chapter four

Louis Hunter was a budding warlord. He worked for Mann Trading, a warlord-friendly company, with a Staff Focused management policy. Which meant they believed in keeping good people by offering them promotions and pay-rises (as a worldwide trading company, Mann Trading handled all kinds of goods, which meant their pay was worth having).

Louis Hunter was about to be offered a promotion and a pay-rise, both big. As he knocked on the door to his head of department’s office, he was sure he was to be offered something, but was not sure how much. This presented no problem, if it was not enough he knew how to get something better: by moving to another company, and he had somebody lined up, just in case.

“Come in.”

Louis walked in to find Jane Bryant, Head of Department, Defence, Mann Trading alone in her office. She was walking towards him, smiling, hand outstretched. He shook her hand automatically, although he was put a little off balance by the formality of the gesture. They were on first name terms, in the corridor at least.

“Hi Louis. Have a seat.” She gestured towards a chair by the table in the centre of the small room. Now he was Louis again.

“Umm. Thanks.” Louis sat. Jane turned her back to him to shuffle a flip chart from where it rested against the wall to a position closer to the table. Jane was a full warlord. She felt his unsettlement; subconsciously she had noticed a dozen body and facial language indicators. Equally subconsciously she had planned Louis’ unsettlement. She generally liked to take control of a meeting early, like before it had started.

The flip chart in position, Jane turned and addressed Louis. She spoke softly and not too fast.

“OK. As you know this is a review meeting for you, and you’ll see why I’m doing this, as your head of department, rather than Jack, who’s your manager in a few minutes.” Jane half turned to draw a simple tree diagram on the top sheet of the chart.

Louis’ hopes lifted. Jack Dewey, Manager, Stationary Defence, Mann Trading was, in theory, his immediate manager. Recently though he had been working on projects for Jane, Jack’s boss, and even for her boss Aaron Abrams, Board Member, Operations, Mann Trading. Louis felt that if Jane was talking to him, it must mean a good promotion, especially as she was drawing a diagram of company structure. Maybe he was headed for Office of the Board Member?

“I think you know most of this anyway.” Jane said, half to him, as she finished her diagram, by adding initials to each node of the tree.

“Defence comes under Operations, along with other things like transport and utility. Under Defence we currently have the sections Stationary, Land Mobile and Sea.” (Louis noted the word currently.) “Now. My office has been looking at this arrangement, particularly at Stationary, where you currently work.” (Louis noted it again.) “Stationary deals with security at our ports and warehouses, at the farms and processing plants we own, as well as all our offices, including this one. It’s quite a wide spectrum, and it’s become clear that the headquarters building is a very special case, especially now because we’re expanding headquarters. It’s going to be the only really large office we have.”

Louis had official knowledge about headquarters expanding (it had been Announced), he had unofficial knowledge of the aim of having no other large offices, but he had had no knowledge about re-evaluation of headquarters office defence. This made his gossip antenna twitch. Louis asked himself how it could have come about that he had not heard about this re-evaluation. All those “currently”’s stimulated his mind, and he thought fast. It could not have taken long, and was therefore not a genuine evaluation. More likely, Louis decided, a decision had been made on some other basis, and this was a justification exercise, creating a palatable reason for whatever the decision was.

This was as far as his racing mind had got whilst Jane had been speaking.

“With the board’s approval, I am creating a new Defence section: Headquarters.” Jane paused to draw another branch on the flip chart. “I want you to head the section.”

Louis fought back a huge grin, and the urge to jump in the air whooping. He looked back at Jane, who was looking straight at him, a serious expression on her face. Now he knew the real reason for the re-evaluation: they were creating a new senior position just for him, to keep him within Mann Trading. Louis quickly weighed a few acceptances and chose one.

“Sounds like a challenge.” He nodded. “Something I can really get my teeth into. There’ll be a lot to do. When and how do I start?”

Jane smiled. She was unsure of Louis’ ability to handle the section head job, but it would keep him quiet and also put pressure on Jack, by taking away some of his power. Jack hadn’t been doing so well lately. Should Louis not make a good section head, the section would continue to exist, and could be returned to Jack, or given to somebody like Louis, a young lion who fancied himself, or herself. That had been Jane’s real objective. She had wanted something to hang above the pack, something for them to fight over to distract them from the post of head of department.

