Chapter 2013 – Capitalists and Vibrators
John walked into the boardroom.
The design was delightfully post-post-modern, something that John indulged in all the more for the pastel hell his Ambassador Double was in. There was overlap between the two, particularly in the choice of materials. Steel and plastic were commonly used, alongside various forms of tempered glass. What separated this office building from the horrid hotel was the choice of shapes and colours.
Instead of bright and neutral pastels, Scarlett had opted for colours that had an air of seriousness. Burgundy red, dark grey, black, all of it harmonizing nicely with the elements of dark wood that had been added to the furniture. Walls were not some decoratively bare brick or simple plaster, they were openly rich, ornately decorated walls of expensive stone. Grooves had been carved into the walls, bundles of wires laid in them, and glass used to seal it all.
It was on the border of modern architecture and sci-fi stuff and John loved it. It had character, specifically the character of the woman who sat in the executive seat of the long, black table.
Scarlett Thorne was a gorgeous woman. Her long, red hair was almost impossibly straight. The only curve to it was found where she brushed her parted bangs behind her pointy, robot ears. A cascade of crimson hid her right eye, though the left stared with enough awake annoyance for two.
Her chin rested on the wrist and fingers of a mechanical hand. The doll-like joints were plainly visible, worn as a mark of pride in her engineering. The colour of the silicone skin plating was perfectly coordinated with her genuine skin. Another sign of her incredibly advanced magical and mundane manufacturing capacities.
Besides face and arms, Scarlett’s bottom-heavy curves were covered in her typical choice of attire: a black, slim-fit suit, with a bright red shirt and matching tie. The technomancer dressed in style, honouring her name in every way.
[Scarlett Office (AI): https://cdn.imgchest.com/files/af1dfd496d0f.png]
The cold-blooded woman turned her head slightly his way, acknowledging his arrival with a nod. A follow-up gesture of her head pointed him at the empty chair to her right. While he sat down, Momo and Beatrice were stuck looking at the sole empty spot to Scarlett’s left. Every other chair was taken.
“I didn’t expect both of you.” Scarlett’s voice reflected a deep disdain for the situation, something the direction of her stare directed not at the maids, but at the crowd of almost twenty business-leaders who occupied the enormous table otherwise. “There’s wasting time, there’s wasting money and there’s this fucking farce. Which one of you decided to burn your favours on roping Momo into this?”
“I did.” The voice belonged to a familiar face. An old face with a friendly expression that mixed into the appearance of a philanthropist grandfather. His head of hair was fading, the long strands combed back to hide his baldness as best as possible – to moderate success. Though age had diminished the straightness of his spine, he still wore his suit well. He had a humble air to him, something that John knew was more than just show.
“Mister Drechsler,” John said and tilted his head in a respectful nod.
“Mister President… ah, apologies…” Berden shook his head. “I had just gotten used to that… should I say king or my king?”
“We decided I would go with emperor, but for this room John will be good enough,” the Gamer responded with a smile.
He liked this old man. His full name was Berden Drechsler, though many called him Old Caut (short for cautious). He and John had a history of short and pleasant interactions, beginning with the Old Caut seeking the Gamer out during his first stay in the territory of the American-Canadian traders’ guilds. He was the oldest of the businessmen in the room and had acquired his wealth not through some breakthrough deal but through a long series of wise, long-term investments.
In John’s optimal world, almost all of business would have been led by people like Berden. He invested into everything that had a clear path to success, took on loans only when it came with a refinancing strategy, and gave as much of a chance to newcomers as he did established figures. Most of all, Berden was a fantastic judge of boundaries. He knew when to intrude, when to step away, and stayed out of politics most of the time.
That wasn’t to say Berden was an altruist. He was just competent and cautious. It was a wonderful combination that made for business that ran stably over very long periods.
Scarlett’s eyebrow was raised after the revelation. “Then I will trust you have good reasons for it,” she said, the edge diminished from her tone.
“Not necessarily good ones, just cautious ones,” Berden revealed. “Uncertainty among us is high.”
“Feels like a waste to call me in still, but I’m here already.” Momo shrugged, then claimed the empty chair. Usually that would have been a sign of disrespect for Beatrice. In their specific circumstances, it was one maid giving the other the seat of honour.
Wordlessly, the passive maid moved to John’s chair. She pulled on the backrest just enough that a gap was created that she could move between. Promptly her plump posterior was parked upon his lap. She wiggled a bit, shifting herself to sit dominantly on one of his legs. That way, he could look past her without issue. An arm around her waist stabilized her position.
The gathered business people, men and women alike, did not bat a single lash at the situation. John would have had to whip out his cock and start getting frisky for them to be even mildly surprised. Nothing short of a real orgy on the table would shock anyone. They knew what he was about.
