Once Fleer was alone in his office, he let out a little squeal of delight and spun around in his office chair.
Gold! Wonderful stuff!
This was amazing! Even if his very conservative calculations were two times too high, there was still enough gold there to fundamentally transform the Riotfish.
Pay off Pearce? Pfft. Maybe he could offer Pearce a loan!
That much money would be enough to staff up with real professionals, and get some real equipment. Serious equipment. Replace the Battle Wagon with something that had been manufactured during his lifetime. A fleet of them. Maybe even start a small air support team.
What couldn't he do with that much money?
This was their moonshot. If they could pull this off, he could finally build Riotfish into a real mercenary outfit, and all their problems would go away.
He was trying hard not to pre-count unhatched chickens, but the chickens were so enormous and beautiful.
Fleer sat in his office, euphoric and daydreaming.
----------------------------------------
The call with Daugereaux the next day went well for Fleer. He was smooth and practiced, getting the paperwork handled, preliminary payments set up, soothing concerns, and establishing timetables. Oliver sat in the background, perspiring. Dealing with people was Fleer's superpower. It just terrified Oliver.
"And we'll need your signature on these releases before we can accept payment," Fleer concluded. "If you could just thumb this clause here..."
"Yah, yah, all dat paperwork, I know how dey do dat," Daugereaux groused. "I live in de swamp, but I ain't some backwoods know-nothin'." The screen blinked blue, indicating that Daugereaux had signed off on his part of the contract.
"Before we go," Fleer added, "my associate Mr. Gutshell would like to apprise you of some speculation we've been engaging in."
"Um, y-yes," stuttered Oliver, moving forward into the camera. "Yes. You see, um, Mr. Daugereaux, there is a company next to your property with a history of mismanagement, um, and quite a lot of gold. For collateral, to um, re-establish themselves after--" Oliver watched Daugereaux' face glaze into incomprehension. "Which, um, isn't relevant, I guess. We think maybe the oilmen on your land are trying to, um, take it. The gold, I mean."
"Uh huh," said Daugereaux, peering suspiciously.
"Well, if they do and it ends up on your land, under um, some obscure sovereignty laws, what they leave, could, um, be yours."
"So you telling me dat de corpratation is going to put gold onto my land?"
"No! I mean, yes, maybe, but we don't know which one. Which, uh, is why we can't say anything to them. The other corpratat-- corporation. The one with the gold, I mean. For which we'd be eligible for a finder's fee, per the contract. If you understand what I'm saying."
"I got to say, you ain't makin' me a whole lotta sense."
"It's, um. Complicated," Oliver finished miserably.
Daugereaux sat back.
"You got you a conscience," he said. "You got you a big heart, and you want to be honest. I appreciate dat. I don' want you to worry, I done read de contract, and I understanded it, even dem squiggly lawyery bits. I trust you to do de right thing by me."
Oliver nodded, and sat back quietly.
"Dis has been a comfort to me," Daugereaux concluded. "I see y'all next week, and we gon' feed you boys, and den get dese couyons off my land."
"Yes sir, Mr. Daugereaux, we are looking forward to it," Fleer cut in.
"Sounds good. We'll talk to y'all den."
He signed off.
Fleer sat back.
"So," he said. "What should we do about Mrs. Meade?"
"What do you mean?"
"You've had a chance to review the environmental specs? The soft ground and high water of the swampland, the density of the trees-- the Battle Wagon is just not going to work in there. It may not even be able to get back there at all. I was thinking we'd hire a local to get us back to Daugereaux' property, but that leaves the question of what to do with Mrs. Meade. I don't think we want to drag her along into a firefight."
"Weelllll," Oliver said, "I suspect that she'd fare better than you'd think. But I agree, it wouldn't be proper to have her in a swamp. Should we leave her here at HQ?"
They considered this for a moment.
"She's liable to be awfully lonely," Fleer said. "We'll probably be gone a couple weeks."
"And what if something happened? She wouldn't have anybody to help her out."
"Yeah, Little Timmy always has to help her turn on the holovid, because the remote confuses her. And I know you get her things from the top shelf in the kitchen."
"She could drive us most of the way, just not back into the swamp. Maybe we could put her up in a hotel?"
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
"Same problem, except now she's lonely and stuck in a tiny hotel room instead of the HQ."
They considered some more.
"What about a resort?" Oliver asked.
"That might be stretching the travel budget," Fleer said. "But I like the idea of giving her a little vacation, maybe get her into some nature."
"How about a cabin or something? Could we retain a tour guide or someone to kind of take her around town, keep her occupied? Some kind of caretaker or entertainer?"
"Could be." Fleer nodded. "Maybe so. That's got possibilities. Someone to keep an eye on her and keep her from getting too lonely. That will take a little finagling. Why don't you look at getting that set up, Oliver?"
"Um. I would be happy to, David, but I've got to finish prepping for this. I need to sort out the topographical maps and plan out our routes, lines of defense, and such. I've got a pile to do before we head out."
"Me too. I'll delegate this to someone else, then. Hmm. Little Timmy?"
They both spent a brief moment in their imaginations.
"So, not Little Timmy, then. He and Roger are-- more suited to other pursuits. I guess that just leaves Mrs. Meade. Problem is, she'll undercut herself, go cheaper than she should."
"What about D'khara?" Oliver asked.
