Diplomatic Consanguinity

 “Fascism First,” murmured Manguy.  He turned a page of the dossier he’d been given when he walked into Meeting Room C and started reading from the top.  He was bland and uninteresting to look at, an appearance he cultivated carefully.  He had the faintest impression of a moustache that might, if you got closer than his bodyguards would allow, be drawn on with eyeliner.  His hair, too black for it to be a natural colour was slicked back with gel and his skin, a neutral olive shade that fitted his hair-colour just a little too perfectly for them both to be real, was clear and healthy.  He wore glasses, but they were delicate, platinum framed, oval-lensed things that looked like a strong breeze would blow them away and so made you wonder if they were actually necessary.  “What a concept.  That is has come to this….”

“It began with the Sweden problem,” said Demetrion who was sat against a wall. His copy of the dossier was set on the chair next to him and one long, bony leg was crossed over the other.  “Though I thought we resolved that one rather well, personally.”

“We did,” said Margoyle.  She was wearing her usual pearl choker and a tidy, pale rose fitted suit that contrasted pleasantly with the odd shade of grey that her makeup gave to her skin.  She looked a little bit like a statue that had inconveniently come to life before the sculptor was completely finished with it.  “We have that in writing.  In triplicate, in fact.”

“Then how did we get from there to Fascism First?” asked Manguy.  The other two carefully didn’t answer, spotting a trap when it was set in front of them.  “I suppose the exact route isn’t important—“

“It might be,” said Margoyle quickly.  “I have two interns on the problem.”

“We have interns again?” Demetrion sounded interested.  

“JDR has been… persuaded—“ there was a faint sigh from everyone in the room “— that he could play croquet with other… things,” said Margoyle.

“The exact route isn’t important,” said Manguy.  There was no hint of impatience in his tone, nor any note of censure, but nonetheless there was a subtle change in the atmosphere of the room.  “What is important is whether we are happy with the destination.   Surely we can all agree on that?”

This was a firm where agreement was so famously hard to come by that voting was done in absolutely secrecy with no way of determining who had cast what vote or even when they cast it, in order to actually achieve the occasional consensus.

“The GOO,” said Margoyle cautiously, using the acronym they had decided upon for the leader of Fascism First, “appears to have located a source of help.  Page seven,” she added as Manguy looked up from the dossier.  “Though it remains unclear who could be helping him.”

“Us,” said Manguy, turning the pages backwards to find page seven.  “We are the only agency with sufficient connections and knowledge to do this.  But we are not doing it, and we have no been contacted with regard to it.  Which should have been impossible.”

“I can put two interns on it,” said Demetrion.  His attempted joke fell as flat as a deep-ocean dwelling fish and as the silence lingered he started to wish that he’d thought a little harder before speaking.

“Unlikely to help,” said Manguy after the silence had stretched to breaking point.  “What we need to know now is what the agency is that’s helping the GOO.  Without some indication of who is behind this, we’re flying blind.  And JDR will not like that at all.”

“He doesn’t like it,” said a new voice.  Jeronica sat down on a chair next to Margoyle, who delicately edged away, one hand clutching her pearls.  Manguy pretended not to notice, but watched carefully out of the corner of his eye.  “But at the moment he is trying to ensure that he cannot be blamed for it.”

Manguy relaxed.  Jeronica was the person he considered his biggest rival and threat, but if she was reporting on JDR like this then this was probably one of their truce-zones.  He made a mental note to check where she’d been for the fifteen minutes prior to her arrival though.

“Naturally,” she continued, “he will determine that he cannot be blamed.”

She didn’t need to say the rest; as soon as JDR was satisfied there was no solid path that led to him he’d be looking for a scapegoat.

“Scaramantha,” said Margoyle as though coughing.  Absolutely nobody said anything for a few seconds.  Then Manguy carefully closed the dossier without ever finding page seven.

“Jeronica,” he said, and Demetrion noticeably tensed.  Manguy made a mental note of that; clearly Demetrion was more junior than he’d been led to believe.  “I think that you currently have Diplomatic Consanguinity in your remit?”

