“This is blackmail!”

Kat took a second to enjoy the puffy, cherry red sight of Blake Daniels blustering before she tried her best to channel Belle Donnst.

“I prefer the term extortion. Blackmail implies that I am only threatening to reveal secrets that implicate you criminally or harm your reputation. Extortion encompasses blackmail, but it also includes a range of other intimidating behavior such as physical harm and the abuse of a position of authority or respect to destroy your victim. I’m disappointed that you only focused on the blackmail. After all, I thought you would have noticed the implicit threat violence packed into that knife and note that was left next to your head while you took your nap.”

The blood drained from Blake’s face and he wobbled slightly, the hologram flickering in and out of focus as he swayed out of the range of his older recording system.

“Now that we have your fake umbrage out of the way,” Kat continued evenly, “we should start to talk business. Both of us know the rules of this little charade. We’ve each done things that we would prefer the world at large to not know about. The difference between us is that most of the things I’ve done relate to killing people like you and escaping without a trace, and the things you’ve done have harmed GroCorp as a whole.”

“No,” Blake whispered, shaking his head before his voice grew louder in denial as he rebuked her claim. “No! I’ve had my share of plots and schemes, who hasn’t? But I’d never hurt the company. All the little bits and bobs that make up GroCorp are replaceable, but the company itself? It’s our mother and our father.”

“No,” he said again, expression firming. “It’s more than just our family. It’s our home. A shelter from cold and a ship in a storm. I have my flaws, but I’m not a traitor. Without GroCorp, I’m nothing and I know it.”

Kat felt some of the tension in her jaw and the back of her neck begin to unravel. It was so easy to see all of her rivals on the board of directors as nothing but emotionless blobs of evil, but that was a weakness on her part. Blake was evil, but he wasn’t an unfeeling robot. There were lines that he at least pretended that he wouldn’t cross.

She could work with that.

“You say that,” Kat replied, “but have you ever performed an estimate as to how many credits GroCorp lost due to the pipeline bombing carried out at your orders? I’m sure you personally gained tens if not hundreds of millions from the company using your pipeline instead, but what about the delays in construction and the investments into the first line that went up in smoke when you bombed it.”

“There was hardly a disruption,” Blake said hurriedly, suddenly on the defensive. “And I’m sure the pipeline itself couldn’t have been more than a couple million to build.”

“Hardly a disruption?” Kat asked, raising an eyebrow. “The estimates I have seen put the delays at between three and five months. During that time GroCorp was losing almost two hundred thousand credits per day due to its assembly lines and research labs laying idle. As for the investments in the pipeline itself? Try eight million. That doesn’t take into account the exorbitant rate you are charging to ‘lease’ the line you ran through Northstar property. Maybe twenty five million isn’t enough to send a quarterly earnings report into the red, but there is a pretty sizable divot in GroCorp’s profit and loss statement, all so you could make a couple extra credits.”

Daniels shifted uncomfortably. He didn’t say anything, but he didn’t need to. His face was still flushed from his earlier indignation, but now he looked like nothing more than a dog covered in mud whose owner caught it sleeping on a brand new leather couch.

“Tell me Blake, you don’t mind if I call you Blake do you?” Kat continued

“-Actually if we could stick to titles,” Daniels mumbled only for Kat to ignore him.

“Tell me Blake, GroCorp has made you fabulously wealthy. It is your mother and father, your ship in a stormy sea. What have you ever done for the company? Have you sacrificed your own benefit? Have you funded an espionage team to destroy its enemies? Or have you just sat around to the north of Chiwaukee, plotting against the other shareholders while refusing to actually take a single action that would make the company a better place?”

He fell silent again. Kat could see him shifting in his seat as he withered under her verbal assault. It didn’t look like Daniels was keen on introspection and personal growth. That was fine by her as long as he did what he was told. That said, she’d learned a lot from her interactions with Belle. Chastising someone that wasn’t used to it was the perfect way to keep them off balance.

“I get that you don’t like me,” she pressed. “But you’d be a fool not to look into my background. Think back to every dossier you’ve read about me. Did you ever find a passage where I hurt the company or any of its subsidiaries? Seriously, the only time I actually took action against GroCorp, it was to fight forces that were in the middle of a hostile takeover.”

“I-” Daniels stuttered for a second before shaking his head. “I can’t think of any. I’m sure you must have done something at some point, but I didn’t know that this was the direction our conversation was going to head so I didn’t prepare anything.”

“Do you know what else harms GroCorp Blake?” Kat asked, leaning forward so that her face took up most of the holographic projector’s lens. “Millennium.”

The other shareholder froze, his throat bobbing wildly as his breath suddenly became erratic.

“I think you know what I’m talking about Blake,” she continued, doing her best to emulate Belle Donnst’s emotionless smile. “They are allied with soulless monsters that want to enslave the entire company, destroying everything that your parents and your parents’ parents worked to build. They’re also conspiring with the stallesp.”

Daniels’ eyelids fluttered and he took a deep breath. It was hard to make out through the projectors of the hologram, but Kat was pretty sure she could see sweat beading on his ruddy forehead.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“I turned my back on Millennium,” he said hurriedly. “Surely the records you’re holding over my head show that. They’ve gone too far and I want nothing to do with their lunacy.”

“That’s great,” Kat replied cheerfully. “Honestly, all I really wanted out of you was for you to join a united front with Shareholders Haupt, Donnst and I against Millennium’s influence in GroCorp. I enjoy threats, subterfuge and blustering as much as the next girl, but if we can figure something out where we skip all of that and just cement an alliance of sorts, that would probably be ideal.”

Daniels blew out a sigh, relaxing slightly. He still eyed Kat suspiciously, but he was no longer gripping the armrests of his chair for dear life.

