I was going to take them up on the offer for an interview, and they were expecting my call. Less than an hour after Axle had spoken to SNN, I was on air to provide a counter. This meant sitting across the desk from Hris C’aze, to my distaste.
Her blouse had been changed for the interview and was considerably lower. It wasn’t obscene, but it showed off the size of her bust considerably more than the previous top had. Snitties yet again, the ever-present reminder that sex sells. She smiled broadly at me, gleaming with purple in her scales again.
“We’re all so glad you could make time in your busy schedule to respond!” Hris said with a wide smile.
“Of course,” I replied easily, sitting back in the chair.
“Well, let's start with the obvious. Some would say ridiculous, but our CEO is a solid source, so it has to be taken seriously. Do you want to kill BuyMort, Mr. Dawes?” she asked.
“Oh of course,” I said, scowling exaggeratedly. “Don’t we all?”
Suddenly, an interactive overlay appeared in my vision:
"Confused? Want the facts? With Teal'c CertiCheck, you'll receive the exact truth you need. Let the world agree with you. Let Teal'c CertiCheck provide you with trusted facts, catered to your perspective!"
An animated button popped up with two glowing options:
* Option A: Axle's Truth
* Option B: Tyson's Take
I smirked inwardly at the overt manipulation but dismissed the ad with a flick. Facts were flexible these days, after all.
The Nah’gh woman burst out laughing and reached across the table for me. I happily gripped her hand and laughed along. “Oh you are just a delight,” she squealed. “We will have to have you on more often! Now, in all seriousness, can you explain the CEO’s statement?”
“Yes,” I nodded. “What my dear old friend is referring to is a simple thought exercise. We used to do it as a method of producing tactical plans against our actual enemies at the time. The Dearth Conglomerate, the great Orkreshi houses, the Church itself. The idea is to simply brainstorm about how to kill something much more powerful than yourself, in essence,” I explained. “The entire concept was only ever a strategic exercise, something to inspire actual strategy against potent enemy forces.”
While I spoke, she nodded along as if she understood my word salad. “To be clear, you do not want to kill or destroy the BuyMort commerce system?”
I scoffed. “You know, I wouldn’t mind getting rid of that icon in my vision. But eh, you get used to it.”
“That’s a no?” she asked.
I smiled again and shook my head. “That’s a no,” I lied. “In all the thought exercises, we only ever came up with one potentially viable strategy at any rate, and it involved eons of slow changes to structural and cultural systems. Much more akin to guided evolution than killing.”
“Well that’s good, I suppose,” Hris said.
“Oh it is, if you like economic stability and societal standards,” I replied. Axle was going to come for me, and I wasn’t going to be gentle in reply. But it had to be done in this bizarre arena of mistruth and truth. “Under my operation of Silken Sands, the affiliate saw the most rapid economic expansion and rise in the history of the BuyMort system.”
Suddenly, the screen flickered as Teal'c CertiCheck, obviously a program sponsor, lit it up with bombastic flair.
The room was filled with dramatic, pulsing music as huge, golden checkmarks exploded into view, floating in mid-air between me and Hris. A deep voiceover boomed:
"TEAL'C CERTICHECK VERDICT: TRUE!
Fact: Silken Sands reached the Top 10 Affiliates in BuyMort history in record time under Tyson Dawes' leadership!"
A sweeping visual showed a digital timeline, displaying Silken Sands’ rapid ascent to the top 10 affiliates. Neon arrows shot through the chart with fireworks blazing in the background, while a glowing "100% Certified" badge spun slowly in front of Hris's desk.
She clapped her hands in delight, her scales flushing a pleased shade of lavender. "Well, there we go! Teal'c CertiCheck is on your side for that one!"
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
I smirked, my eyebrow arching slightly. "Glad to have it confirmed. Hard to argue with facts when they’ve got pyrotechnics backing them up."
Hris giggled. "Oh, isn't it just marvelous? They really pull out all the stops these days." The screen behind her flashed once more, transitioning from the economic chart to a video montage of smiling workers in spaceports and shimmering planetary cities, showing the growth Silken Sands had achieved.
She turned and pointed to another screen behind the table. On the monitor showing us our own broadcast a large chart popped into view. It showed affiliates that had made it into the top ten, and how long it took them to accomplish that monumental task. Silken Sands was on top, by a massive margin.
Only a handful of other affiliates had managed to reach the top ten in under a century, with all of those being associates that I had personally set in motion or elevated, like the House of None. I’d sent SNN the chart myself, something Terna had acquired from the Knowle Institute of History. It was hard data with confirmable sources that was difficult to argue against.
