. He obviously doesn’t want any part of this.
“The boat was with Southern Seas, right?” Wolfe asks.
Anastasia double checks the raw data on the laptop. The hologram scrolls down accordingly. A small blurb at the bottom.
M/V Brighton is currently registered to the Southern Seas Shipping Company Fleet.
“Yes.”
“Southern Seas is mafia-connected,” Wolfe says.
“What?” Tyler stands up.
Oh boy!
“Don’t act scandalized.” Wolfe’s accent is fiercely German, unlike his, half-sister, second cousin, whatever Ash is to him. Two different strands of the family, separated by the First World War. One lives in New York and fucks around with traditional hobbies of the idle aristocracy – fashion, race car driving, art, acting, journalism, cocaine, ketamine. The other remained in Germany and married into the deposed royal families of Germany and likely delved themselves into the many regional flavours of far-right politics. “Open secret. Have you even looked at the contracts the Italian government has given your company?”
Tyler narrows his eyes.
“Course you haven’t. Sit down, you’re unserious.”
Tyler doesn’t sit. “Are you trying to imply that my employees were bribed to hide evidence of rockets?”
“Ballistic missiles. Big difference. But yes. Or instructed not to notice. Also a big difference, I guess.”
Dawn looks at Anastasia. She’s still smiling, like a fox. She raises her eyebrows at her. Professional instigator.
“The ship was also protected by mercenaries belonging to Permanent Solutions Security,” Anastasia replies. “Does, anyone, know anything about them? Or why they were guarding cargo that included human trafficking victims?”
The room is silent. Either nobody knows, or nobody is willing to peep.
“And, more of import, the ship’s journey started at Houston, in Texas. It then made journey to Sao Paolo, then Mombasa, then Mumbai, then Mogadishu. Then here.”
“What are you proposing?” Tyler asks. He sounds aggravated.
“Me?” Anastasia asks back, putting her hands over her chest. She almost sounds offended that he would dare do such a thing. She’s one hell of an actress.
“Yes, you.”
“I do not propose anything, I just make interesting observation and let you all do something with it.” She thickens her accent when she says, ‘interesting observation.’
Next to her, Voronin can’t hide his smile under his beard. The implication is clear. Southern Seas is still subjugating slaves. Or something of the sort. Dawn has another interpretation.
“She’s saying that the Ikhwan probably have a business associate in one of those cities,” she says. “Helped them procure the weapons.”
“Mogadishu makes the most sense,” President Archer announces.
Davison sighs. “Mogadishu is under international occupation. Nobody’s loading that many weapons onto a boat secretly. Especially three ballistic missiles.”
“Iran.”
Davison sighs.
“That fucking warlord, Hussein, Fuckin, Son-of-a-Bitch, he did it, I know it, Wolfe’s sold weapons to that fucking dipshit Shah that we put in a decade ago.”
“How?” Davison asks, very clearly agitated.
“Isn’t that supposed to be your job to figure out?”
“It’s Palantir’s job, but if you give us the money we’ll do their job on top of our own.”
“Which is?” Maddox asks.
“Your job or mine?”
Colonel Witherspoon stands again. His kid sits back in a leather chair, reclining, eyes to the high ceiling. There’s a big, fuck-off chandelier hanging from it. No lightbulbs on it. In this room, the workday starts and ends with the sunlight.
“What we are not going to do,” the Colonel announces, “is childishly attempt to consolidate our own power at the expense of another member of the council.”
“What if that member of the council is incompetent?” Dawn asks. She hears Davison chuckling to himself under his breath. Maddox glares at her but his gaze bounces off Dawn’s hide, plastic pellets against Kevlar.
“Then we will promote another member of the organization to the council. Palantir has the same investments within the Twin Rivers Republic and the Twin Rivers Corporation that the Coalition of Peace has.”
Nobody talks, but the Colonel continues. He glares at Davison. The two have history. At least, that’s what Dawn figures. Davison’s been around the block for a while, lots of time to cause mischief, make enemies. Maybe even a nemesis.
“You’re making fools of us all in front of our newest investor.”
He gestures to the man in the robe. Dawn doesn’t know his name. He’s an al-Saud so he probably has twenty thousand.
“Prince Abu Bakr is spearheading the Saudi Aramco Infrastructure Investment Initiative. Him and his brothers have purchased seven and a half billion dollars worth of shares, on top of the twenty billion in private equity that’s going towards infrastructure. Don’t make him regret it immediately.”