‘Maybe I do feel like pushing it a little bit?’ John thought. ‘…Yes, I do.’
Beneath the table, his hand disappeared in his inventory. In the personal space, he found one of his phones. He raised it in front as if he had to check something. In reality, he was connecting to it with his technomancy. The foil on the screen prevented anyone from getting side glances on the personal app he opened-up.
The UI was simple, sleek, and efficient. A tap of a button had the phone send out signals. A moment later, three tabs opened, each of them marked with an adorable chibi picture of one of the three haremettes present. The fourth tab, the one he was currently on, had a slider simply labelled as ‘All’.
John checked each tab. ‘Naughty girls,’ he thought, when he saw two options available for every last one of them. Inwardly, he was chuckling. Outwardly, he maintained a calm and proper look. He put his thumb on the ‘All’ slider and dragged it up to the first of the ten levels.
A split-second tensing of Beatrice’s thigh was all the sign John got that the vibrators were active. His women weren’t mere casual perverts. A tiny bit of buzzing inside their tight little holes was something they could hide without problem. The noise of the toys was more likely to give them away and that problem was solved with some suppression runes.
The Gamer put the phone down. It was understood as the signal that this meeting could start. Scarlett raised her voice first. “The people in this room, altogether, hold about 50% of the total net worth in this wrecked economy.” She reclined, interlocking her doll-like fingers with mechanical precision. “If we go by your extended influence, it is not an overstatement to say there’s every major aspect of Fusion’s wealth represented. Which means…” Scarlett put a finger down on the black table with a loud clack. “I don’t want to hear any stupid fucking questions anymore after this meeting is over.”
“There is no need to be so crass, Scarlett,” Berden said.
“There’s always a need to be crass,” the redhead snapped back. “I was complimenting you enough to skip out on the fact that the pareto principle is in full effect here. Of those 50%, the vast majority is over here.” She gestured to her left and right. “I have control over all of Fusion’s rising markets except for the construction sector. For which they sent Remia, of all people.”
“Yes, hello.” The elf waved casually. She was another familiar face, being one of the elites of the Lake Alliance. Notably, she and Theron had always been against open hostilities with Fusion, which had made integrating them a lot easier. They were also both followers of Emrik, which effectively meant that Remia was here as his representative.
Which was no surprise. The architects and construction workers of the Lake Alliance had been given extensive economic privileges and aid money as part of sweetening the deal of their integration into Fusion. Spinning that into control of most of the market had been fairly easy, in large part because the Lake Alliance built genuinely gorgeous structures that made fantastic use of water – a resource that was incredibly abundant in the Abyss. Anyone with a decent mana generator and elemental converter could make it by the litre.
“Beyond that, this guy,” Scarlett pointed directly at John. “Controls effectively the entire market of raw resources.”
“That’s exactly what we need to talk about,” one of the other businessmen chimed in. It wasn’t that John didn’t know his name, it was that the Gamer didn’t care to bring it to the front of his mind. At the imperial level of power, even influential people were just part of a mass. “Word down the grapevine is that you are going to raise a nobility. What can we expect from that?”
John didn’t need to ask where they had heard that. It was most likely Emrik, though they might as well have heard it from Magnus, Hyozuma or the Splatterknight. It wasn’t as if he had asked these things to be kept secret.
“Current designs are that nobles will have their own little fiefdoms where their rules apply – within a shared imperial framework, of course,” John answered.
“And how are we expected to manoeuvre those fiefdoms?” another one of the capitalists asked.
Momo rolled her eyes. “The same way you handled different state or city laws: figure it out.”
“This is different.”
“Statement: it is not different.” Beatrice moved a gloved finger over the tabletop, then checked the black fabric for dust. “Obvious analysis: the source of the laws changes neither their wording nor their enforcements. They will still be written by human hands and enforced at the end of a sword.”
The man who had spoken pressed his lips together, but knew better than to further follow this line of argument. Another, more calmly spoken woman raised her voice, “We would like assurances on a basic structure.”
‘Everyone is always looking for assurances,’ John thought. Giving a flippant answer like that wouldn’t serve him well. The quickest way to get out of this room was to address them with respect. “Savvy people that we all are, we know that there is no business without risk,” he said. “I cannot give you anything definitive, because the economy cannot be captured in amber.” He grabbed his phone. “I think what you’re looking for is a broad strokes idea. Can we provide something like that, Momo?”
“M-maybe?” Momo stammered. Not exactly because she was suddenly addressed, but because he upped her vibrator to the second level. That was just strong enough to be more than an ignorable buzzing. “If we look at it objectively, it’s pretty clear that the nobles, particularly the planned Royal Houses, will have the majority of the resource market.”
“Royal Houses?” Berden asked.