“That,” I said, “is undeniable proof of my ability to run an affiliate. I saw the collapse of the Church coming and took steps to ensure that Silken Sands would come out on top. I stood up to The Dearth Conglomerate as they were twisting the teachings of BuyMort, producing expensive crap as cheaply as possible and then selling those necessary goods for as much as possible with no regard to quality or customer experience. I set us all on a better path, and I saved as many lives as I could along the way. People forget that what we have experienced, and are still experiencing today in a tangible way, is the death throes of the former ruling class.”
Hris sucked in air between her teeth and the color in her scales pushed toward orange, with some red seeping into the yellow of her sudden jolt of fear.
“And one more thing,” I said, cutting her off before she could say anything. “There are a handful of people who knew me back then still alive today. Most of them knew Axle as well, if not personally then by his hand as my operations manager. And all of them have come out to support my campaign so far. We are actively seeking BlueCleave starfish troopers to join our campaign as well. Simply contact Save the Cubes, and they’ll get you in touch with the campaign.”
“Alright, thank you so much Warlord, that’s all the time we have for tonight, unfortunately,” Hris announced. She had been touching her earpiece and not listening to me during my final statement, and it was clear someone said to cut me off as soon as I had started talking about the class system of BuyMort.
That was always a sore subject. I’d been on both sides of it twice already and was able to recognize its effects more than the average denizen of BuyMort. Those in the ruling class never wanted to hear how things were ruined or outright destroyed because of their actions, but there were always so many in the lower classes who could see it evidently. The argument would be a part of BuyMort for as long as morties were.
With her abrupt cutoff, the feed died and I was gently escorted from the building. The interviews from SNN would likely dry up for a couple of days, but that was when it was time for me to make the rounds on smaller and more targeted media sources.
The pasta-damned routine of podcasts, content creators, and comedy shows that actually reached a substantive number of the voting public and was therefore worth doing. That tour was what I had to do with my weekend instead of spending it with Shoshanna.
She quickly became a wonderful distraction for me as the campaign continued. Where before my arrival in her affiliate and life, she had been quite unproductive, and used her non-profit as a hobby more than anything serious, suddenly she was focused. Shoshanna complained to me more than once after we landed that Molly’s spending was out of control. The women had argued over it in front of me one night, and I stayed silent, looking away and pretending not to hear.
Shoshanna’s involvement in Save the Cubes suddenly became full time. She soberly accepted a large security escort, and went to work cheerfully every day, finding new Cubes to save and attempting to obtain a larger fleet of ships to work with. Her long-term goal was to purchase a large, fast cargo ship that had been based on the Crown of Thorns warship.
It was driven by a gravity drive, which held the ship together and provided extreme FTL speeds alongside gargantuan cargo capacity. The entire ship was a thick starfish design that opened its arms to accept cargo into the craft, as well as providing the advanced living suites and defensive capability any affiliate into deep space work would desire. Its gravity drive was capable of diverting all incoming projectiles, or allowing them to pass through the ship with a quick movement of its plates and inner compartments. It could even bend weaponized light, if needed.
All while controlling the personal gravity of each person on board according to their spoken desires, and being capable of holding its delicate cargo at a long distance, in case the Cube could not be consoled. The ship, with a programming upgrade, could produce a sound-transit arm. Something that could be used to reach down to the Cubes and speak to them, while limiting what it could hear from the ship. If the rescue Cube became unstable or erratic, the sound-transit arm could be rapidly disassembled to prevent harm to the ship.
In Shoshanna’s perfect world, Save the Cubes was going to save all the cubes, including those that had been lost for tens of thousands of years. The data on Cube sales and discards had been cheap when the affiliate had no way of successfully accomplishing its goals.
But the ship was absurdly expensive and would produce no profit once attained. Not only that, but Shoshanna wanted a small fleet of them, to go after multiple Cubes at once. She told me she was worried about our Cube, and how he was doing all alone in that violent system. The way he’d left me made me feel good about it, there had been no hesitation at all. It was like he’d finally come to a place he could recognize and thrive in.
Like a fish finding water for the first time. I figured he would be fine, and that he would be content to explore and feed until we sent the next Cube through.
While Shoshanna elevated the non-profit to a serious affiliate, I focused on my campaign. Over the weekend I had to miss with her, I visited several broadcast and publication affiliates to tell my side of the story. To counterprogram Axle.