Jeronica nodded.  Manguy was well aware of that, just as she was acutely aware of all the areas that he was responsible for.  Bringing it up was just a formality, indicating obliquely that there was something here that might be held to fall into this category.

“If Non-local Genocides were to become unaffiliated,” said Demetrion looking at his fingernails and absolutely nowhere else, “then I could consider bringing them under Alpaca Issues and Isolation.”

“In that case,” said Margoyle, her voice distant as though she wasn’t aware she was speaking, “it would seem likely that Fruit Production and Distribution would need a new home as well.  In Orangeries, perhaps?”

Jeronica stood up without saying anything and left.

Manguy set the dossier down on the chair next to him.  That was that then; Scaramantha would be blamed for the emersion of Fascism First, Jeronica would reassign Scaramantha’s major tasks and then left… that left the problem of figuring out how to get a handle on the GOO and then using it to take control.  He sighed softly, knowing that Margoyle would understand and Demetrion would puzzle over it, and followed Jeronica out of Meeting Room C.

Guncare review

 “There is a video,” said Jeronica with a small smile.  Manguy, whom she regarded as necessary but insufficient competition at Data Analytics Marketetic Normalisations, flinched.  She knew that he would rather have shuddered and mentally awarded him a point for style.  “While I would normally veto such a suggestion, in this case I think that the simplest way to drive home the successes we are having with Guncare is by showcasing them directly.”

“Length?”  Jeremy Diseased-Rat, CEO and Overlord of DAMN was famously terse and a monosyllable was about as much as any of the executives expected from him.

“Four minutes and eighteen seconds,” said Jeronica.  “The executive summary runs for the first twelve seconds though, so there is really no need to waste time.”

“Play it,” said Jeremy, ignoring the reaction from around the table.  Everyone knew he could simply have waved a hand to convey that message.

Jeronica tapped a key on her laptop and all attention turned to the screen at the far end of the table.

“It is four days before Christmas,” said a prissy-sounding voice.  The screen showed a grassy lawn in front of a white tent.  Behind the tent was the stone facade of a hospital with a bright green cross surmounting crenellations that looked medieval.  An alligator crawled slowly across the lawn in front of the tent, and then a tent-flap was pulled back to reveal a man dressed in a white coat with a stethoscope around his neck carrying a suitcase.  He saw the alligator and started, a little theatrically, and dropped the suitcase which spilled paper money everywhere.  “And profits are up to the point where even embezzlement is hard to take seriously,” said the voice.

Jeronica’s finger hovered over the stop button, just in case, but Jeremy Diseased-Rat seemed enthralled.

The camera swung around and walked around the side of the tent and the hospital.  After just a few metres a line came into view, and soon the watchers could see a lengthy queue of people lining up at the tall, steel gates that guarded access.

“In many countries,” said the voice, “hospital access is granted to everyone.  This leads to the spread of disease.  Many people come in with one condition and acquire another while waiting to be seen, confusing diagnoses and lengthening the treatment time.  This is inefficient and ineffective.  Here at Guncare people are processed early on to ensure that they only have one presenting issue which can then be treated directly.  This reduces the average length of stay in hospital facilities to twenty-eight minutes.  Even patients requiring surgical care can be seen and treated in less than six hours.”

A woman is seen fleeing from the queue pursued by an alligator.

“Membership is, of course, necessary,” said the voice.  “At the moment membership is mediated through the National Rifle Association.  Sign up there and you sign up for Guncare automatically.  Fees and dues are handled through their established systems, reducing overheads and costs for Guncare itself.  In due course the government will take over the registrations and Guncare members will have Nationally Identifying Cards to present.  The NRA are working hard to ensure that that will bring with it the existing benefits of NRA membership.”

There is the sound of gunfire, but no-one in the queue seems disturbed or panicked by it.

“As part of our association with the NRA members are encouraged to bring their guns with them as part of the recuperation process,” continued the voice.  “Relaxation is an important part of recovery and being able to shoot at the local wildlife has been shown to be therapeutic at the 37% confidence level.”

