“A smile that doesn’t scare kids? Color me surprised Empress.”
“Shove off Camacho. If I was half as scary as you make me out to be, you’d behave better.” She snorts and laughs at me.
“I should probably spend the next few hours in my office before the events begin, but heck if I haven’t been enjoying the sun these last few days. Hmmm, wait! This park has a fountain!” I do love me a water feature, so I skip toward the fountain, stick my feet in the water and pull up some screens.
Talk about weird skills to see. With as much government I’ve been dealing with, I can’t believe I haven’t discovered the Bureaucracy skill before now. Not a single trade skill on that list and it makes me sad.
Luckily I don’t have any high priority message that I’ve been ignoring, just a paper and some research notifications from Naomi’s husband. Progress updates and requests for money and materials, which Naomi has been filling out of the research fund I put aside for the construct learning development side of my project.
He sent some design variants after seeing my prototype that I need to choose from, but that can wait until after my lunch discussion about big money. We’ve got several million in contracts out right now, and some priority bids on rare metals we need to file before it’s too late. Beecham, who usually flags different metals for bidding, is currently occupied and his second in command at the shipyard has not been keeping up. So many damned irons in the fire.
Next set of messages are notes from Mercer and two different advance reports that we’ll be discussing today. An audit of earmarked funds for the Founders Festival, and a record of the First Consul’s transactions. Yikes, I bet that’s a fun read.
Last, and most confusing, a personal communication from Katelynn O’Connell.
Dearest Wife,
Though you alluded to it while I was recovering, my and Atropos’ investigations on why and how you found me drugged has led me to discover that I have broken my promise to you, twice. The first time I though I’d just gone to bed without showering after a night of drinking and merriment. The second time was before you found me.
I hacked your security systems at the Manor to reconstruct most of the timeline and confirmed my suspicions. I have since erased the data so that you won’t attempt to handle this before I do. Rest assured, I know who is responsible and will hold them accountable.
That said, I have betrayed you and I don’t know how to face you right now. I will be taking a leave of absence while seeking my vengeance, with hopes to return to a life where I’m still married to the displaced piece of my soul.
I’m so sorry that my sorrow and jealousy has led to this.
Katie
How am I supposed to feel about this? My wife feels responsible for being raped by people she thought she could trust. She was definitely in no state to consent when I found her. And now her guilt and shame are sending her away to probably kill a bunch of people. I’m surprisingly fine with the vengeance part, but hurt that she can’t face me even though she explained it was nothing I imposed upon her.
>P] Kay, I can’t imagine what you’re going through, but know that I love you. Be safe and come back to me when you’re ready. [<
No response. Not that I expected one.
“Naomi. Whatever I have tomorrow, please reschedule.”
“We only had some visibility items, nothing crucial.”
I nod at that. I could use half a day or so to unscramble the emotions in my brain case and appreciate the forces of stability in my life. Like Tessa, whom I’m sad she doesn’t want to live with me.
After that residence I built you, I thought you might be mad.
Pfft, sure Tessa. With all of the amenities you added to that place, I wouldn’t be surprised if it was also a space ship. But seriously, I miss you.
I suppose it could be used as a colony ship, but take-off and landing would be tricky. Also, I live inside you, we couldn’t live closer together if we tried.
I hear her laugh through our link.
Before I know it, Naomi is reminding me that the lunch appointment I have is in the meeting room in the Consul building. No rest for the wicked, then.
I walk into the conference room to see Mercer and his assistant eating and discussing some of the projected screens. “Consul Mercer, when scheduling a lunch meeting, it is customary to wait until the senior Invitee is present before beginning the meal.” He looks up at me confused. “You are not the senior member at this meeting Consul. You will also greet me appropriately when meeting for the first time each day.”
“Our apologies, Empress.” His aide stands and bows. Mercer stays seated and turns back to his food. Ah, well. Lessons must be learned. I banish his food and his chair, and the rest of the chairs in the room for that matter, to his office. I stare at him, straight faced as he’s dumped on the floor.
He gets up and sighs. “Must we do this?”
“Remember the way you would treat people who used to come to you for business. Then remember I have more money than any human that has ever lived. I am not your daughter, Mercer, I am your employer and your Empress. I thought we had covered this during your interview. You assured me you could do the job.”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“I can do the job, Empress. I just don’t see the point of this,” he waves around his hand, “ceremony.”