Mark Sovereign would not have described himself as a warlord. This was because he did not follow fashion. Some of his colleagues followed fashion, avidly. They not only talked with each other about new ideas in management, but actually had paid agents working at other companies to find out their new ideas too. He regarded those colleagues with quiet contempt. Mark wasn’t at all like them; he was a long-termist. A very-long-termist. But then he could afford to be. Mark Sovereign did not age; he was immortal.

Mark’s immortality was not the power of a unique individual, such as No-number Zen. Nor had his immortality been the result of a lengthy study of occult science, which was how Witch Carter had acquired her abilities. Mark Sovereign’s immortality had been given by a supernatural entity, as had Mister Sunrise’s powers, although a different entity. Mark Sovereign’s aging process had been arrested by Antichrist. He was one of a small group who had been so blessed.

The blessing had taken place during the wars which had led to Collapse. Antichrist had known what those wars would be like, and how they would be different to previous wars. Principally, the wars would not be two-sided but all-against-all, the destruction would be global and almost total, and there would be no winners. This time there would be no opportunity for His organisation to simply wait out the storm, and take advantage on the side as they had done previously, for instance by secretly assisting war criminals in return for a share of their plunder. This time a Special Intervention would be necessary.

Twelve men were chosen to take His organisation through Collapse. They were to allow its apparent destruction, and go underground. After Collapse they were to rebuild the organisation, in secret, until it was of sufficient size and power to return to a dominating public position. This would take a long time, hence the immortality. At the blessing, Antichrist had revealed a complete plan detailing the actions and goals of each of the twelve men at every stage, from that moment until the rebuilding was complete. The plan had been followed to the letter, religiously. As the wars and Collapse had run their long and destructive course the organisation had lost support, sustained direct attacks, suffered from splits and faction, and had finally died. The twelve men were therefore currently engaged in the rebuilding phase. In the plan each man had tasks assigned to him.

One of Mark Sovereign’s tasks was the creation of a global travel and communications network, usable by the organisation. He had joined Mann Trading in order to achieve this. And to secure a position of great personal power and wealth for himself, which was equally part of the plan. He had applied to join as a Trading Assistant, a “commission package” job which meant it paid only a tiny fixed salary. Which was why it was a good place to start - applicants weren’t asked a lot of difficult (for Mark) questions about their background and history, if they didn’t succeed the company dropped them and hadn’t had to pay them much anyway. Mark Sovereign had not been dropped. He had been lifted.

His bosses had noted two characteristics they wanted to use at a more senior level. The first was a nebulous ability, somewhere between “lateral thinking”, “attention to detail” and “seeing new angles”. The second was not at all nebulous: he had a nose as hard as a diamond; when he dealt with people they jumped, rolled over and gave discounts. Mark had accepted promotion, several times, and had soon been working for heads of department, and board members. Picking his moment, once his work had impressed them, but before they wrote him off as a super legman forever, he had made his pitch.

Mark Sovereign’s idea had been to have a team dedicated to liaison between parts of the company. At the time there had been a real need for what he suggested; the board had been well aware of inefficiencies existent because of rivalry and poor communications. The board had created Strategic Liaison Team, attached to Office of the Chairman, with Mark Sovereign as its head.

Over the next two years the board noted many individual successes and general improvements, all resulting from their own wisdom in having created the team, and from the efficient management and visionary leadership of Mark Sovereign. And over those two years, the “team” had been expanded, in scope and in personnel. On the day that Louis Hunter had an early morning meeting with Jane Bryant, Mark Sovereign was comfortably settled as Head of Department, Strategic Liaison, Mann Trading and had been so for six months.

