Thermion
Grand Council
He leaned back on the seat provided to him.
Right in front of the elevated platform where the council members looked down on him. It was tempting to bring in a small anti-gravity generator to take off and to look down on them instead. It was just too much trouble.
"Majority attendance is provided. We may begin this emergency session. Today's subject is the alleged human rights violations taking place in the manufacturing centers of Alteran Holdings Limited, under the sole proprietorship of the Third Prince Thairon Kessler," High Arbiter Neuman announced, fixing his glass.
He snorted.
The old man stopped, raising his head from the screen before him. "Is there something amusing, my prince?"
"The claim that you care about human rights is laughable, but continue." He waved his hand dismissively.
His parents were glaring down at him, which only made the left corner of his lips rise.
"Arrogant as always. We will start with the evidence provided to the public." Neuman turned to the technician who played the video on the large screen. He spun the chair around, ready for what was about to follow.
The same video recording Nax had shown him played.
"Your holding's logo is plastered everywhere. In addition, your manufacturing centers are under tight lock and key. Nothing except delivery vehicles enter or leave. How do you plead to the accusation that you have enforced labor, depriving citizens of their freedom and rights?"
He smiled, eyes sweeping over the council from left to right. He lowered his head, lips parting with a curve. Slowly raising his hand, he snapped his fingers after a beat.
Holographic screens popped into existence with a sharp, high-pitched noise.
His father almost rose from his chair, but his mother pulled him back down.
The council members were startled, eyes darting around wildly. Each and every person on the video was identified through social media. Posts with clear images of the workers, shared recently, displayed that they were not locked up in dreary factories, forced to work to death.
"As you can see," he waved his hand at the screens, "that recording is a fake. A certain member of this council," his eyes swept over the platform, lingering on a certain marquee longer than the others, "in cahoots with certain businessmen who are displeased with how successful I am, forged this little show by hiring actors."
The High Arbiter hit his gavel on the block, silencing the rising murmurs.
"You know, it is rather well made. Perhaps they should consider branching into the entertainment industry." He glanced at Belford again, who averted his eyes.
"If you are not satisfied, you are free to inspect any one of my manufacturing centers. In fact, inspect them all at once if you want," he said.
"Not like you have any hope of replicating the technology."
"So there are no concerns over human rights in any of your holdings?" Graf Eldmire asked.
His thoughts flowed through the neural bridge. The screens fused into one. A live stream of a factory producing smart phones appeared on it. Robotic arms moved with millimetric precision, producing every single component.
The processors were fitted into the motherboard; the screens were fused to the metal case. The operating system was uploaded, and the phone was packed with earbuds, a charger, and a cable.
Without a single human hand touching any part until the user turned the phone on.
He wanted to laugh at how easy it was to create all this, while his competitors struggled.
"My entire operation is automated. I am the sole organic worker in Alteran Holdings Limited."
While he was the CEO, Nax handled everything from logistics and contracts to accounting. A mere background operation that had made him the richest man on the planet.
The council chambers fell silent.
"That explains why your profit margins are off the charts." Graf Edward Coline spoke, sitting on the row beneath the royalty.
"Are we done now?"
"There will be inspections on your manufacturing plants, but yes. Under the current circumstances, you are free to leave. However, you might be summoned once more to testify as we launch an investigation into the origins of this forged recording."
"This," he rose from the seat, palms hitting the desk before him, "has been a monumental waste of my time."
—
The second he left the council chambers, he found an out-of-the-way spot to teleport out. The press was outside the gates, waiting like vultures to descend on him. They would continue to wait.
—
Meltral
EIC Central Base
She typed away on the keyboard, registering entries of the latest samples of destroyed rupture tech. The process was so monotonous she did not even hear her commander approach.
Write the report, time stamp the photos and the videos, add them to the folder, e-sign it, and send it up the chain of command.
"Lieutenant," she rose from her seat at the sound, turning around with arms glued to her sides, heels meeting to create that perfect V shape between her boots, "the general wants to see you."