“The organization and families headed by my haremettes,” John revealed. “This is the fundamental idea at the moment: I am the head of state and I bestow the capacity to give titles to my women. My women, in turn raise, up whoever they believe appropriate to various ranks of nobility. Only the Royal Houses may make truly differently governed zones, with the nobles within having more or less privileges depending.”
“Sounds like it’ll be impossible to have a true meritocracy under these circumstances,” one of the men threw in.
“A true meritocracy can never exist anyhow,” John responded. “It’s a utopian dream. Real outcomes will always be skewed by factors outside of capability. The real question is if we are creating an incentive structure that leads to human flourishing or not.” He shook his head. “Which is a much broader philosophical discussion.”
“Striving towards a true meritocracy is all that matters,” Scarlett stated. It was one of the areas of friction between them – the good kind of friction, quite similar to the third level of the vibrator that she had, entirely out of her own volition, put into her holes sometime between them leaving the Intermediary Barrier and now. Even at this level, the redhead showed no signs at all.
“Be that as it may,” John avoided that argument for time’s sake, “here is what I have in mind for the future of the economy: no sweeping changes. The broader marketplace will remain free, for you to compete with each other and newcomers as they come. The Royal Houses and their special economic zones will be of benefit or drawback individually. The future Guild Halls-“
“Future Guild Halls?” one of the men interrupted abruptly.
John stopped there for a second. ‘Here we have found a point of genuine concern,’ he realized. “Indeed. Recent developments of my powers have enabled lesser versions of the Guild Hall to be put up by my haremettes. You may consider them the district capitals of their lands. This is what Momo was referring to when she said we will hold the raw goods market in the future.”
There was a mixture of shock and naked greed on the faces of the capitalists as they realized the implications. “Statement: these resources are undivorceable from their respective owner,” the finance minister of Fusion reminded. “They exist by the will of my Master and his women.”
“Of course, of course,” Berden said slowly. “Though, if I may… the Guild Hall already attracts so many independent workers with its free facilities that it warps the economy for the rest of the country…”
He stopped there, letting John finish that thought on his own. It was true, the Guild Hall offered immense freedom to those who worked there, be it on a government contract or independently. A lot of the resources were extracted by the latter. People that went down into the Mine and then were paid by weight and rarity of the metals excavated were the backbone of those efforts.
It was not a problem whatsoever when it came to the Mine, which could not be replicated elsewhere. It was manufacturing and other skilled labour where problems began to emerge. Though there was a skill curve to being a miner, there was a much steeper one to being an electrical engineer. People with such skillsets were commonly in low supply compared to the demand. Sucking all of that supply up into the Guild Hall, where these people could be their own bosses.
It was the deal that every worker dreamt of, but it actually made building a continental economy a tad difficult. Fusion had previously worked really well based on integrating the various networks that had existed, supporting them, and only absorbing excess workers into the Guild Hall. Now that the Lorylim had effectively reset the infrastructure of the entire continent AND with more Guild Halls on the way, one could predict what would happen next in a vacuum.
“…I am suddenly a lot less annoyed about this meeting,” John said out loud and deactivated the vibrators. Gone was the moment for leisure, now they had a genuine problem to address. “I was convinced to simply tell you to adjust to the noble areas. However, with the Guild Halls in mind, it’s clear that these relatively small land areas would absorb all of the labourers into them. You simply cannot compete with literally infinite resources.”
“Indeed, we cannot,” Berden answered.
“The problem could never be as bad as you are imagining right now,” Momo said. “Of us haremettes, only a fraction would be interested in gearing our new privileges towards economic output.”
“That only concentrates the economy in even fewer areas,” Remia commented.
“Which isn’t fundamentally a problem,” John said. “Economies have always been concentrated in areas, that’s just the reality of supply lines. What I do want to avoid is having it all concentrated in the areas of the nobility.”
Though he believed his haremettes competent enough to run an economy between them, he did not want to burden them with all of that responsibility. That and he deeply believed in the need to have a wide market in which practices and ideas could compete, something that suffered whenever something was done all in the same area.
“Very well, how about this,” John swivelled left to right, “future Guild Halls will only produce raw resources and we will maintain the current policy that foreign companies must pay a premium on them. That way, the economy all over Fusion should benefit from the influx of cheap materials while the development of manufacturing and such can be dispersed.”
“A split between the nobility as the main employers of physical labour versus us capitalists as the employers of specialized labour,” Berden summarized.
“I will exempt myself from that rule,” Scarlett predictably said. The technomancer had no interest in getting herself barred from the economic arena. “I already beat all of you without advantages, I’ll build my new headquarters in style.”
“Well, we are powerless to stop you, Scarlett,” Berden said with a sigh.
“I can assure you that Scarlett will be the only one insisting on that privilege,” John promised.
After that, the next hour was spent discussing specific policies.