Mark was fully as happy as the board with StratLiaise but for different reasons. Reasons that were in line with Antichrist’s plan. Mark had expanded on his original, rather narrow, liaison brief. He had explained to the board that, yes, they had made great strides in facilitating inter-departmental communication, but that they could go further. Rather than waiting for situations in which two (or more) departments decided to communicate, they could actually be seeking out situations in one department which might have bearing on, or contain useful lessons for, another department’s activities. “Pro-active liaison” Mark called it, so that the board would like the idea. What it actually meant was that it was now the brief of StratLiaise to be aware of everything that happened in the company, in any department, just in case it could be of benefit to another department. Therefore StratLiaise staff had to be in touch with all departments, and at all locations. This meant they had to have access to excellent communications, be they data or voice, and, for those vital face-to-face meetings and site visits, to excellent travel facilities. Mark and his department went everywhere and talked to everyone. And with so much traffic, it was easy to fit in extra items, the odd extra few passengers here and few pages of coded information there, especially if you were head of department. An objective fulfilled. And in a way typical of Mark’s style: the details of the initial team’s job, the small changes to the department’s brief, not rushing to create a network, but letting it grow, with him at its centre, all were his trademarks, and for millennia had been the trademarks of the organisation for which he really worked. As a head of department, Mark was very well paid, which also helped his objectives. But as head of department of StratLiaise he could find out about almost anything going on anywhere in the world, which was much more important. Mann Trading had interests, but not offices, all over the world, in all kinds of fields - everything had some impact on what they did. There was a lot of news, a lot of situation reports, a lot of bulletins, a lot of up-to-the-minute datafeeds, circulating through Mann Trading. But wait. Who knew whether a Sea Defense report on a pirate group operating around Bornholm might be of use to, say, Armaments Trading? Who knew whether a Plankton Production newsfeed about changing temperatures in the Kuroshio, should also be fed to Sea Transportation? Why, Strategic Liaison of course, so all reports had to go through their system, just in case. They all had to be indexed. They all had to be retrievable, by anybody with clearance of course. And Mark Sovereign had clearance (also he knew the indexing system inside-out). Oh yes, his objectives were very clearly in his sights.

At the moment that Louis was accepting the Headquarters Defence job, Mark was reading his e-mail. He had just finished reading the final agreed policy document on super-powered individuals. There weren’t many around, but Mark wanted to know about them nevertheless. He had put the right people in touch with each other to ensure that Mann Trading kept records on any extraordinary people encountered. Records which were, of course, within his reach. He was pleased with the document, and keyed for the next unread item.

“Good Usage, SysAdv monthly bulletin” appeared on the screen. He flicked through it quickly, noting subject headings and keywords. On page four his finger slipped off the PageDown key accidentally. As he felt for the top of the key again, the page remained on the screen. Forced to take more than the casual glances he had been taking, Mark noticed something. A list of names.

The list, introduced by the phrase “Attending Meeting:” appeared in a figure entitled “Names without dept idents”. Mark reached for his mouse and clicked the figure id “fig 2”. A menu appeared and he clicked “Start of paragraph”. He read:

“The guidelines state that in a free text message, dept idents should be appended to the names of employees. The bad example in fig 2 is also taken from a recent real message. This case is especially noteworthy, since the list of names could have been linked, as a block, to the Pnl database, thus ensuring that all extra information on the employees, including dept ident, was immediately available to the recipient of the message. Note that, should a message with Pnl attachments be sent to a recipient without access to Pnl, the mail system inserts text equivalents, as far as is possible, into the message, before forwarding.”

Returning to fig 2, Mark read the list. He had vaguely heard of all the people on the list, although none were from StratLiaise. Not content with vague recollections, Mark set about getting something more concrete. Working quickly, he opened Pnl, and cut and pasted the list of names into a Search window. He expanded the results to fill his screen and stared at the resultant table. Family name, First name, PnlId, Department, Team, Current projects, Line manager, Job title and links to other databases where shown for each of the people attending the meeting. Mark scrolled left and right and up and down and followed links, browsing. Suddenly he took a sharp breath and recoiled from the screen. He had a sudden cold feeling.