The camera moves slowly along the queue, which seems to populated mostly by people with serious ailments.  Many have trouble walking unassisted and a few are disfigured in ways that are unpleasant to look at.

“Not every condition is treatable,” continues the voice.  “For example, not all cancers are curable, and if too little is known about a disease there is no prescribed treatment for it.  In cases like these, Guncare offers excellent end-of-life support.”

The camera briefly looks out across a field where a man is stumbling, clearly in pain, pursed by two other people wielding guns and dressed like hunters.

“Everybody joins in,” says the voice.  “Guncare is great.  Recuperate with a rifle!”

The video ended and everyone subtly relaxed, stretching an arm discretely and adjusting their sitting.  Jeremy Diseased-Rat turned his head from the screen.

“Excellent,” he said.  “A success story.”

There was absolute silence.

“In the making,” he concluded.

Wool Factors

 The new brochures had been stacked neatly at one end of Jeronica’s desk where she could sweep them into the bin just by stretching out her hand.  That she hadn’t so far indicated that she hadn’t been in her office since they had been placed there by her Executive Assistant.  They were glossy, shiny, and featured an alligator holding a rifle on the front and an endorsement from one of the less intelligent politicians in the state where Guncare had launched.  The chosen slogan, which Jeronica found pithy but trite, was recuperate with a rifle!

The door of the office whooshed open with a breath of chill air from the corridor surging inside and shivering the leaves of an aspodistra in the corner.  Plants were generally deplored within the building as Jeremy Diseased-Rat claimed he was allergic to many of them but here and there a couple lurked and lingered subversively.  As a nod to the requirements of promotion this plant was carefully set behind an empty picture frame and a small plaque underneath read ‘Ceci n’est pas une plante’.  Jeronica strode in, her hair brushing the ceiling as she was wearing 25cm stiletto heels, which required special scaffolding hidden inside the shoe to support her feet.

She glanced at the pile of brochures and gestured to them as Margoyle stepped in behind, carefully checking for approved corporate booby traps.  Diseased-Rat’s opinion on them was they were a good way of backing up quarterly reviews and determining candidates for promotion, so exaggerated caution was required in all executive offices.

“Recuperate with a rifle?” said Margoyle picking one up delicately and making sure she had as little skin contact with it as possible.  Poisonous inks were déclassé this year but she had been at Data Analytics Marketetic Normalisation for five years and had learned a trick or two herself.  “Guncare?  This has launched then?  I believe on the quarterly product plan this would be… early.”

There was a moment of tense silence.  While underpromising and overdelivering was praise-worthy there was the obverse of that coin as well: doing things without permission or adequate oversight could be very detrimental to one’s career.

“The pilot project has launched,” clarified Jeronica.  She stalked around the desk and sat down in her chair, slipping her shoes unobtrusively off and allowing her abused feet moments to ache in freedom.  “One hospital in one state; access to the ER is by NRA membership only and the proposals for a more-specific membership card will be presented at the next executive meeting.  Staffing levels are adequate for the care intended, and there are indications that this will have soft-power repercussions in the next elections.”

“Adequate for the care intended,” mused Margoyle.  Her skin was faintly grey and looked dusty but that was a side-effect of the cosmetics she used.  She had a pearl choker at her neck and was wearing a blue cashmere sweater and a very severe skirt.  “May I speak off the record?”

Jeronica tapped her desk and a panel in it revolved to reveal a keyboard and inset flat screen.  She identified herself to it by fingerprint scan and then tapped away for a few seconds.

“Yes,” she said.  “Privacy screen is enabled.  We have thirty-three seconds from… now.”

“This reads very much like the standard of care is being fed to an alligator,” said Margoyle flicking swiftly through the brochure.  “Although, at a guess, if you shoot the alligator successfully you might get seen by a nurse.  I can’t find any indication that there are any actual doctors in this — facility?”

“Pretty much,” said Jeronica.  “It is two steps up from the standard of care around the state though, and there are plans to have actual doctors there once enough poor people have signed up to pay the bills.”

Margoyle shook her head as though refusing to believe Jeronica.  “Remarkable,” she said softly.  “I thought Stephanotte’s Soft Power innovations would win the award for most profitable intervention this year, but I can see she has real competition.”