“Of course,” she continued, “I forgot when exactly you stopped cooperating with Millennium. Surely it was immediately after their collaboration with the stallesp was revealed? After all, all contact with the mercenaries was banned after it was discovered that they tried to overthrow GroCorp’s leadership and replace it with flash clones.”

The man froze, his sigh catching in his throat and choking him.

“What are you trying to say?” Daniels croaked out between sudden coughs. His eyes all but bugged out of his skull and his skin began to redden from lack of oxygen.

“I think you know exactly what I’m saying,” Kat replied smoothly. “While you were fine publicly condemning Millennium, that didn’t stop you and your friends from maintaining private contact with the organization. Once they were driven underground, it seems that they became a bit desperate for funds. They started taking jobs they would ordinarily turn up their noses at and at bargain bin prices.”

“Your attack on me wasn’t the first time that you utilized Millennium as a middle man.” She folded her hands together, staring at the squirming shareholder over her steepled fingers. “I would ask that it be the last. Whether you believe it or not, they actually are a bad group of people that plan on supplanting every corporation on Earth. Given your burst of patriotism, I hope that would mean something to you.”

She smiled helpfully, nodding as if to help Blake through his visible struggle.

“It… does?” He said hesitantly, hopefully.

“Great!” Kat responded, letting her hands fall to the table as she leaned back. Inside she could feel herself tearing at her hair and screaming, but externally her face was a vaguely predatory porcelain mask.

“Then,” she continued, “once you start giving up information on who you were working with, both in Millennium and in GroCorp, I think we can begin to talk about our partnership. After all, I believe you’ve been requesting tech transfers from the stallesp research project for a while. I’m sure we can work out the exchange of some prototypes for field testing so long as everyone is on friendly terms.”

“You’re just going to give me the research?” Blake sputtered. “After months of threatening and conflict, you’re just going to give it to me?”

“I’m not just going to give it to you,” Kat replied. “You’re going to join our faction on the security board, and with your addition, control will tip away from the traditionalists. Then, once you’ve made a break from your allies and they are reluctant to take you back, I will start transfers from the research cache. I know better than to trust you blindly, but I also know better than just to threaten you. The golden handcuffs of mutual profit will bind you to us better and for longer than any blackmail.”

Blake closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Kat didn’t say anything, instead letting the man sit in silence as he thought through his options. Finally, he blew the air back out and opened his eyes.

“Fine. I’ll play ball. I’m not going to say anything on the record about Millennium, they would kill me in a second, but I will let you know everything I know.”

“That’s more than acceptable,” Kat said graciously. “My goal isn’t really to twist their arms anyway. They evidently continued to consort with Millennium after you made your break. You get a second chance. They will get a knife in the dark.”

“Are you sure that you aren’t secretly an out of wedlock child from a shareholder or executive?” Daniels asked with a shudder. “It would be a bit comforting if you were. If not, you’re a bit too good at playing this game for someone that burst so recently onto the scene.”

Kat shrugged in response.

“All natural lower level employee that fell in with street gangs. Still, if you think this is hard, try to negotiate a cease fire between two street gangs while both of them are toeing the Wierzbeck limit and tweaking on drugs that were catalyzed in a repurposed toilet. That wasn’t my job, but I learned at the elbow of a man that managed it more than once.”

“Of course my more refined sensibilities came from Belle Donnst,” Kat continued thoughtfully. “I’m not really sure why she’s taken a liking to me, but she has. Everything I’ve learned about corporate etiquette and politeness, I’ve learned from her.”

Daniels shuddered.

“That’s positively terrifying, she is-”

A hand touched Kat’s bicep. Whippoorwill had sat down next to her, just out of range of the projector, her face grim. She shook her head once and Kat’s smartpanel pinged, indicating she had received a priority message.

While Kat quickly read through the report, Blake rambled in the background. What he was saying wasn’t terribly important, more just a chance for him to let off steam now that he knew that Kat wasn’t planning on painting the walls of his bedroom with his entrails.

“-a bit heavyhanded,” Kat looked back up at the projector raising her right hand to cut off the rambling shareholder.

“I don’t suppose you have any operatives in north east Chiwaukee?” Kat asked, locking eyes with the suddenly stumbling man.

“A handful? He hazarded, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “Why do you ask? Has something happened?”

“Jasper Haupt, the lovable fool, arranged a meeting with Richard Ricket,” she said grimly. “The meeting was supposed to take place on neutral ground in the Renovated Racine commerce center of Chiwaukee.”

“But Ricket is the person most heavily associated with Millennium,” Daniels blurted out. “He was the one that introduced the rest of us to Mr. Jackson. If he-”

The man blanched.

“Oh God, Renovated Racine is a warzone. The gangs there don’t even pretend to be samurai, just chrome and drug addled psychopaths. The only safe transit through there is via air or an elevated and armored train. Actually disembarking from a vehicle for a meeting is the worst kind of suicide.”

“Obviously Ricket wasn’t there,” Kat replied. “Jasper didn’t even have a full cadre of bodyguards. His security chief wouldn’t let him go to Racine because the man isn’t a fool. Evidently, Jasper snuck out on his own once he found out about Ricket’s involvement in the attacks on me. He wanted to see if he could negotiate an end to the hostilities.”

“Is he alive at least?” Blake asked hopefully. “If it was a professional job, they would have kept him alive, but if it was locals, well-”

“A group called the Silver Phantoms claims that they have him,” Kat responded. “They’ve sent Jasper’s security a short video of him disoriented and bound, but they were able to verify that it was him.”

“Oh no,” Daniels said breathily. “The Phantoms have a base in Renovated Racine, but they aren’t local, and they’re not anyone to take lightly. They’re one the Millennium splinter organizations that Ricket helped conceal from GroCorp security. If they have him, this is a lot worse than we thought.”