All the staff on the list were at the same level in line: two down from Head of Department, but all of them were from different departments or sections. Somebody had run a meeting, with people from all over the company, and nobody from StratLiaise had been there. Which is what had made Mark Sovereign take a sharp breath. The links, to the diary and to the StratLiaise contacts log, showed that all the people at the meeting had been involved in a Strategic Liaison project in the last nine months, but that no two of them had been involved in the same project. Which is what had made Mark Sovereign recoil. There had been a board directive three months ago, to all departments, that a StratLiaise consultant was to attend all meetings attended by three or more staff of Head of Team equivalent seniority. This was the exact seniority of all the people on the list. Further, SysAdv had suggested changes to the diary system to notify StratLiaise of all such meetings automatically, and these changes had been adopted company-wide. Only two parts of the company could have avoided stating their adoption or non-adoption, and therefore need not have adopted the changes: The Board and Internal Monitoring. The Board was the less likely of the two to have called a meeting of Head of Team equivalents. Which is what made Mark Sovereign feel cold all of a sudden.

InternMonit were onto him, and he had found out only by a stroke of luck. Mark didn’t see it as luck though. He closed his eyes and mentally offered a prayer of thanks. Then a prayer for strength and calmness, since he was beginning to panic a little. After praying he felt a little better. He felt able to think at least. Mark considered, and quickly discarded, the notion that he was being paranoid.

It occurred to Mark that he had been shewn that InternMonit were after him. This must have been for a reason. The most obvious reason was so that he could do something, before their investigation got too far. Mark made a quick plan of action. It wasn’t really necessary to act against the investigation directly, he decided. Direct action would be difficult to do, and catastrophic if discovered. On the face of it, there wasn’t that much to investigate anyway. Cutting down on his extra transport items for a while (six months, nine months?) was the first element of his plan. Any irregularities InternMonit might find could be made to look like old stuff, passing through loopholes which had since been closed. None of it could be traced to him anyway. They could still make things a little rough, but if he could come up with a major success from somewhere he should be able to brazen it out. A major success was the other element of his plan. Maybe the board would be presented with an InternMonit report, one which would have to include something about how the irregularities noted were no longer continuing, and just after that StratLiaise would come through with some triumph from somewhere, and the board would say they didn’t want to get rid of somebody who was making the company money just because of a few old mistakes. Panic over.

Of course cutting out his own activities would be inconvenient, what with him being asked to help out with that Central Temple business. Maybe he could turn Paul down? After all it was Paul who had underestimated those blasted heathens anyway. Than again he might just be able to get away with something.

His calculations were interrupted by Spence, one of his staff, reminding him of a meeting in his office. Mark Sovereign closed Pnl and brought his attention back to his job. He was going to need a success to beat off InternMonit, he reminded himself.

Iaga Bookman was a warlord. Coincidentally, she noticed the list of names in “fig 2” on page 4 of Good Usage at about the same time as Mark Sovereign. Her reaction was completely different however. She did not panic - she became furious. And she had not had to look up the names in Pnl, because she, Iaga Bookman, VP consultant, Internal Monitoring, Mann Trading was in charge of InternMonit3351, Investigation into StratLiaise.

Nobody outside InternMonit was supposed to know about the investigation, other than those at the meeting, and here was the list of names being mailed to the whole company. Iaga was doubly piqued by the fact that her simple security measure of not listing dept idents, to conceal her purposes, was being held up as an example of bad practice. She checked the author: William Scammel, SysAdv. Who the fucking hell is he? Now Iaga did have to open Pnl. As a senior member of staff in InternMonit Iaga’s access was pretty much total. In a few seconds she had mug shots and life story in front of her. Iaga scowled as she skimmed Scammel’s career history.

So our Bill was a high flyer, was he? Recently moved to headquarters on account of his outstanding work eh? Iaga ignored the attached Project Reports, doubtless all were brimming with praise for this boy wonder from the middle of nowhere, and went straight to the contact section. She was going to fill him in on a few situations. He had to learn that what passed for high flight out in the sticks was considered under the radar here at HQ. He had to be made to appreciate the lowliness of his position in SysAdv, under Utility, under Operations, when compared to certain people who where under nobody but the Chairman. He had to be told that nobody messed with InternMonit. Iaga reached for her telephone and caught sight of a note stuck to the handset. “Do not use when angry”.