The keyboard in front of Jeronica beeped and both women fell silent for a moment.

“I would estimate that this has a ninety percent likelihood of continuing,” said Margoyle, sounding as though she’d been thinking things over.  “I think the expected lifetime of our input here should be in the two to five year range, so there should be opportunities here to push forward our agenda on Diplomatic Consanguinuity as well.”

Jeronica affected a grave tone.  “That is Manguy’s remit,” she said.  “I believe he’s currently involved in waterway issues.  He could hardly be expected to take on Guncare when he’s neck-deep in Reservoirity and Reservations.”

“Demetrion should have space,” said Margoyle, nodding sagely, “but it seems to be that the resalination project has hit some unfortunate difficulties that really should have been foreseen.”

“That would mean I would need to take on Diplomatic Consanguinuity,” said Jeronica as casually as someone inquiring about the weather.  “If that were to happen I might have to ask you to look after the Wool Factors for me.”

“Would you now?” said Margoyle with the faintest hint of a smile on her lips.

The state of the alligator

“We propose starting in Florida,” said Jeronica, gently tapping her pen against her notepad.  Looking only out of the corners of her eyes at her audience she noted that Madame Celeste was observing this action with interest and Dr Enogi was pretending not to watch but any slight change in where she tapped caused him to adjust his head slightly to allow him to see it.  Terrence Pennifrock appeared to be ignoring it, though he was systematically trying his fingers, starting with his thumb, in his ear to see if he could dislodge whatever was irritating him.  “We took the liberty of running a couple of focus groups at the advice of our futures division — no cost accrues to you for this, of course.  This was advance research so that we could position ourselves aspirationally in this market stratum.”

“Excellent,” said Madame Celeste.  “Florida is a… an interesting choice of state, might I opine?”

“One would have thought of perhaps Kentucky, first,” said Dr Enogi.  He watched as Jeronica wrote that down too, and his eyes narrowed.  Jeronica wondered if he was starting to be curious that she was writing things down where they could see her.  “Or even Iowa.”

“They’re all Republican,” muttered Terrence.  “I don’t see what matters much outside of that.”  Jeronica wrote down ‘Republican’ as well to see who responded to that and was intrigued that none of the three seemed interested.

“We considered Louisiana,” said Jeronica, which was an outright lie.  All three of her clients had some background connection to that state though, so it gave her another opportunity to assess reactions.  “However we felt that there were strategic disadvantages inheriting directly from historic continental influences.”

“You mean the bloody alligators?” asked Terrence. He had cleaned his ear to his satisfaction and was now inspecting his finger to see what he’d removed.

“I suspect she’s thinking of the capital,” said Dr Enogi.  “We have, naturally, done our own research, Miss Jeronica, and in the area of that particular state we felt that the capital would be slow to accept our ideas and that developing a grass-roots movement in the more rural areas would be too slow.”

“The alligators were a concern,” said Jeronica, deliberately speaking slowly to allow her to hide her surprise that they had come up.  “And my name is simply Jeronica, thank-you, Dr. Enogi.”

“Are they?”  Madame Celeste sounded uninterested.  “Well.  Florida is… well, as I said, an interesting choice, but certainly not one we would shy away from.  Providing sufficient evidence is provided that this is, indeed, the best place to start.”

“There are four states that I think we could recommend launching Guncare in,” said Jeronica.  “Florida is the top of that short-list, but we have a case for each state and we will present that to you.  When you leave there will be a briefing pack for each of you so that you can review our findings ahead of our next meeting.  If you decide that there should be a next meeting.”  Madame Celeste and Dr Enogi looked at each other, clearly considering who should answer that, but Jeronica continued without giving them the chance to speak.  “But in brief, there is an adequately trained workforce, there are significant opportunities to influence the state legislature, and… mishaps?  Let’s call them mishaps; if they were to occur in the early stages of the project it is likely that they would be considered more acceptable than in other parts of the country.”