"Oh! Oh, right! I, uh, forgot about him," Fleer said, grimacing. "I've been running around so much lately, I haven't built him into my mental model of the company yet. Yeah, that would be a great job for D'khara. Dwarves are supposed to be skilled negotiators, right?"
Oliver shrugged.
"Well, I'll get him on that this afternoon. Now, let's talk about these routes through Daugereaux' land..."
----------------------------------------
D'khara was still terrified about his 90-day eval, but that worry was a dim buzzing in the back of his mind now. He had so many things to worry about that he was having to line them up in his mind so he could fret about them one at a time.
Fleer's obvious lie about Pearce had shocked him right down to his toes, and he'd spent the rest of the evening furious and deeply troubled.
But when the announcement of the Daugereaux job-- and the possibility of a massive payout of gold-- had come through the next day, suddenly it all made sense.
Fleer was a clever businessman. He'd clearly had this job in his back pocket the whole time, and he didn't want to discourage or panic anybody, so he'd not said anything about the call with Pearce. And why should he? If everybody stayed focused and pulled this off, Pearce would be a vague, unpleasant memory. And letting everybody think they were past the crisis would let them focus on the job at hand instead of worrying about business stuff.
Fleer was playing Kasparov-level chess while D'khara was still trying to remember the rules to checkers.
D'khara had a lot to learn about good business strategy.
So he'd been relieved, but he'd accidentally eavesdropped, and now he knew the stakes.
Now more than ever, he couldn't afford to screw up. All he had to do was execute flawlessly. Which would be great if he could even do the one little task Fleer had given him.
D'khara glared at the screen. He had spent nearly a week now fighting this stupid machine, and mostly losing. He was in the armory, at the small desk in front of the computer Fleer had set up for him when he'd been hired. The computer he had refused to touch until he had to.
One week he had spent learning to use the computer and navigate the holonet, in order to try and find lodging, of all things, and all the searching and comparing and pricing and poking slowly through lists and maps and reviews and he had finally selected a cabin, and finally gotten the credit chit from Fleer and finally gotten all the information put in to rent the stupid thing, and had put in the payment chit and thought he was almost done with this particular brand of torment.
"Please enter your payment information," the computer said.
"I entered my payment information, you stupid grachit!" he hollered. "I entered it three times!" He was hammering the desk with his fist by this point. "Now you take my payment before I grind your silicon to make lamination steel!
D'khara worked very well with machinery at any level of complexity, right up to software. Then it all went sideways. They'd had computers in the mines, naturally, but they were not something he'd ever cared to work with much.
He carefully punched in the information from the payment chit again, pressing quite a bit more firmly than was strictly necessary to enter the data.
"Your payment information is incorrect," the computer said.
"Please enter your payment information," it said.
"Q'drat!" he barked, slamming a fist down on the keyboard. The blow forced a handful of keycaps loose and they whizzed off into various corners of the room. D'khara stood on his chair and began barking dwarvish curses at the machine, rising in intensity and volume. His color up, his mustache bristling, he furiously blasted the computer with blistering curses, faster and faster, working himself up to a froth.
"Is everything okay?" Oliver asked, poking his head in.
"It's fine!" D'khara roared. "I'm just fixing this stupid machine!" He punctuated his words with blows of his fist on the desk, denting the wood surface.
"Anything I can help with?"
Heaving, D'khara turned his wrathful countenance toward Oliver, who really was only trying to help. With an effort, he forced himself to calm down, deliberately slowing his breathing.
"I'm sorry, don't worry about it. I know you've got a lot to take care of."
"Oh, it's no problem. I don't mind." Oliver came in and started looking at the screen.
"Also I think I might need a new keyboard."
"Oh, these things are fairly durable. It will be fine once you put the keycaps back on." He squinted at the screen for a moment. "Hmm. This is a smaller screen than I'm used to."
Oliver read through the screen for a few minutes, then looked at the chit, and carefully punched in the information.
"Your payment information is incorrect," the computer said.
"Please enter your payment information," it said.
"See?" D'khara gestured triumphantly at the screen.
"Huh. Strange."
"I! Smell spicy tacos!" Roger said, popping up in the room.
"Not right now, Roger. We're trying to fix the computer."
"But it is a rain. With sads! And myyyyy gluteus!"
Ignoring him, Oliver entered the data again.
"Your payment information is incorrect," the computer said.
"Please enter your payment information," it said.
"Oh! Oh! I can!"
They looked at Roger, standing there with his sad, sagging shirt, hopeless pants and his hopeful grin.
"It's all right, Roger. We can manage this. I think the keyboard's just smaller than I'm used to." So saying, Oliver carefully, deliberately, and with exquisite precision entered the data again.
"Your payment information is incorrect," the computer said.
"Please enter your payment information," it said.
"Me! Me! Mememe! I can make all the rainbowy-glowy happies!"
"Roger, I just-- you know what? Feel free to try. It will be easier to let you get this out of your system than to fight--"
"Thank you for your payment. Your cabin has been reserved." the computer burbled as Roger slapped gleefully at the keyboard.
"Ha ha! What amazing carbuncles!" Roger observed, and wandered off.
D'khara and Oliver stared at the green approval message.
"I am not okay with this," D'khara growled.
"I don't think I am either," Oliver said. "Uh, anyway, if you need anything else, notify me; I'm happy to help." So saying, Oliver left the armory as well.
D'khara stared at the screen angrily for a minute before wiping it away. He still had to figure out some kind of tour guide, but he'd had all the frustration he could take for the moment.