Iaga had printed the note and stuck it there herself. Her fingertips tapped the note a few times then settled. Then started moving across the note. As her fingers ran along the edges of the top layer of clear adhesive tape, Iaga looked at the letters being revealed and concealed. The nail of her middle finger caught on a small tear and she toyed for a while: smoothing down the tape, then picking at it to lift it again. After a few scratchings the tape had formed an unsightly fold. Iaga found a small pair of scissors in one of the drawers of her desk and carefully snipped at the tape. Then she tore the folded part off. She looked at the neat half-circle cut from the top layer of tape and was satisfied with her restoration. Iaga had cooled herself down.

What would have been the result of chewing out William Scammel? The list of names was out; the damage was done. Of course steps should be taken to stop this kind of thing happening again, but doing too much right now might attract attention. After all the article did not identify the mail as being from InternMonit. Quite possibly Scammel himself did not know. That was an issue, one Iaga could address herself. What else? Nothing. Apart from the exposure of the whole project. That was a big issue, too big for Iaga on her own. She decided to involve Itaro, her boss.

Iaga turned in her chair and looked into the office at the end of the room. Itaro held his telephone against his right ear with his right shoulder, speaking into it whilst he typed and looked at papers on his desk. She could not go in right away, and anyway, it would be a good idea to find out if Scammel had known that his example came from an InternMonit memo before talking to Itaro.

Iaga returned to her screen, twitched her mouse to clear the screen saver, and paged down to the end of her Pnl entry on Scammel. The last entry was dated six weeks ago: William’s assignment to the electronic mail team. What had he done since then? Why had his manager not kept his records up-to-date? She read the sign on her telephone again, then turned in her chair to look in the opposite direction to Itaro’s office. Looking down instead of looking up. She found what she was looking for three desks away.

“François” she called. A few heads at desks turned a little. François Givry stood up, looking at his watch, and walked to Iaga’s desk.

“Good morning Ms. Bookman” he said with a slight bow. “How may I be of assistance?”

At the next desk an employee smiled at François’ formality. Not Iaga.

“This chap’s Time&Eval is not up-to-date” Iaga said, pointing to her screen. “It’s six weeks since the last entry.”

“Six weeks. Yes that’s correct.” François agreed, performing a swift mental calculation. “I can inform you of the procedure for monitoring completion of Time&Eval reports, if you wish?” François raised his eyebrows.

Iaga nodded, resisting the temptation to make a sarcastic response. François lowered his eyebrows as he gave a single nod, dipping his head less than an inch, and informed her.

“A Time&Eval must be completed for every employee no less frequently than once every four weeks. A lapse of longer than this is automatically detected, by InternMonit’s regular CheckT&E query. The query launches a mail to the manager for every lapsed employee. This is recorded. The manager will receive a second automatic notification after six weeks. After eight weeks an InternMonit Issue is opened, and an InternMonit staffer, of at least Consultant grade, will be assigned.”

Iaga found that she had to concentrate to avoid being lulled into a doze by the soothing correctness of François’ delivery.

“So a six week break is not ..... serious?”

“Not uncommon, I think. I can generate a report on average lateness of outstanding T&Es, if you wish? It will be no trouble.”

The eyebrows again, but less this time.

“No no. It’s this person I want to know about. William Scammel.”

“Yes. I see. Since his T&E is late I can call his manager, if you wish?”

“Mmmm” Iaga assented.

“Very well. I will do it some time this morning and inform you of the result.” François turned to return to his desk.

Iaga called him back. “François, can you do it from this ’phone?” she said, indicating the telephone on her desk.

“I can, but I need to open a new issue.” François paused, turning to face Iaga, but pointing to his own desk.

“It’s for an existing issue; the number is classified. I just want to find out what he’s been up to in the last six weeks. And can you do it straight away please?”

François nodded and blinked at the same time, then walked back to Iaga’s desk. “If I may?” He said, reaching towards her keyboard. Iaga leaned back in her chair to give François room to type. Using the Pnl record already on the screen, François found the manager’s name and telephone number. He picked up the handset and dialled.