“You mean like the hospital falling down?” said Terrence.  Jeronica, who was aware that he had been behind the construction of six hospitals that had either collapsed of their own accord or had to be demolished for public safety, carefully didn’t smile as she met his gaze.

“I was thinking more of patients being eaten by alligators,” she said. “After all, residential Guncare patients should have the opportunity to shoot at things, and if they miss there is a chance that some of those things will fight back.”

Dr. Enogi’s eyes gleamed suddenly.  “Ah, so we could have hunting grounds as part of the hospital?” he said.  “I like that, that will sell well. I can picture the brochures now; we can offer a range of elective surgeries with two-day safaris!  Recuperate with a rifle!  Or maybe, Improve your aim and your health with our two-day intensive care offering!”

“I like recuperate with a rifle,” said Madame Celeste.  She sounded thoughtful.  “I wonder… I wonder if we should extend this a little further to clinics, as well as hospitals?  Health-care is such a broad-ranging word; we could increase its gamut just a little further, no?”

“Just tell us how far you’d like to roam,” said Jeronica.

Guncare

 The offices of Data Analytic Marketetic Normalisations were always shadowy and quiet.  The founder and CEO, Jeremy Diseased-Rat, preferred it that way though the rumours about it being because of a near-permanent hangover were quashed whenever they started up.  Reception was currently manned by a short, dark-haired man who was so thin that his suit would have hung better on a coat-hanger.  He was sat behind a curved zebrawood desk with two monitors and six phones in front of him and two photocopiers, an actual fax machine and some sinister black boxes with tiny blinking white lights behind him, and as Jeronica walked into the reception area to greet her clients he was holding forth, to their appalled fascination, on the subject of his keto diet.

“The key is fasting and then purging,” he said, making a gesture with one hand that caused Madame Celeste to raise an eyebrow so severely her eye twitched below it.

“Thank you, Ronald,” said Jeronica, cutting him short.  “I believe that Margoyle and Stephanotte are waiting for correspondance on the futures of Soft Furnishings in Antique Japan.  Perhaps you could check your inbox and see if they’ve arrived yet?”

“Oh no, they defini—“ started Ronald, only to be cut off by the discrete ping of an email arriving.  “Ah, well—“

“Excellent,” said Jeronica.  She turned to her clients: Madame Celeste, Dr Enogi and Terrence Pennifrock.  “Have you been offered refreshment?”  There was no overt censure in her voice but Ronald’s shoulders stiffened instantly anyway.

“Yes, thank-you,” said Dr. Enogi, a tall, dark-skinned man who was standing up.  “Though I doubt I, personally, will feel like eating again any time soon.”

Madame Celeste rose next, holding a glass of iced water.  “Your water is excellent,” she said as though commenting on the weather.  “I assume you import?”

Jeronica inclined her head slightly.  “We have a concession,” she said.  “We did a little work with the Fiji water brand some years back and in turn they provide us with a few bottles when they can spare them.  Mr Pennifrock, would you like anything else?”

Terrence was still sitting down and pressing a stubby, reddened finger down onto crumbs on a small plate with an intricate design painted around the edge.  When he had gathered all of them, he put the finger in his mouth and sucked it clean.

“I’m good,” he said in a broad drawl.  “Your pastries are amazing, darlin’, but if I eat too many I’ll put on more weight and the wifey won’t be happy.”

“My name is Jeronica, Mr Pennifrock,” said Jeronica with more than a little ice in her tone.  “I would become unhappy were I to be referred to in any other way.”

Whatever Terrence might have replied, his words were silenced by Madame Celeste’s gaze.  He met her eyes with his own and there was a moment of tension and then they both backed down together.

“This way, please,” said Jeronica and escorted them at a stately pace down a dimly-lit corridor.  On either side were wood-panelled walls, broken at intervals by doors and smoked-glass windows.  The floor was heavily carpetted and even Terrence, stamping his feet down as he walked, failed to make much more noise than the wind makes when blowing through long grass.  At the third door Jeronica waved a hand and the doors slid back silently admitting them into Meeting Room Gauze.

When they were all seated around a small beechwood table set with notepads, Mont Blanc pens and a carafe of still water Jeronica leaned forward very slightly, rested her hands flat on the table, and said, “Guncare.”