The Saudi gingerly stands. His minder helps him to his feet.
<
The collection of Americans and Europeans, and singular Chinese fellow, all look at him sideways. They’re all in what used to be Iraq and none of them have bothered to learn Arabic. At least, most of them. The woman next to him translates.
“He says that he doesn’t mind the bickering, as long as his investments get the promised returns.”
Oh man. Her accent is something else. Pronounced, exotic-sounding, and completely unlocatable. Lebanese? Maybe she’s a Cypriot – who knows what they sound like anyways?
“Does he know the deal?” Davison asks.
“The both of us are well aware of the arrangement, Commander Davison. It is an honour to finally meet you.”
“It’s a job,” Dawn mutters. The woman looks over at her anyways, but the look in her eyes isn’t surprised. She politely smiles, like she knows the score. She’s not new to this.
“Is that all when it comes to security? We really need to talk about the tariffs in the Caucasus,” Kerrigan replies. His voice and posture are too meek to fit in here. There’s something suspicious about him – nobody in this room is seeing Heaven whether they like it or not. Why does he act differently? “And there is talk that needs to be made about a secondary currency. Can we please move on?”
“One moment, Señor Kerrigan,” Santiago interrupts. “Emergency powers.”
He looks across at Tyler as the entire rest of the room groans. Nobody wants to do this shit again! They just did this last week!
“Given Palantir’s intelligence, we think –”
“Sit down,” Davison replies. “We don’t think anything. You think that Iran is going to invade us or something patently absurd.”
“Of course,” Tyler responds. He hasn’t sat down. “Even if the intel was wrong on some accounts, there Arabs are obviously planning something big. Who’s to say that they haven’t cut a deal with General Ahmed-Zadeh?”
Hussein Ahmedzadeh isn’t going to cut deals with an American satrapy.
Maddox stands as well. A Voltron of the biggest dweebs on the council is assembling.
“There has been a recent build-up of armor and soldiers in Erbil,” he says. “Tanks, armoured cars, technicals, the works. Even some aircraft.”
The woman accompanying Abu Bakr al-Saud clears her throat. Interrupts.
“If I may, councilmen.”
The three schemers look at President Archer. He nods.
“Go ahead, Miss.”
The woman pushes off the table, starts walking around the table. “I believe that the buildup in Erbil is on behalf of the Kurdish government. They border Iranian territory, so, to me, it only makes sense that they want to perform military exercises.” She snakes her way into the Persian Gulf and leans against the al-Faw peninsula.
Important thing to note: Kurds and Arabs and Iranians are not the same ethnic groups. Tyler wants to say ‘Muslims’ but there’s a very wealthy Muslim in this room.
“Well, why have they not told us about them, then?” A new voice, new face. The only woman on the council. Severe looking, late fifties. Too busy to wear makeup, stress wrinkles line her face. Elisabeth d’Or. Representative of the Paris-based African Foreign Legion, or the Légion Étrangère Africaine. Another mercenary group. Mainly takes contracts along the Euphrates.
“They are an independent state. They can do what they want within their own borders.” Again, a new face. Zhao Fu, or Fu Zhao using Western naming conventions. Big forehead, closely cut crew cut, a thin, long, waxed moustache practically levitating off of his upper lip.
“Iran is currently experiencing a crisis of central governance,” the woman continues. She wears dark kohl around her eyes, winged off. Her brows are thick and full. “Their armed forces do not answer to the orders of the Shahanshah, but instead to regional warlords. If the commander of the Islamic Guards Army is going to launch an attack, it will be eastwards at Tehran.”
“It would be society-wide suicide if they even thought about attacking us,” Another fucking new face. Everybody wants their goddamn opinions heard. This is Ignacio Xavier Hidalgo and he’s the President of the Grupo de Seguridad Espadas Plateadas. The Silver Swords. He has a long mop of dark hair atop his head, his beard white but his moustache black. Uruguayan, if Dawn remembers right.
“All of the other Iranian factions see the IGA as remnants of the past regime. He has no internal support outside of his own base. The Kurds know this. They have no reason to launch an attack against us. But, considering the IGA’s increasing procurement of armaments they do have a reason, in my mind, to start defensive exercises. Just in case.” This woman has an answer for everything. Big surprise, the Janissary is exponentially more talented than the benefactor.
“But they don’t think like we do!” Archer replies.