“Hello, is that Juliette Cobb?”

“Good morning Ms. Cobb, you are speaking with François Givry. I’m calling from Mann Internal Monitoring.”

Poor Juliette, thought Iaga. François should have advised her to sit down before he told her who he was.

“I am calling with regard to the Time&Eval for one of your staff: George Scammel.”

Juliette answered that and Iaga took the opportunity to scribble on her pad. François noticed, read, and nodded to her without pausing in his conversation. “Yes. Yes, I see. If you could complete the report soon. Or, if you prefer, just give me an idea now, and then complete when you have time.”

François nodded to Iaga again, then began echoing what Juliette was telling him.

“Mr. Scammel’s been working on the Message Clarity Guidelines project. Yes. From design to publication. Yes. And on post-publication awareness. Yes. Some system programming, to check messages in the e-mail for adherence to guidelines. I see. It was quite time-consuming you say? OK. Because of privacy. I see. What was that again? Yes. I understand. So this took longer than expected because Mr. Scammel had to be sure to extract only the offending parts of the text, and try to avoid anything private. Yes. Yes I think I saw the article. And now he’s working on some automatic, sorry what was that? Format To Guidelines. This will reply to any mail not following guidelines, with a corrected version. OK then. Thanks for that. No, but I might call back later. Good bye.”

“Thank you François, that’s just what I needed to know.”

François smiled in acknowledgement. “Will you enter ten minutes spent, please?” he said, looking at his watch.

“I’ll do it right away Monsieur.” Iaga turned back to her screen as François returned to his desk. By the time Iaga had updated the Issue Log, Itaro was off the telephone. She went immediately.

Iaga knocked on the open door, just above the sign “Hirosaki Itaro, Head of department, Internal Monitoring, Mann Trading”.

“Have you got a couple of minutes? I’ve got a bit of a problem.”

“Sure, come in.” Itaro gestured to a chair in front of his desk. Iaga sat in the chair. “Tell me your problems Iaga.” Itaro finished typing something on his keyboard and turned to face her, smiling.

“It’s about StratLiaise.” Itaro’s smile slipped. “If they’re smart, they’ve worked out that we’re investigating them.”

Itaro sat, almost fell, back in his chair.

“No Iaga.” He said, wishing it not to be true. “How?”

Iaga directed him to the latest Good Usage. After he had read and had this explained to him, he invited Iaga to accompany him to the stairwell.

“I will certainly have a smoke, and I will consider throwing myself down the middle.”

chapter five

“Do you know who that was on the stairs?”

“Who?”

“Hirosaki Itaro. Chief Bastard of Secret Police.”

“Bloody Hell. So who was that with him?”

“One of his assassins I expect. Lurking on the stairs to pounce on some hapless traddy like you or me.”

The two men had to raise their voices to be heard above the noise of Mann Trading Administration department. Somewhere on the higher floors in the building were traders. They bought, they sold, they made decisions, they required information. Down in TradeAdmin was where it was made to happen. Down here people had only one name each, more took too long to say. Harlib and Yoder had just returned from lunch, and now had to rejoin the ranks of traddies in the maelstrom.

“Yoder, these didn’t get sent.” A young woman handed some sheets to Yoder as he sat down.

“Harlib-”

“Stop!” Harlib barked to the boy. “I’m not back until I have my headset on.”

Yoder took the sheets automatically, wondering what they were. A quick scan and he saw two phrases “Despatch order” and “Wildebeest steaks”.

“I got them to give-”

“Who are you speaking to son? Say it again.”

“Sorry. Harlib. I got them to give us a line on NEPSAT. You can use that to call the North.”

“Aren’t these .....” Yoder looked up; no woman. “Fucking shit.” He picked up his telephone headset.

“Jumping. Where?”

“Line 455.”

“A1 M R and U O and O.” Harlib tapped the touch screen on his desk three times. The summary was replaced by a detailed entry.

“What did you say?” Harlib had dismissed the boy from his attention. He had to pause to think of what he had said.

“Bollocks bollocks boll- Trade Admin, Yoder speaking.” Yoder’s soliloquy was interrupted by a telephone call.