There was hesitation as Terrence and Dr Enogi looked at each other, and then Madame Celeste nodded.

“Yes,” she said.  “I had heard you were good.  The best, even.  I hadn’t expected that you would know our intentions before we even spoke them.”

“We’ve been anticipating this development for a while,” said Jeronica.  “Our future division considers this to be a strong natural development of current trends and had identified certain groups as the most likely to take the initiative.  We are, of course, extremely pleased that you are choosing to.”

“What do you consider ‘Guncare’?” asked Dr Enogi.  He was sitting perfectly upright and watching Jeronica the way a mongoose watches a cobra.  His hands were also on the table, but his fingers were interlaced and his two signet rings, both tourmalines, were resting against the tabletop.

“Healthcare mediated by guns,” said Jeronica.  “Our estimation is that access to reliable healthcare in your country is currently only available for certain strata of your society.  While this has worked for quite some time, and may continue to work for a while longer, it is inefficient and does not provide enough control over who has access to the healthcare and when.  Naturally, universal health coverage is desirable—“

“Sweden,” said Terrence with a sneer.

“— perhaps.  But to reach that, compromises must be made.  And since gun-ownership is a key principle of your society—“

“The right to arm bears,” said Terrence.

“— indeed,” said Jeronica, who was aware that Terrence’s second company had done exactly that, “we perceive that a move to guncare, where gun ownership and licencing provides fast-track access to healthcare, is not only natural, but desirable amongst a good 38% of the population already.  With a number that large, elevating it to a majority is quite straightforward; we have done similar things in the past for, for example, the Sweden problem.  There is an easy lead in for most people simply by noting that people who own guns are more likely to need emergency access to healthcare, and that by being licenced to own a gun they are already registered with the state, thus ensuring that tax-payers are prioritised for medical provision.”

Madame Celeste had been nodding along in each of Jeronica’s pauses.  Now she smiled, though it was the cold smile of an aunt informing unloved nephews and nieces that her will disinherited them all.

“Licencing is not… precisely… the key point,” she said.

“Please go on,” said Jeronica.

“Well,” said Dr Enogi, glancing at Madame Celeste as though to ask permission to interrupt her.  “Licencing might be a way to sell it initially.  We can downgrade it to membership later.”

“I… see,” said Madame Celeste.  “That might work.  But yes, ultimately we would prefer people to purchase membership in, say, a national society that promoted safe gun ownership and responsible behaviour.”

Jeronica drew a marble-white notepad to her and picked up a pen.  In careful, highly legible script she made a note on the pad and then carefully ignored the other three people reading what she’d written.  “For the sake of argument,” she said, “say something like the National Rifle Association?  Privately owned, so that changes to the membership regulations are not subject to governmental scrutiny?”

“For the sake of argument,” repeated Madame Celeste, a faint smile passing across her face and then being replaced by her familiar stony demeanour.  “We understood that might be difficult.”

“Not at all,” said Jeronica.  “In fact, it might ease a couple of other sticking points.”

Chupacabra

Jeronica’s natural smile was more of a snarl: lips slightly parted and slightly curled, exposing bright white teeth that distracted the viewer from the tightly focused stare that fell just below eye-contact and instead seemed fixed on their carotid artery.  At this particular moment the Under-Secretary-in-Exile for Columbia was the target of her gaze, and her smile, and he was feeling extremely nervous.  He was sat in an Eames chair in Jeronica’s office, next to the Secretary-in-Exile who was carefully and delicately laying out a set of statements that were deniably not requests for help.  The chair was, the Under-Secretary was sure, just slightly too low; or perhaps the desk between himself and Jeronica was just a tiny bit too high?  She didn’t seem to have a problem with it, but she also seemed to be eyeing him up like finger-food at a diplomatic buffet.  He swallowed, feeling his Adam’s apple bob.

“There are approximately 50 hippos,” said Verj.  He wasn’t Columbian though he claimed to be spiritually Columbian.  “I’ve often noted that hippopotamus skin is woefully underused in the fashion industry.  It seems that the Spring-Summer season might benefit from something a little more radical than, say, more floral prints or outsized hats.”