And the room falls silent. Everyone, all of a sudden, remembers that the Saudi is here. But the prince’s Janissary reacts lightning fast.
<
The Saudi prince nods, accepting of her answer. She’s good, real good.
Wolfe-Hohenzollern rises to his feet. The three currently standing have their eyes go wide.
"I suggest we put it to a vote and let it be the end of it. Forever.”
“Put what?” Hidalgo asks.
“Emergency powers,” Wolfe replies. “I’m sick of this nonsense.”
“Wait, no, you can’t be serious,” Hidalgo replies.
“The evidence is there!” Santiago yells.
Voronin stands too. “You are not always this stupid, correct?”
“I don’t want some terrorist attack interrupting –”
“Your grand opening,” Anastasia interjects. “We get it.”
Everyone looks at President Archer, except for Voronin, who looks at Anastasia like a proud father.
“Uhh,” the President uhhs. “This is a bad idea.”
He knows it’s a losing fight, at least at the moment.
“So let’s just get it over with,” Alexander Wolfe replies. “All in favour?”
Nobody raises their hands.
“We won’t hold a vote on it until the circumstances call for it,” the Colonel Witherspoon replies. “We will not make the mistake of rushing headlong into another unknown situation again. It’s hurt us too many times.”
“But, my grand –” Santiago begins.
“Shut the fuck up about your fucking grand opening! It’s all you fucking talk about! We’re not your fucking babysitter, you fat bastard! Fuck off!”
Anastasia has practically clambered up onto the table to scream at Santiago. Both feet and an arm are atop the oaken carving; her other arm is in the mighty mitt of Voronin. But the big Russian is smiling at his Janissary’s antics.
“If I have to hear another faggy goddamn word out of your faggy fucking mouth I am going to skin you alive, hear me? I’ll turn you into a fucking couch! Shut the fuck up!”
“Put a leash on your Janissary, Voronin!” Santiago yells back.
“Why? She’s saying what I’m thinking!”
“She’s calling me homophobic slurs!”
“I do not give a shit!”
She may be violently homophobic but she gets results. Dawn can’t waste talent like that. Anastasia huffs and puffs like a lion after a hunt, staring down her prey. Santiago is visibly shaking like its below zero. Archer is leaning back in his chair, muttering something under his breath. This has not gone the way he wanted. Maybe having Santiago as your pointman isn’t the best idea. Archer beckons Kerrigan over, the two whisper shapeless words; the oilman nods. He looks at Davison, and also nods.
“Right,” Davison speaks up. “We’ll postpone the vote.”
“Until when?” Wolfe asks. Santiago opens his mouth but Anastasia almost growls at him. Voronin keeps her on an awfully long leash, but she gets him the results he wants. Even if those results are calling a member of European royalty a slur.
“We’ll call it up when the time is right.”
“Are we done here?” Dawn asks. “Can we go?
The President closes his eves for a moment. He reaches into his pocket and pull out a big, fat Cuban cigar and a lighter. Lights it up, inhales, exhales.
“Yes. You didn’t bring that Chinese woman with you, did you?”
“No. We don’t care about economics.”
“Neither do I, but here I am,” Archer exhales another cloud of smoke, aiming high at the ceiling and the shadowy mural above. So he can smoke indoors, but I can’t? "She probably has something smart to say about Kerrigan's little problems."
"These problems are not little, and we do not need a Communist dictating our economic policies."
Archer sighs. It's impossible to feel bad for him because he's a rich American but, for once, Dawn and him seem on the same page. He's far, far out of his depth here. He inhereted New Standard Aether when it was still New Standard Oil, and in the process inherited all of the money and shares. The rebrand to Aether was a no-brainer once the mass production was sustainable.
“You’re all excused. I’ll see you tomorrow at, what was it, Santiago’s big, ‘faggy’ gambling blast?”
Dawn sighs. Looks at Davison. You better not make me go to that.
“We’ll see you there,” Davison replies. You motherfucker. He stands, looks at the Janissaries. Neither of the three need a signal to get out of the room. Ash and Fletch follow their boss. Archer says something to Eva, who nods, but it’s in whispers and Dawn can barely grasp the shape of it.
Davison pauses halfway to the door. Then he turns around.
“Miss al-Aziz?”
Is that her name?
He gestures her over, and the Saudi’s Janissary nods and follows.
<
So that’s her name!
Farrah turns back, but so does Davison. He fucking rounds on him.
<