“There is still a non-deliver on the instruct.”

“Yes all of them.”

Yoder winced at what the trader said, then the line went dead and he took up his earlier theme.

“Cunting instructions for fucking Wildebeest steaks.”

“A1 M R and U O and O? Excellent, message received and understood, over and out.” The boy was dismissed again, as Harlib selected line 455.

“Hi. Been trying to get you all day. I’m checking today’s trade min 9805. Thank you. Hi I’m checking trade min 9805. Exit confirm? Thank you. Bye now” Harlib tapped his screen again. The display changed to reflect that the lead had left the warehouse. His next task was to check its arrival.

“Hi. Yoder here, TradeAdmin HQ, I’m getting non-connects direct to Gaborone, can you deliver some instructs for me? Thanks Raj. Coming your way.” Yoder tapped his screen, picking up the trade and routing via Dubai. He took and released a deep breath.

The record for Haulier 67 was on Harlib’s screen.

“Hi Anne. Harlib TradeAdmin here. I’m tracking a delivery your team made earlier today, during the down, reference is yesterday’s trade min 9805. At the factory 11:00hrs. Very good..... Yeah catch you.” Harlib turned to Yoder to see if he had time to talk.

“Road people. She might be doing a delivery to HQ soon, and wants to meet me because I have a sexy voice.”

“You and fifty other fuckers, man.” Yoder replied.

“Yeah but I’m unique.”

“So? You and fifty other unique fuckers.” was Yoder’s riposte. “Besides, what about Jo? Or is that going to be finished by then?”

“Actually I’m seeing Jo tonight.” Harlib turned to look towards Yoder’s eyes. “We’re going out.”

“Out? What out out?” Yoder was suddenly serious. He turned to Harlib, meeting his look immediately.

“Yeah.”

“You’re mad.”

Harlib shrugged.

“It’s dangerous man. I mean it’s not safe. Anything can happen.”

“I’ve been out before.”

“Really? You never told me.”

Harlib shrugged again.

Mann provided a number of bars and restaurants, cinema, theatre, live performance, all kinds of relaxation. All within the headquarters complex. Yoder had found these outlets sufficient. When he went out, he usually went to one of four of the bars, depending on his mood. Occasionally he branched out and went a little further afield. But he had never gone out into the Capital at night. He had seen it through the window, in pictures, videos, paintings and he knew what it was like. This did not give him any urge to go there however.

“What is there to do that you can’t do inside?”

“There’s places to go. You’ve got to watch your step, but, you know.....” Harlib tailed off. Yoder was his friend and let him pause to gather his thoughts. Harlib spoke, apparently to the floor. “I got bored with Entertainment. I mean they’re good and everything but, it’s just not interesting. It’s not different. There’s no .....” Harlib sought a word. “danger.” As soon as he said it he knew it was the wrong word.

“You want danger? So you can die?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I just think- TradeAdmin Yoder speaking. You’re taking Jo with you? Sorry say that again.”

“She wants to go.” Harlib said quietly, tapping his screen. “Hi. This is Harlib from HQ TradeAdmin. I’m chasing an outstand for today’s trade commod 656. Arrived 09:00hrs OK. Was there a down? Oh OK equip fail. I can report that. Oh you have. Really? That long ago. Well, I’ll involve a trader that should speed things up. NP. Bye now.”

“Yes the screen’s correct, the instructs are in delivery. It means they’re being routed. Via Dubai. I’m doing the best I can, the link to Dubai was up at least. It’ll come up on the screen.” Yoder winced again. “And you have a nice day too. Fuck’s sake.”

Somebody was approaching Harlib’s desk from his right hand side. He noticed from the corner of his eye, held up the index finger of his left hand as his right tapped his screen. When what he wanted was displayed he turned to the person who had approached.

“Go ahead.” he told the young woman.

“Harlib. I’m not sure what to do with this.” She held a printed sheet of paper in front of him.

“Ah. That is a StratLiaise share directive.” He looked up at the woman’s baffled face. “It means that somebody is to be notified about all movements to do with the trade. Do you know how to set it up?”