“The problem with hippos,” said Jeronica looking at Verj for long enough for the Under-Secretary to relax, “is twofold.  One is that they’re rather hard to hunt, and the other is that they’re not used in fashion because it would be like wearing tarpaulin.”

Verj gazed up at the paintings behind Jeronica’s desk, which impressed the Under-Secretary.  He’d tried looking at them to avoid having to look at Jeronica and found them to be profoundly disturbing in ways he couldn’t put words to.  At first glance they seemed to be unrelated, but as he’d looked at them for longer he’d started to find elements from one repeated in the others and found that unsettling.  The colour scheme wasn’t quite right; he couldn’t say exactly what the problem was, just that it made the back of his eyeballs itch.  Finally he’d decided he preferred Jeronica’s unblinking gaze to the picture’s invitation to subtle insanity. “Modern weaponry,” he said slowly, seemingly unrelated to the conversation.

“Does not leave much of the hippo remaining if you intend to take them out safely,” said Jeronica.  “Please don’t misunderstand me here, it is entirely possible to have couture fashioned from fabrics with obvious damage, and even to represent this as a reflection of the ills of modern warfare and the sickness of society that permits this, but the wholesale slaughter of 50 hippos to produce one outfit is... expensive.  It is hard to get people to look past ’50 hippos’ even with a suitably exclusive label sewn inside it.”

“Tarpaulin wouldn’t be a problem though?” asked the Under-Secretary, hoping to contribute.  Verj lifted his eyes to the ceiling, which was pleasantly white and smooth, like a ski-slope the day before the season starts and Jeronica returned her gaze to what was probably his throat.

“A few years ago we had Parisian models wearing actual binbags,” she said.  “I am confident that they could have been used binbags if we’d wanted.  Tarpaulin would not be a problem; we would...,” she paused, her eyes glittering as she thought, “... probably reference the Akkadian fishermen displaced when the British moved in Canada,” she said.  “That would be – stimulating – for the French fashion houses.  However, the problem of humanely hunting the hippo remains.”

“But this problem is soluable?” Verj’s words were so quiet and his gaze so far removed from the participants in the room that if he’d denied having said it the Under-Secretary would have struggled to contradict him.

“We solved the Sweden problem,” said Jeronica.  “So yes, the problem is soluable.”

“Good,” said Verj.  “Then I’m sure an accommodation can be reached.  Perhaps there might be something else where agreement is needed where suitable concessions might be found.”

“Yes,” said Jeronica.  She opened a beige-folder on her desk and the Under-Secretary craned his neck to see what was in it.  He was slightly surprised to see that it was empty.  Jeronica looked at it as though it weren’t though.

“You mentioned a chupacabra,” she said.

“Mentioned is such a strong word,” said Verj.  “I have heard tell of a chupacabra.

“Just the one?” Jeronica sounded disappointed.  “A breeding pair would be significantly more...”

“Valuable?”

“Interesting,” she qualified.

“Do you think it might be possible to breed a chupacabra that eats hippos?”

Jeronica closed the folder and for a moment there was a flicker of emotion across her face.  “Feeding habits are generally easy,” she said.  “Though I am a little concerned that this would only create a rabbit, as happened in Australia.  There are, after all, only 50 hippos.  What would the hippo-eating chupacabra turn to after the hippos are eaten?”

“There are giraffes,” said Verj.  “and a certain population of undesirable elements. But these are also finite in number.”

“Precisely,” said Jeronica.

The Altanta Furies

Alec had been waiting in Jeronica’s personal assistant’s office for eight minutes so far, and had finally picked up some of the reading material on the occasional table.  The office was tidy and precisely laid out: the door to Jeronica’s office was guarded by the desk, and the guest seating was a corner of chairs a little too low to sit on comfortably in the opposite corner.  The walls of the office were more frosted glass and the personal assistant was tasked with making sure that visitors did not see each other at any point during their visit.  There were newspapers and magazines on the occasional table, which were carefully considered and adjusted according to who was going to be kept waiting in there and for how long.  At the moment the magazines had a slight right-wing bias to their editorials and the newspapers were all from non-English speaking countries.  There was a slight hint of tension in the room.

