Chapter 117 - Future Plans

Blake watched as Jennifer stared off into the distance and chuckled quietly.

I wish she cared about the meeting as much as her father.

Over the last hour, as they discussed the current state of his faction, Jennifer barely seemed to pay attention. While she did occasionally acknowledge a subject, she spent the vast majority of her time distracted by her interface.

Conversely, Corwin scrutinized every detail and constantly asked for clarification. While the interruptions slowed the meeting, Blake was not upset. If the retired officer was to advise him properly, he needed to be fully informed.

After John, Jessica’s head of security, finished his report with a request for additional vehicles, Blake asked, “How are Montgomery and Jeff doing? Are they listening to your orders?”

John hesitated.

Oh great, what’d Montgomery do now.

“Yes…” the security head trailed off. “But, they haven’t exactly been helpful. They fight in the Arachne portal almost all day, and once they get back, they spend the rest in one of the few air-conditioned rooms inside the faction hall. I’ve called them out a few times to help repel a surge of monsters, but they aren’t really available to help where I really need them, defending convoys into town.”

Blake frowned. “Did you order them to skip the scenarios and help out?”

“I tried to,” John said in obvious frustration. “But they said they had an agreement with you. All they had to do was stay in town until the shield was up. They didn’t have to do anything else.”

Blake rubbed his temples as a headache began to appear.

Technically, they were correct. Blake had only asked them to stay in town. He assumed at the time that they would help out as expected, but he never specified it was required.

Never leave those two to their own devices. They’re probably running two scenarios a day to try and catch up to me.

“I’ll talk with them later,” he told the head of security. After that promise, he turned to Jennifer. “Hey Jennifer, you’re up.”

His public relations manager jolted in surprise at being directly addressed, but quickly recovered. A huge grin was plastered across her face as she announced, “Once the president agreed to an interview, I put our PR segments on hold. For some reason, his staffer seemed to think that you and I had some sort of falling out, and I didn’t want to correct that assumption.”

Blake snorted and muttered, “For some reason…”

Jennifer ignored his snide comment. “That’s likely the only reason he agreed to the interview, and if I started repairing your image, it would be obvious that’s not true.”

“Didn’t they see the teaser trailer?” Blake asked. “It should’ve been obvious you were on my side if they did.”

Jennifer shrugged. “I don’t know, and I didn’t want to bring it up. Right now, it’s scheduled for tomorrow at noon.”

“Eastern or mountain time?” Jessica asked.

“Eastern,” Jennifer clarified. “So we’ll only have until ten in the morning to go over questions and answers.”

Great, more nitpicking.

While he was thankful for her help, he was tired of the constant corrections and dismissals. He found he could only participate for so long before he needed to escape from her constant ‘improvements’. Ideally, he would complete a scenario to work off his frustrations, but over the last couple of days, he had been too busy.

Maybe tomorrow after the interview.

“In other news,” Jennifer moved on. “Governor Pritchett announced she’s in talks with the president. It looks like I was right, and she was just holding out for more benefits.”

Blake wrinkled his brows. “What state is she governor of?”

Jennifer rolled her eyes. “California.”

He wanted to snap back at her, but instead took a deep breath to calm himself.

“If she submits to President Warner’s faction, what does that mean for the future?” Corwin asked. “Is it permanent? How is that relationship enforced?”

That’s a good question, I should’ve gone over that in the guide.

“So, the biggest difference between a faction town and a subfaction town is how they’re conquered. If someone wanted to take over a faction town like our Payson expansion, they could attack it, kill everyone inside, and it still wouldn’t be theirs. They couldn’t access the treasury or the access controls. The only way they could gain control over the buildings without having to start over from scratch is to kill me. Ownership only transfers after the faction leader dies.”

“Wait” John interrupted. “What’s the difference between a faction and a subfaction”

“A faction can submit to another and become subordinate to them. They are then considered a subfaction, since they are effectively controlled by their conqueror.”

Corwin frowned. “Back to that leader thing. What happens to the faction if you die off planet, or in another city? Do we need to keep you protected?”

Blake shook his head. “No. If I die, and my killer doesn’t reach our faction management orb within twenty-four hours, ownership of the Terran Alliance switches to my mother.”

“And a subfaction?” Corwin prompted.

“For that, you have two options, you either kill them and reach one of their faction orbs, or get them to turn on their main faction leader.”

Corwin furrowed his brow. “So, they can separate at any time? That doesn’t seem reliable.”

“Well, from what I understand, the process isn’t instant. The subfaction leader essentially announces their intention to separate using the management orb, and a timer starts. The main faction leader is notified and has twenty-four hours to reach one of the subfaction towns and their control orb. If they do, they can instantly remove the rebelling subfaction leader and replace them with someone more loyal.”

