| From: | "Paul J. Adam" <shadowtk@********.DEMON.CO.UK> |
|---|---|
| Subject: | Homeward Bound |
| Date: | Sat, 11 Apr 1998 13:57:30 +0100 |
>>>>>[+++++begin video
Agent Kreutz offers Lynch a couple of sheets of printout. "Here's what
we got on the Rezar killing. He and his partner-"
"Don't worry about it, Bernie. I hired Easy to kill him." Lynch sips his
coffee. "Hope you didn't waste much time investigating, I didn't think
you'd be on the case so quickly."
"Not long. Not much to go by. The MO's easy, she had a camera planted so
she could watch the area. Rezar and his partner come out, Easy moves in:
rounds the corner and parks at the bottom of the steps, just another
bonded courier delivering some paperwork for a busy attorney during a
case. Leaves the bike running, walks up the steps, breaks the partner's
neck in passing - just grabbed and twisted - and kills Rezar with a kick
to the head. That Elf is _strong_, she completely shattered that side of
his cranium and he had cerebral tissue lodged in his nasal sinuses at
the autopsy."
"She's strong all right. Fast, too. Which is how come she kills the two
cops and is back on the bike before Rezar's hit the ground."
"Yeah. We found the bike in a parking structure, she switched vehicles
there. Bike was stolen, and the way she was dressed there's zero
forensics, no ID... you'd have a hell of a time making this one stick.
Damn near the perfect hit." Kreutz shrugs. "Thought you didn't like
subcontracting homicide."
"I don't." Lynch's voice is flat and heavy. "You want to kill a man,
over some personal problem, you should do it yourself with a knife. Up
close and personal. With a gun, you can kill from a distance, just aim
and squeeze and see the guy fall. Really easy, like a trideogame, you
don't feel a thing. With a knife, you feel his blood run over your hand,
you see the light in his eyes go out, you _know_ what you are doing to a
fellow human being and you have to _choose_ to kill. If that puts you
off, then you obviously don't want to kill him badly enough." He sighs.
"Right." Kreutz moves on quickly, perhaps sensing Lynch's dark mood.
"Well, we hit the name we got pretty damn hard. Samhain - Senor
Paraguina - is an Aztechnology cybernetics researcher, one of their
rising stars it seems. Or, I might say, _was_." Kreutz offers another
sheaf of paper. "We got some immigration records, some other odds and
ends from a trip to the UCAS a few years back. Before and since then,
we've got nothing. We filed a request for information with Aztlan. Not a
word in reply. All we know is, Samhain was paying off Rezar, killed at
least one MPD detective, may or may not even be here in Miami."
Lynch nods again, scanning the sparse information. "You know, Bernie, I
get the impression the well is dry."
"Our opinion too." The FBI agent says, reluctantly. "We should head back
to Seattle. See what's been going on in our absence. Find out which jobs
we ex-Project bozos will get assigned to. Back to the grind. One thing I
wondered, Jason, you get a different view on things. The way things are
going to hell these days... do you think it's ever going to get better?"
Lynch shrugs, walks over to the coffee machine, refills his mug and
pours for Kreutz. "Sure. Take a couple of decades. Once the megacorps
split -"
"Whoa there. You know something I don't?"
"Quinn and Lilith did the analysis. They're the business brains, not me.
But yeah, the megas will begin disintegrating as viable entities within
ten, twenty years."
Kreutz looks surprised, perhaps by the certainty in Lynch's voice. "Go
on. Explain."
"It's pretty simple, really. Compare, oh, Maxim Arms - Vehicles with
Ares. Ares owns Mitsubishi, who build the Kaminari MBT. They use a Power
Trains Inc. engine and transmission, PTI being owned by Ares. The
turbine blades for the PTI engine are made by Kuldar Aerospace Products,
an Indian company that's wholly owned by Ares, using niobium mined by
Hawker Mining (An Ares Macrotechnology Subsidiary). Maxim's new
Kurassier MBT currently uses a Lucas-Varity-Perkins diesel, and they
don't care who LVP buy components from."
"So?" Kreutz looks blank, if thoughtful. "So mmegacorps keep the money
in the family. So what?"
Lynch lights a cigarette, obviously warming to the subject. "So, Maxim's
tank engine is chosen from a field of competitors, to be the best and
the lightest and the cheapest and the most economical and the most
reliable yadda yadda yadda. Okay? They pick the best engine for their
design. Ares buy the engine that PTI feel like making.
"Now, you could say that PTI will design Ares the perfect engine, being
in-house and all. But they can't. See, they have to turn a profit, and
that means selling outside the company. So they can't sink real money
into R&D or development for an in-house project unless they're really
pressed or they're allowed to sell it outside, they'll just offer an
off-the-shelf item they developed for an outside - profitable - need and
tell Mitsubishi "take it or leave it". PTI are more interested in
earning _real_ money, not corp scrip, from sales... like to Maxim. But
that puts them in competiton with Mitsubishi, so Ares scupper that plan,
and now the PTI CEO is pissed at top management because he wasn't
allowed to bid on a big sale even while he was being told to push hard
and win new business."