“It’s about respect. As your assistant showed, it takes less than 10 seconds to demonstrate.”
“The thing about respect, daughter, is you have to earn it.” He advances on me slowly, “An until you do, I will treat you like my ungrateful spawn.” I assume he was about to dig his point in with a finger to my chest, but I never found out. As soon as that hand came up, Camacho grabbed his neck, tripped him and slammed his head on the table before taking him to the ground and zip tying his hands behind him. She may have been aggressive in moving his arms, the popped before she got off him.
“That will be interesting to deal with.” I look up to his terrified assistant. “What was your name?”
“J-johnathan, your Majesty.”
“Johnathan, do you know the material well enough to brief me?” He nods. “Excellent. Camacho, can you sit on him until we’re done here?”
She beams at me, summons a short stool and literally sits on him. “Done and done, Empress.”
I sit on the edge of the table and motion for Johnathan to begin. He starts with the Festival planning. Most of the money was earmarked for planning and hosting dignitaries. Virtually none of the money I had originally envisioned for vendor incentives were used as such, and the budget for decorations was used for fancy clothes for performers and government officials. Corrupt assholes.
“Did you two correlate these earmarked funds to acquired personal assets?”
“Uh, yes ma’am, I mean Empress. Consul Mercer used his authority to audit personal purchases during planning and execution phases of the Festival to find small but regular abuses that add up to a lot of money over the ten plus people involved in the scheme. We also hired a less than reputable investigator to skim their private systems and found some defaming speeches and talking points that blame you and your administration for failing to appreciate vendors and participants. The Consul expects that the Governor has been colluding with other officials, but he mentioned that he does not have the contacts needed to investigate further at this time.”
“Johnathan, no need to be nervous. This is good work. Good enough work for the Consul to keep his job if he can check is fucking ego.” I say, with my voice raised. Camacho kicks him. He says nothing.
I shrug, “Well. That’s enough to boot the bastard. I’ll put you in contact with a contractor I use for, clandestine problem solving. Moving on. What can you tell me about the previous Consul of Finance and Trade.”
“I, don’t know if I want to, Empress.” He starts shaking. I respect that. “No worries Johnathan, I will need you to annotate these reports with Mercer and your findings so I can review them privately. Can you do that?” He nods and scuttles out of the room.
“What do you want to do with the Consul?” Camacho asks.
“I think I’ll let him chose. A full day, eighteen hours, in stocks outside of this very building; Prison time and mandatory community service; or Exile to Earth for no less than forty years.”
“Are you fucking serious? For disrespecting you?”
“No Consul, for attempted assault on the Empress. That is one of the few laws on the books, sir. It is expressly stated as an act of treason. The punishment for that is death or as the Empress dictates.”
“Yes, you can always pick execution.” Too bad he’s brilliant, or I would punt him back to Earth so fast. “Camacho, if he declines to chose, I’ve sent you his sentence. Please send for a pair of security agents that can deal with the sentence so I can discuss other matters with you.”
“As you command Empress.”
“Naomi, can you warn the Meat Man I want lunch in an hour? I feel like an exciting lunch as a distraction.”
She chuckles, “His name is Alfonso Costa, Empress. For how many?”
“Six? Us three, the security that’s coming and Consul Summers if she’s not too busy with my Vulv-villa.”
“Empress, no. I pulled some muscles this morning, no more of that bullshit.” She chuckles and groans.
“She has to come up for air sometime.” Naomi says and I can’t help myself. Neither can Camacho who groans as she laughs.
Speth and someone I haven’t met before show to take care of the Consul, and I pull Camacho aside to tell her of my desire to arrest Governor Larkin during the closing ceremony, when his speech is scheduled to slight the Empire.
“Why does all of this crap have to start flying at the same time?”
“Perhaps because you wait for people to betray you before paying attention to them?” Camacho adds.
“I, yeah, but what’s the other option Camacho? Expect everyone to fuck with me until proven otherwise?”
“Yes, you should absolutely expect that. You don’t have the habit of being serious and Imperial at all times. You’re young looking and somewhat attractive. To the average citizen, this makes you personable. To a politician, or old folk used to having people’s respect, you look like a kid playing princess, ready to be taken advantage of.”