“And, this has to be done by the main faction leader?” Corwin asked for clarification. 

“Uh… I think a knight can do it as well, and maybe a chancellor, but I’m not exactly sure.”

“That sounds like something you should find the answer to before it bites you in the ass,” the intelligence advisor pointed out.

Looks like I’ll have to have a talk with Metal again. He might know.

After Blake nodded, Corwin said, “If President Warner is aware of this, then defection seems unlikely. He could assign loyal soldiers as bodyguards for the subfaction leader with orders to assassinate if they defect.”

  “Yeah, that was common,” Blake confirmed. “And, if the bodyguards are taken out by surprise, the main faction can still use the subfaction’s portal room to respond almost instantly. Although, if that happens, you can expect a lot of collateral damage. High level spells are extremely destructive, and any non-combatants nearby die easily.”

Corwin nodded. “Is that the only difference?”

Blake thought about the question for a moment. “That’s the only one I can think of. There might be more, but this is the first time I’ve ever dealt with this kind of thing. It wasn’t really important for me to know before now.”

When Jennifer saw that her father was done asking questions, she continued her updates. “There’s some faction in Phoenix named ‘Sonoran Empire’ that’s making waves. They pissed off Governor Willis and got branded as criminals.”

John snorted. “That doesn’t mean much. He called us criminals as well.”

Jennifer nodded. “I haven’t gotten any details, but if this Empire faction is opposed to the governor, they could be a potential ally. Have you heard of them before?”

Blake shook his head. “No, but I didn’t get to Phoenix until about two years after Invasion day. For all I know, they could’ve died off before then.”

“Well, I’ll dig deeper and see what I can find. None of my subscribers are in that faction, so I’m only hearing from the other side.”

Corwin’s brows raised, and he turned to his daughter. “How many subscribers do you have, and how many factions are they in?”

Jennifer’s eyes crossed as she checked her interface. “Uh… right now, I’m at fifty thousand, but I get almost ten times that many viewers. As far as how many factions,” she shrugged. “Who knows, but it’s a lot.”

Corwin grinned. “You and I need to have a conversation later. That’s a resource that is too important to ignore.”

Jennifer frowned but nodded. “Most countries around the world are following similar paths to President Warner and attempting to consolidate their control, but a few are in open civil war. The President of Mexico was assassinated two days ago, and the drug cartels have taken over. Surprisingly, they haven’t turned on each other yet.”

“They’re consolidating their power,” Corwin said confidently. “Once they feel they have an upper hand, they’ll turn on each other. They always do. Once that settles, I doubt the border will be fully respected. At least we’re far enough north that it’ll be Warner’s problem.”

Jennifer shrugged. “Canada’s prime minister seems to be doing okay for now, but Europe’s a mess. Right now, only about half the countries in Europe have backed the European Union council. The others want nothing to do with it.”

“I bet the UK told the EU to go screw themselves,” Corwin smirked.

“You’re right, they didn’t join, but they’re having their own issues,” Jennifer explained. “Scotland and Northern Ireland declared independence, so right now the UK is down to England and Wales. Eastern Europe is also a mess, but surprisingly, the Middle East seems to be very organized.”

None of this matters.

Blake tried to gently cut her world report short. “Jennifer, all that is interesting, but right now, only the situation in America is relevant to us. Do you have anything else to report about things here at home?”

A flash of annoyance crossed her face, but she quickly reined it in. “I’ll see if I can find more info on factions in Arizona and New Mexico, but it’s hard to separate fact from fiction. Right now, most people don’t know what’s going on.”

Blake nodded. “Thanks, I appreciate it.” He then turned to Corwin. “What about you, any thoughts?”

“I’ll work with my daughter to ferret out more information, but that can wait. Right now, I’m only interested in two things, getting a budget for my operations, and finding out what your plans are for this faction.”

“Let’s decide on a budget first,” Blake replied. 

For the next ten minutes, they discussed budgets and expenditures. In the end, Blake decided to allocate Corwin a hundred million nano for intelligence gathering. However, in a week, he would reassess the situation.
 “As for future plans,” he moved on to the next topic. “With a level four faction hall, we can create four expansion towns. That leaves us with two more locations where we can establish footholds. I have some thoughts on where they’d best be placed, but I’m open to suggestions.”

“Before we get into that, I need more details,” Corwin interrupted. “Is four the maximum allowed, or can we expand further when we reach level five and six?”

“Well, we could expand once with a level two faction hall, twice with a level three, and four times with a level four. If that pattern holds, I assume it’ll double again when we reach level five.”

“And, how long will that take?” Corwin asked.

Blake turned to his mother.