Kreutz looks doubtful. "But if PTI _do_ develop the perfect engine for a
MBT..."
"They see damn all return on it if they sell to Mitsubishi, and they
won't be allowed to sell it to other tank manufacturers. So why spend
the money developing the perfect tank engine, when that design team
could be stealing other markets that will actually pay hard cash? PTI's
boss has to earn a return, or he'll get replaced by someone who will.
Mitsubishi nominally pay Power Train in corp scrip, or Vietnamese
piasters, or coconut daiquiri mix, or whatever dodge the company's
currently using to show how the taxmen it's losing money by selling to
itself. So PTI shows no hard-currency profit on those sales. Okay, in
Ares dollars they're booming: now try opening a Zurich-O account with
Ares scrip. Nope, that's illegal, it's not valid tender outside Ares
Macrotech turf. It's only profit if you can spend it, Bernie."
"I think I start to see your point."
"Oh, it gets better, Bernie. See, Maxim's engine for the Kurassier is
made by Lucas-VP, and Maxim agree cost and specification and reliability
requirements. Then they accept or reject engines. If the engine doesn't
perform, they'll go somewhere else in a shot. If they don't like the
price, they'll go somewhere else. It's up to LVP to choose component
suppliers and such like, and they do some work in-house and buy in a lot
more parts. They have to build cost-effective product or they lose their
sales, so they buy from whoever makes the best product at the cheapest
price. Now, how does PTI choose its suppliers?"
"Ares-owned. I get the idea. You _will_ buy turbine blades from - who
was it, Kuldar? - regardless of whether someone else makes a better
product. Kuldar know they can almost be as bad as they like on quality
and performance, they want to save every dime they can from this
unprofitable operation and concentrate on the jobs that earn them _real_
money. So you get inferior supplies, the 'good stuff' is marked for
export because it'll earn money, and the internal market gets the
sweepings. You know, this scenario sounds really familiar from
somewhere." Kreutz gets more coffee, obviously enjoying this.
"It should do. Lilith uses the old Soviet Union from the last century as
an example of the rise, stagnation and coming fall of the megacorp. A
mega's a totalitarian state with a command economy and a non-negotiable
currency, usually run at the top by an unstable cabal of infighting
megalomaniacs, and actually operated by a huge self-serving layer of
middle management more interested in turf wars and expanding their
personal positions than overall corporate welfare. Down at the bottom
you've got a proletariat with zero rights, few freedoms, and watched
over by a paranoid security apparatus which has just about no constraint
on its actions. And now we're seeing a buildup of corporate military
force, paid for by voodoo economics that only hold up because corp scrip
isn't convertible."
Lynch runs out of breath, finishes his Marlboro. "Analogy would be,
maybe, ninety or a hundred years ago. Khruschev's pushed through
collectivisation - corporate farming, if you like - and is building up
presence in space, the ICBM and bomber fleets, modernising the Red
Army... All paid for in roubles, and it doesn't seem to cost anything
because labour seems free. But you still have to feed, clothe, house and
train the workers, and every man-hour and every ton of steel you use for
an internal project is resource not earning money."
"You know, there are plenty who would argue with that..."
"Don't I know it." Lynch grins, his dark mood lifted for a while at
least. "Saeder-Krupp's going to be the one to watch. Lofwyr plans a lot
longer-term than many of his competitors, and I'd be surprised if he
hasn't considered this as a possibility. "
"So, when it breaks, how do you see it happening?" Kreutz asks.
"The megas that are publicly traded will start losing value as the
competition hots up. You'll see more terrorism and black-ops as they try
to eliminate the competion - the smaller, faster, more profitable
companies that are stealing their lunch - by means other than legal.
Assuming they fail to - and that's where we'll come in, protecting
indigenous business from megacorp attack - then the megacorps that are
vulnerable to market pressure will begin shedding non-core businesses
and concentrating on what they do well. Those that aren't... will either
do the same anyway, or start to flounder. You could see some open
warfare there."
"I'm not sure I agree with it, but it makes sense." Kreutz chuckles.
"And you consider that an improvement? "
"Yeah. Break up the corporate power blocks. More, smaller companies,
healthier competition, less fragmentation of responsibility, and the
corruption's on a less grand scale. Of course, it'll be a rough ride
getting there..." Lynch rises to his feet. "Tell Seattle we're on our
way back, and get your people packed and ready to move. Time to blow
this joint, Bernie."
+++++end video]<<<<<
-- Lynch <13:43:24/04-11-59>