“I’ve never seen one before.”

“You don’t see them very often. OK watch.” Harlib directed her attention to his screen.

“Hi. Yoder here TradeAdmin. You asked about circulation of regular reports? OK well you can have Cancel or Subscribe. If it’s Subscribe they have to ask to go on receiving the report, otherwise if it’s Cancel they go on receiving until they ask not to. Which report is it? Right. I could ask them all. I mean I’d have to go through the circulation one-by-one. Sure. I guess I could make a start this afternoon. OK. Bloody hell. Why can’t you just have Cancel or Subscribe you moron. I’ll just call everybody on the fucking circulation. Like I haven’t got ten million other things to do.”

“I detect Maudwell. You should have sold him boy. Now you end up with ten tons of shit to do. Hi. This is Harlib from TradeAdmin, you traded some coffee earlier today? Yeah that’s gone through now, like the screen shows, but I thought you might like to know the reason for the delay was an equipment failure, unserviced for one week. Yes I thought you might. It would be better if you did. Traders scare them. Ha ha. Sure the reference is OEFSR3324. It stands for outstand equip fail service request. That’s correct. You’re welcome. Bye now.”

“Hi. Yoder here TradeAdmin. I’m calling about the Traders’ Dictionary Monthly Update which you currently receive. I don’t know really, I’m just calling to see if you want to go on receiving it, or if you want to cancel. You haven’t read it? OK. Sure, I can call you back later. Bye. Oh I’m so pleased it’s Friday and I’m going out tonight.”

“Not back with Rabina?”

“No it’s Deena.”

“Ahhh! Well there’s no need to go overboard. A simple thanks will suffice.”

Yoder smiled. Deena was Jo’s friend and she and Harlib had introduced them. Jo and Deena sat back to back in a similar desk layout to Harlib and Yoder. But one floor up and a little quieter. They did not have to shout to each other to be heard.

Deena Folmira was finishing a questionnaire. “So delivery times was the most important thing. Fine. Now finally onto the things you found were a problem. Well, of the things that you had to do or buy or change, in order to qualify for Mann Retail, which was the most problematic. Right, the data terminal and lines, yes other people have mentioned that. Well Mann Trading is committed to reliable supply, and that means we do a lot of monitoring throughout. Our own internal tracking is quite rigorous. Mmm yes I see. OK. Well that’s all the questions. I’m pleased that you’ll be taking up the full contract and thanks for your time. Good Bye.”

“Have you got many more to do?” Jo Payech turned to ask her, as soon as she finished talking.

“Just a few actually. I think I’ll get most of the tabulation done today too.” Deena replied, assessing a screen full of names, most of which were displayed dim.

“You’ve being doing a few every day haven’t you?”

“Oh well.” Deena played down her own efficiency. “I don’t like leaving things till the last moment.”

“I wish I could be like that.” Jo moaned, looking at her own screen. “Why isn’t it this evening yet.”

“You wouldn’t want that, you’d have all that outstand for Monday then.” Deena tried to encourage her friend gently.

“Monday’s not today though, is it?”

“It will be.” Deena thought, but did not say. “Time for a coffee. Want one Jo?”

“I’ll come with you.”

They carried their mugs to the kitchen, chatting on the way.

“Plans for the evening? Seeing Shad?”

“I am actually. What do you think?” Jo held her arms away from her body and looked down, indicating her clothes, for a moment. Deena looked at Jo’s trouser suit.

“It’s a bit officey for going out in isn’t it?”

“Yeah, but Shad said I should dress down.”

“Why where are you going?”

Jo made a subtle face which said “wait till we’re alone in the kitchen.” Deena waited, intrigued.

“Shad knows this place. It’s inside the patrolled area.”

“Outside you mean?”

“Yes. I’ve never been out of HQ before. Not going out I mean. I’ve been out on-site and visiting and stuff of course .....” Jo rattled on, betraying her lack of confidence to Deena. By the time she had finished, the coffee was made, poured, milked and sugarred.

“Well if you’ve thought about it ” Deena allowed her sentence to trail off unfinished as they left the kitchen, heading back to their desks.