Alec set the magazine down and looked at his watch.  He had arrived early, having been warned by his boss to do nothing to upset this very expensive and very effective agency, and felt a little bit like he’d been unwelcome from the first instant.  Sitting here on a chair that hurt his knees looking over magazines that only reinforced his opinion that the newspapers were seditious and dangerous nonsense was reinforcing that feeling, and he was starting to wonder if this was all a test somehow.  He decided that he should make a stand.

“Mr. Fury?”  The personal assistant didn’t look up, and he wasn’t sure she’d spoken.  He looked more closely at her, but her eyes were looking at something on the desk in front of her and he couldn’t even be sure that they were open.

“Mr. Fury, I’m over here.”  He looked beyond the assistant and found a tall, well-dressed woman standing in the doorway to the inner office.  Her face was neutral and nothing about her body language suggested that she was emotionally affected by him looking at the wrong person.  He felt a flush in his cheeks as embarrassment surged, and he struggled to his feet, the awkward chair making it hard for him to stand up gracefully.  He finally got to his feet and stepped forward, holding out his hand, but she stepped back before he could get close, granting him access to her office.  Confused, he walked past her then stopped, wondering if he’d been rude, turned, and found that she’d somehow moved with his turning and stepped past him where he wasn’t looking, and he was looking back at a closed door.  When he recovered from that Jeronica was sat behind her desk, indicating that he should take a seat.

Which was the wrong height again.

“Mr. Fury,” said Jeronica.  He looked at her.  “May I call you Alecto?”

“Alec,” he said reflexively.

“But may I call you Alecto?”

“I suppose.”  No-one used his full name.  Most people didn’t even know it was a name.

“Thank-you.  You are here on behalf of an organisation called the Atlanta Furies?  I believe that you are, in fact, a founding member though you conceal that within the organisation, taking on a middle-management role in order to better understand the people you work with and ensure that there is… let us say alignment across all levels of your group.  You have deliberately been excluded from the process of deciding to work with us in order that you can obtain a fresh perspective on what we propose to do and how we will do it, and so you can independently evaluate us without needing the expense or… shall we say indiscretion? – of an external agency.  And if you were a less tactful person, you might inform me that your good opinion of us is very necessary for the continuance of our relationship.”

He captured his rage effortlessly as it surged, long practice enabling him to take the blast-furnace heat of it and turn it into chilly, emotionless reaction.

“You’re very well informed, Ms….?”

“Jeronica,” said Jeronica.  “It’s not my real name.  If there is a need to, you and your organisation will be able to deny any and all connections with us.”

“Exceptionally well informed, Jeronica.  So much so that I will have to conduct an internal investigation about accessibility of information.”

“That won’t be necessary.  My assistant will provide you with a dossier when you leave on exactly how we determined all of these things; what you choose to do with that information is entirely your business.”

“I see.”  He was momentarily impressed, but the rage was still burning, still being converted to patient, tightly-wound tension.  “Then, since you know so much, perhaps you’d like to tell me what you think we want you to do?”

“The Atlanta Furies have, on paper, hired us to conduct a feasibility study of expansion into three states with the aim of increasing turnover by 250% over two years and profits by 70% in the same period.  Organisational growth should happen, but be constrained, and ideally create a two-tier organisation so that direction and execution can be separated.”

Alec relaxed a little.

“The real work we are being tasked with is the weakening of local police and judicial authority to create a power vacuum into which the Atlanta Furies can insert itself.  Your competition is this arena is currently small and you see a benefit to being prime-mover.  With a suitable grip on law-enforcement you intend to drive a survivalist and anarchist agenda, returning humanity to a more primitive state that, through a process of adaptive competition and natural selection produces fitter, better evolved people.  The long term objective, currently considered over an eight year period, is an eventual control of political parties for the betterment of everyone.”

Alec forced a smile on his face.

“We can deliver that for you,” said Jeronica.