274. THE BOSSES: WIREMU
The meeting was scheduled for the early afternoon, so we met Laura and Matua for lunch. From there, it was a short walk to the Defense Force Headquarters, where the meeting was to be held. Just the choice of location did not inspire confidence in the outcome of the meeting. A positive thing was that the City Administration buildings, including the Mayoral Office, were next door, and Dusk was tied out front to a hitching post. Tabitha is nearby, and hopefully, none of this is needed.
There were two soldiers at the door, “I am sorry, ma’am. Large animals need to go around the side and wait in the yard.” Cōmpēṟi sniffed him, found a sunny spot in front of the building, and lay down for a snooze. The guard tried again, “I am sorry he will need to move to the yard around the side, ma’am.”
Mayakku looked at him and then at Cōmpēṟi, “He looks comfortable. I am not going to move him. You can try… but I wouldn’t recommend it,” and she walked into the building, and we followed. Step one complete, Cōmpēṟi guard the front door.
When we got inside, Matua approached the desk and said, “The Enchanters are here for the meeting with the Mayor and the Colonel. ”Yes sir, please come this way,” He led us behind the desk to a side room. I already knew it wasn’t the meeting room because they were waiting upstairs for us. My senses had covered the building already. I knew exactly who was in the building and where each squad of soldiers were.
I moved to the front and stopped everybody from entering, Ruku was at the rear, “Why don't you just take us to the meeting, private.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, we need you to leave your weapons here before we go to the meeting.”
I heard Ruku mutter fairly loudly, “This army sure does apologise a lot.” Everybody heard him.
I looked at the Private and said, “It is my turn to apologise to my fellow mercenary. It is not long since he was discharged from the Royal Kirghiz Marine Corp. You know how crass those Commandos can be.” The private had no idea, but the Kirghiz Commandos had an extremely tough reputation worldwide. This was the point of this exchange. They wanted information about us and how easily we could be manipulated. “We are not going to leave anything, Private. You can either take us to the meeting, or we will just leave.”
“I can’t do that, Ma’am.”
“Then you need to find someone who can, or we will leave.”
“Wait here, please.” The Private disappeared into the room, but it is not like they didn’t hear everything that happened. A Sergeant soon appeared, “Follow me, please.” It is a nice, polite army. It is also too easy.
We were led up the stairs to the actual meeting room. The Colonel was the one with all the medals. He was introduced as Colonel Roberts, and his aide was Lieutenant Pūriri. The Police Chief was Chief Waiata; her aide was a civilian who was introduced as Administrator Harris.
Mayor Ratana had an aide. I don’t know how she did it in two weeks, but Tabitha was introduced as Secretary Te Kanawa. She didn’t look like Tabitha, but my Thermal Sensing had picked her out, and as we got closer to the room, it pierced her Body Image. Ruku entered last, and I could tell when his Sonar picked out the difference. Tabitha just smirked.
Once the pleasantries were over, the Colonel said, “I believe you have a weapon against slavery, Master Matua. Please enlighten us.”
“It is not us, but this young genius here. Mayakku has enchanted a formation that uses a monster core and changes its aspect to imitate a Slave Taskemaaster’s Spiritual signature and then distribute it to the six feed point that the ritual apparently requires but not only that, she can vary the intensity and flow of each of the six until the ritual is complete.”
“That sounds impressive.”
“Impressive! Colonel, you are not an enchanter, but it is absolutely incredible. She has taken enchanting to a whole new level and uses Specialisations I have never heard of.”
Mayakku stood up, “Colonel, despite Master Matua’s enthusiasm, the formation is untested. We think it will work, and I have appreciated Master Matua and Enchanter Laura’s input over the last week, but we need to test it on a slave.”
“I see.” The Colonel seemed to be the key person here. That was not a great sign. “Let's go back a bit. You said it uses Specialisations you have never heard of,” he was speaking to Matua, “You do not really understand what it does then? Both of you?” He included Laura.
Laura shook her head, “only partially.”
Matua said, “Not fully, but the principles of enchanting and energy flow are the same.”
“No offence, miss,” he spoke to Mayakku, “but you understand how this coming suddenly from a travelling stranger sounds strongly like it is a hoax.”
“We are not asking for coin.” Mayakku replied, “We are not even asking for materials, neither from you nor the local enchanters. All we are asking is access to some slaves to try to set them free.”
“You see, that raises even more questions. Who is this “we” you are talking about?” The Colonel was showing he deserved his position, unfortunately.
“I am travelling with the Black Rock Mercenaries,“ Mayakku indicated to me and Ruku.
“But mercenaries work for coin. You don’t look like you are rich.”
“You said a lot of the resources came from Wiremu Hunter, Mayakku?” Matua said.
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Mayakku nodded.
“And that makes it sound even more like a scam, Playing on the reputation of a local hero is typical.” The Colonel accused.
“We are not here for coin or materials, Colonel.” Mayakku reiterated.
“No. You are here to collect the bounty on our Slave Taskmaster.” he accused.
“You have a Slave Taskmaster?” I said, surprised.
“You sound surprised at that,” the Colonel said. “We used to have two who travelled around the country working off their debt to society, but somebody decided to collect an easy bounty.”