Her comrades in the shared office were all watching her. Not every day was one of them summoned to the general's room.
"Yes, sir." She tilted her head down quickly and followed the major along.
"Sir, permission to ask about the subject?" What the hell would General Margon want to see her for? She wasn't high enough in the chain of command to earn his attention.
"You'll see when you meet him," Major Aldrin said with a blank tone.
A sharp feeling arose in her gut. It could be politics. The attempts to pull her out of the EIC had never ceased, only lost their intensity. If the general were calling for her….
She stood before a bronze-leafed oak door, straightening her camouflage uniform. The major knocked on the door. General Margon's booming voice allowed them in.
Aldrin pushed the door open, walking in. She followed exactly three steps behind on his left. He stood at attention exactly three steps away from the desk, tilting his head down swiftly. "Sir, Lieutenant Nishimura is here."
"Thank you, Major; you are dismissed." Aldrin saluted again, turning on his left heel to leave.
Once the major was out of the room, she took his place, waiting to be addressed.
"Lieutenant, at ease, take a seat," he said, rolling his hand towards the seat with a pen between his fingers.
She did as instructed, taking the seat on the left.
"How did your vacation go?" he asked, arms crossed over his broad chest.
"It went fine, sir." Was he doing an informal inspection of the states of his troops?
"That business with the rupture could have gotten out of control. Luckily, something killed it," the general said.
She didn't like the soft, brightening look in his eyes. "True, sir. It would have been a nightmare."
The six-foot-tall man smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. He held the monitor before him, turning it around to face her.
He pressed a button, playing a recording. A high-quality camera inside a house had caught the dragon's immense bulk quite clearly.
Along with the gas tank, the car diving into it, and the sight of her jumping out.
"Turns out there was a professional freelancer testing his new camera. He managed to evacuate but dropped the device. It kept recording," he explained. It was very clear who the female on the recording was.
There were five people who had the same hair color as her in Hatsuzumi. Three were males, unrelated, and the fourth was the high priestess of the Temple of the Gates. Deducing her identity was simple for the Union intelligence and the local EIC base.
As the one at the top of her chain of command, he was immediately informed.
She hung her head down. "Oh." Thairon had cleaned everything from the net, but this was not something he could have anticipated.
The general guffawed, his chest rolling in great waves, his eyes closed.
"Girl, why didn't you report this?" he asked. He did not seem displeased, far from it.
"I… did not want the publicity, sir," she said. If she got famous, it would only play into his hands.
"Good instincts," Mardon nodded, "because someone already leaked it." I wager you will be on the evening news everywhere, especially the union."
She blinked twice. She squeezed her knees, forcing her face to stay still.
If Mardon noticed it, he did not point it out. "The EIC Committee is truly inspired by your act of bravery. They have offered you a golden ticket. And," he raised his open palm, "you can't refuse since it will be bad publicity. We can't let the people think we don't reward our heroes."
She blinked again, her fingers slowly straightening. "I could use regular breaks." She declined rewards before due to publicity. "No need now that everyone will learn it."
"I thought so. You can have the last week of every second month, or just an entire month off in one year."
"I'll take the former, sir."
"Alright then. You will receive the paperwork later."
"And, Lieutenant? You did one hell of a thing there. If only we had more people like you."
"No, you don't want that," she thought. "Thank you, sir."
"Dismissed, lieutenant."
—
When she returned to the shared office, it was to the sight of her comrades holding a cake for her.
A cake decorated with a cross-eyed black dragon.
"Three cheers for our resident dragon slayer," they said as one.
How they had already learned it, she didn't know. However, why they all seemed so silent and secretive yesterday made sense.
"Thanks guys," she said, hanging her head down.
"Here, a small gift from all of us," Kaelan said, quickly cutting her a slice that included the dragon's head, while Silene held a glass of soda.
She huffed but took it with the drink.