Donna cleared her throat. “We don’t have all the prerequisite buildings constructed, so we can’t yet see the requirements. However, the level four faction hall required materials from a level four scenario. I expect the next upgrade to require at least level five materials, if not higher.”

Corwin nodded. “How long until construction on the prerequisites are completed?”

“Right now, our focus is on completing the wall and the portal room. We’re also adding additional professional buildings, such as the tailor’s and tanner’s workshops, to furnish our empty bunkhouses with bedding. I’d say we’ll know in a couple of weeks what will be required.”

Corwin grunted and turned to Blake. “What about subfactions? How many of those are allowed?”

“I don’t know if there’s a limit,” he admitted. “But, I don’t plan to go out there and conquer everyone I see, anyway. I also don’t want to touch anyone affiliated with Warner unless I have to. But, if someone attacks us, I have no problem replacing their leadership with our own.”

“Good. This isn’t the time for pacifism.” Corwin scratched his chin. “Perhaps we can even speed things along with some bait to lure aggressive factions out.”

Blake frowned.

He was not sure if he liked that idea. To him, it made sense to prepare for the worst, and retaliate when attacked. However, it somehow seemed slimy to invite others to move against him. From there, it was a very short step to ‘preemptively attacking’ another faction ‘for defense’. 

“Let’s hold off on that now,” Blake told the ambitious intelligence advisor. “We’ll be busy enough establishing two new faction towns as it is.”

Corwin nodded. “That’s fair. But, you shouldn’t wait too long. Right now, you hold an advantage. That may disappear over time.”

“So, I was thinking we’d first expand to Prescott, and then Sedona,” Blake changed the subject. “What are everyone’s thoughts about that?” 

“Are you avoiding major cities on purpose?” John frowned. “It seems like that’s where we can make the biggest difference.”

“Not only are the large cities far more dangerous, but they’re ovens as well. I can cast Flame Shield on myself and a couple others, and we’ll be fine, but everyone else will have to deal with a hundred and twenty-five degree heat for weeks. Even after buildings are cooled, people still have to work outside. Add in dozens of factions, all competing for territory,” Blake shook his head. “It’s a death trap. We’re better off at higher elevation with fewer people.”

“That limits our options quite a bit,” Corwin disagreed. “We’ll also need to move into those territories eventually. It might be better to do so now rather than later.”

Blake shook his head. “If we build a town in Phoenix or Tucson, I’m going to spend all my time defending it from hordes of low level monsters, and people. I'm a higher level, so I won’t get nano from killing either of them until they level up.”

“I suspected that you’d receive nano for killing fellow humans,” Corwin interrupted. “Is there a reason you left it out of your guide?”

Blake snorted and overcame the urge to touch his arm. “There’s enough monsters out there already. No need to give people encouragement.”

“It won’t take long for people to figure that out,” Kasey pointed out. “All it takes is one person to share it online.”

“Don’t remind me,” Blake sighed. “When I wrote the guide, I didn’t know the whole social media thing was going to exist. It didn’t last time, and it took years before that was common knowledge. Most people kept it a secret to hold an advantage over others.”

“What are your plans for the cities?” Corwin leaned forward. “You will need to tackle them eventually.”

“I don’t need to do anything,” Blake argued. “For all we know, in three months, none of those factions will even exist. Hell, I even remember hearing about a flood that wiped out half a faction in Phoenix when a dam broke.”

“Which faction?” Jennifer finally interrupted.

“It was actually the one I eventually joined, ‘Knight’s Honor’. It happened long before I showed up, but people talked about it for years. They called it the ‘wall of water’. Evidently, everyone outside the walls was killed.”
 “You said a dam was destroyed,” Corwin narrowed his eyes. “Was it sabotage?”

Blake frowned. “I don’t think so. I think it was just The Corruption, which is what people called the nanomachines’ destruction of man-made objects. Pretty much everything man-made is going to break down over the next six months.”

“Was it the Salt river?” Jessica asked.

Blake nodded.

Jessica turned to Jennifer. “You have a lot of followers. Can you warn people it will happen? The Salt river runs past most of Phoenix. Tempe, Mesa, Scottsdale, and the downtown area will all be affected.”

Shit, that’s where Rajesh set up his faction. I need to make sure he knows about it. 

“Does that mean, in six months, vehicles will no longer work?” Corwin asked.

“Yes, but blacksmiths and enchanters will eventually create replacements. Although, I wouldn’t expect that to happen for a while. Besides, in a year or so, they won’t even matter. A level ten aether user can just open a portal and travel hundreds of miles instantly.”

Corwin narrowed his eyes. “You’re saying within a year, President Warner will be able to mobilize his entire military against us, without needing a faction town’s portal room?”

Blake nodded.

“Then we better move fast,” Corwin growled.

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