Seeing as I injected myself into the conversation, I decided to keep going. “We do not even need to meet this Taskmaster Colonel.”
“And who are you?”
“Maia Tārore, Black Rock Mercenaries.”
“You are the hired muscle.” the Colonel accused.
“We are only hired muscle in the same way you are the government's hired muscle. It takes more than muscle to complete a contract.”
“So what are the terms of your contract, and who is paying your bill?”
“The contract is confidential information between us and our employer.”
“Who is this employer, or is that confidential as well?”
“On the contrary, I am happy to tell you who employed us. Wiremu Hunter employed us back in the Kirghiz Kingdom. “The general terms of our contract are to make sure Mayakku can complete her work. Specific details are confidential, I am afraid.”
“I don’t suppose you have proof of this?”
“Would you carry around proof you worked for the most wanted man on this continent?”
All I got from that was a grunt.
The Mayor spoke up as there was a pause in the discussion. “I have a question. I am going to assume what you have is legitimate. I have known Master Matua since he was an apprentice, and he is not easily fooled. From what I understand, you have an untested enchantment formation you want to use on a slave.” Mayakku nodded. “What happens if it doesn’t work as you anticipate? Will there be any risk of damage for the person you are testing it on?”
Mayakku took a breath, “There is always a risk. The formation can be shut down with one switch by design, as there is a point in the ritual you must stop injecting Spiritual energy or you will cause irreparable harm. I have very good spiritual senses, and there are few who are better. Master Matua is one of those. If it is not working as planned, there should be no harm in shutting off the energy early. The second part of the ritual is extracting the energy from the person along with the class. If the energy is dissipated slowly rather than actively drawn out, the person should not be damaged.”
“There are a lot of “ifs’ and ‘shoulds’ in that sentence.” the Mayor said.
“It is experimental work. We are doing our best for these people, but it is also complicated.”
“What will you do if we don’t provide access to a slave,” the Colonel asked.
“We will leave,” I said. That got a raised eyebrow, so I clarified, “There are a lot of slaves available in the Empire just to the north of you.”
The Colonel’s voice was full of disbelief, “You are going to just walk into the empire and snatch some slaves to experiment on?”
“Essentially, yes,” I replied.
Mayakku added, “The experiments would be a lot safer for everyone if they were done here, especially if I have Master Matua’s Senses to help. If we can get it to work, there will also be a lot of recognition and fame to be shared.”
The Mayor liked the sound of that, but it was the Patroller Chief who spoke up, “If you are working on something this important, you are potentially attracting, almost inviting, enemies to attack you. That is a huge security risk for the whole city.”
Here it comes, I thought. Behind the Chief, her aide had been furiously writing notes the whole time. None of the other aides were doing this, but I guess she brought the administrator in order to take notes. We might have to make those notes disappear later. I marked them with my Hunters Mark so I can track them down easily tonight.
I decided to respond to the Chief, even though she hadn’t actually asked a question. “The security of Mayakku and the project is one of the prime responsibilities of the Black Rock Mercenaries.”
“That may be all well and good, but my concern is for the rest of the city. Some assassins don’t care if they destroy half the city and kill, maim and make homeless thousands of innocent people as long as they kill that one person. The recent events in Almaeadin are a prime example.”
Ouch. That hit home. The Chief had no idea she was talking to the person responsible for that mess. I still lie awake at night, thinking about what I could have done differently. I didn’t have to bring the whole palace down.
Ruku spoke up before anyone noticed I was distracted, “We could base ourselves outside of the city.”
“Who the fuck are you?” The Colonel was obviously getting a bit frustrated here at not having one boss to talk to.
“Wai Paihana of the Black Rock Mercenaries, Colonel”
“None of you are just muscle, are you?” he said. He was catching on.
“No, Colonel, The Black Rock Mercenaries do not hire for muscles. We hire for brains. Where I was trained, we were taught, Dumb Muscle is Dead Muscle.”
“That is a Royal Marine saying,” he said.
“That is probably where my trainer got it from,” Ruku said, trying to muddy the waters.
Tabitha leaned toward the Mayor and said to him, “The city does have an unused quarry just outside the city that could be leased or sold to them.”
“That is a great idea, Thanks Kerry.” He looked at us, “Would you be interested in a quarry?”
How on earth does Tabitha do that? “I believe we would Mr. Mayor. I believe we can offer you ten per cent above market price for a quick sale.” I offered.
“You can make those decisions for that price, sight unseen?” The Colonel was re-evaluating me. He didn’t know that if Tabitha was suggesting it, it was hardly a sight unseen.
“Yes, Colonel, but all this is irrelevant if there are no slaves here that we can try to help,” I replied.
The Patroller Chief said, “There are a couple waiting for the Taskmaster’s next visit. If they operated outside of the city, that would satisfy my biggest concern.”
“It doesn’t mine,” the Colonel said. “If this is not a hoax, and if it is, you are going to wish you had never been born,” he threatened, “then this is the biggest thing since the Fight for Freedom five centuries ago. You will also attract empire assassins like a carcass attracts flies. You would be the safest on a Defence Force Base.”
Here we go.