They were quick to usher her to a seat and gather in a semi-circle. "Tell us, o mighty dragon slayer, how did you force the dragon to land?" Ledale looked so earnest when she asked, leaving her to quickly make up the story without including Thairon.
"There was a construction site nearby. The dragon destabilized the crane and broke its wing." It was plausible enough. The camera thankfully didn't have any shot of her partner in heroics.
"How did you survive the explosion without a scratch? You didn't jump out of the vehicle far enough," the newest addition to their post, Argyle, asked.
"I took cover behind a car. You know how sturdy everything Alteran makes is."
"True enough," Silene muttered.
"Alright, alright, enough questions. This is a celebration, not an interrogation," Ledale said, pushing everyone away.
"How did you guys know anyway?"
Ledale pointed to the door on the other side of the room. "Major Aldrin showed us the video. The general thought it would boost morale to have a small gathering like this."
"And you guys prepared all this in a day?" She had just returned to duty yesterday and had returned to her apartment the day before.
Silene winked at her, enjoying the luscious cake more than the person it was made for. "I know the owner of the pastry in the Volan Square. She agreed on a rush order."
—
She lay on her bed, camos still on. She took out her ringing phone, answering with her head on the cushion.
"Hey," she said.
He put down whatever he was working on, fully facing the camera from his seat. "Hey. Why do you look so down?"
"Guess you didn't see it yet." At his confused look, a holographic screen popped up, showing the news regarding her.
"Oh," he said, seeing her identity stated very clearly. "I can try to take it all down, but at this point, it will just give you more publicity."
"I know, thank you anyway. But it's not all bad. I got a week off every two months thanks to it." It was cold comfort to the calls she received.
"Nice. A couple more heroics like this, you can retire."
She exhaled in a humorless laugh. "Good thing you weren't caught in the video. That would be hard to explain."
"I have a Photoreflector Array," he said, pointing at his bracelet. "I don't appear on cameras."
She blinked. "That's convenient." It would have been even more convenient if she had one too.
"Ah," he brightened up, rising from his chair. The camera kept following him into another room. "I had something I wanted to show you. Thought you might be interested in this as a soldier gal."
He pulled up a rifle, silver, sharp, and glowing. He aimed it down, locking on the target with the holographic sight, and pulled the trigger. A single, white beam left the muzzle, and the results were terrifying.
The white beam bloomed on the ballistic target, meant to be the replica of a human body, leaving behind a charred, expanded cavity. Even a glancing blow from that weapon would be lethal.
"I thought you didn't have weapons?" She pushed herself up, eyes wide. "Did you build that in two days?"
"Told you I work fast."
"Are you going to sell them?" The EIC could use his weapons, but she didn't know if the political disaster that would follow would be worth it.
"Start a new arms race with directed energy weapons at the center? I might as well destroy the planet myself."
She lay down again, tugging at her camouflage. "This planet would have been screwed if you were a profit-obsessed richboy."
"Honestly, I even considered shutting the company down, but it's too troublesome," he said.
Tomoe didn't need to be an economist to know there would be economic problems if a company like Alteran shut down overnight.
"You know, there was news about a closed session in the kingdom concerning Alteran. What was that about?" She hated the security measures sometimes. It was one thing for military-issue computers to be cut off from the rest of the world, but the phone ban for anyone below the rank of a major sucked.
Thairon's face moved to the side of the screen, and excerpts from a video played. "Some idiots hired actors to film a fake video regarding the condition of the workers in my manufacturing centers. Workers, I might add, that I don't have."
"Naturally, I humiliated the council."
"I would have paid to see that." If only she could do the same to the Dragon's Court.
Once the weapon demonstration was over, there were more mundane matters to speak of. She spoke of her day, of how she had learned her involvement in defeating the dragon turned her into a local celebrity. He told her about his work on an early rupture detection system, which was the best news she had heard in months.
She had to end the call eventually, having to keep up with her sleep schedule.
Even with how emotionally draining most of the day was, she slept with a smile tugging on her lips.