“So if I acted like an old, miserable bitch, people would respect me? I’m not far from letting that part of me out. However, I think I’ll wait until the Forum we have scheduled to discuss our first set of laws as an Empire. Should be interesting. I can already tell at least two of the Governors want to be separate kingdoms without having to foot the start-up bill.
“I have even odds with Rich and Second Day odds with the Botanist that they’ll try to introduce laws to replace me, even though I’ve told every sitting Consul and Governor that no matter what government system they try to frame this as, I am Empress for life, and Astoria is my Empire.”
“Now I definitely have to be there. I’m still not keen on the whole ‘Empire’ thing, but you’re growing on me as a person, Empress.”
“Oh Cammy, I knew you cared!” I walk toward her with open arms.
Camacho’s eyes go wide and trots away with a “Nope, nope. Keep those blender eyes away from me.”
“Blender eyes?” I turn to Naomi with shock on my face.
“Oh, yes. Your sparkly star eyes start swirling when you get agitated. Your bones start glowing when you get really mad.”
“Great, I’m some kind of Pixie Poltergeist now.”
Mr. Costa and his son were prepping their grill in front of my building. I look at Camacho and Naomi and they both shrug. I shrug too and whip some picknick tables out of the aether, a stand for napkins, utensils and sauces, and set up one last table next to the trailer sized grill he used at the lakeside. With Costa’s attention, I set up a few mounds of my previous kills and a whole murder chicken.
“Feed as many as you can with this, yeah? But me first.” I laugh and he chuckles with me. He immediately pulls up some screens and starts yelling in Portuguese to someone on the other end. I set down three credits while he’s occupied and slip back to my table.
Twenty minutes later, the smell of grilling meats begin to summon a crowd from the park. At the same a team of middle-aged, sun-weathered women pull a cart armed with tongs and spatulas, notepads and pens, and place settings arrive with smiling sneers on each of them. Costa goes and kisses the lead snearing woman on both cheeks and then the woman behind her full on the mouth before excitedly slapping the meat on the table.
“Did he just summon his extended family?” I say in wonder.
“And I bet every one of those women would be just as fearsome with an axe in hand.”
“Or a rolled-up paper full of disappointment.” The three of us shudder at that. No thank you.
The cart they pull up has tables-full of side dishes and a few kids? And the kids start unloading as the women begin orchestrating their team and the crows with clipped shouting and aggressive waving of utensils. The show really starts when they pack six people around that grill, in a smokey, saucy, messy meaty orchestra.
The platter that Costa and his son shimmy over and slide onto our table brings a tear to my eye as I see the spread on the platter, and the pride in his and his son’s eyes. Okay, maybe a few tears.
“This is glorious, Meat Man! You are surely the pride of the Empire’s culinary pursuits.”
He chuckles at me, pulls his son close to ruffle his hair. They argue briefly and I can’t help but see how close and happy they are. Makes me want to hug the adorable pair. “Naomi, can you see about getting them a temporary location license that’s good for the Capital Commons for the rest of the year?”
“Sure, Empress. I think that would be under either Consul Summers for the Interior, or under Consul Ragland for Public Health and Safety?”
“That sounds great, one for the location, one for food guidelines. I like it.”
“You’re stretching what people should be responsible for, you know that right?”
“Yes, Camacho. I do. This is part of what the Forum should be for, but I doubt it will be that productive. Give them enough rope to hang themselves with and all that.”
“Speaking of that, how much do you want for your jaunt back to Elysium, Empress.”
I sigh. “I fucking hate you sometimes, Camacho.” I push up from the table, buss my own trash, and summon my shuttle in an empty area toward my castle. “Hop on, kid. We do hand-offs, remember?”
“I’m not mutating for you Empress. DeGurgis is the only one that can set foot on that Planet.”
“Huh. Not even going to try to get creative? Did you even look at the Exchange before you decided to quit? How disappointing.”
Someone behind me sucks air through their teeth, but I don’t care. Camacho does not know when to temper her shit. Mostly my fault, I imagine: not setting firm boundaries. I really don’t want to treat my employees like servants, and I guess I should let go any that need that level of maintenance.
For the first time I can remember, I am not looking forward to seeing Jenna.