Chapter 116 - The Council

After Blake expressed his desires, Corwin assured him that as long as Blake did everything he could to become a force to be reckoned with, he would remain loyal. At first, Blake disliked the qualifier, and almost rejected the man’s offer of assistance.

However, after he considered it further, he realized it made sense. Mister Taylor did not want to ally himself with a man who only used half measures or surrendered when things got tough. Blake could only agree with the sentiment, and after he appointed Mister Taylor to his council, left to track down Chairman Tessay.

He messaged the Apache leader, and asked to meet at a convenient location. A half hour later, Blake shook the Native’s hand outside their new stables, and promoted him to chancellor of his Eager expansion town. Afterward, Blake messaged everyone on his new council and asked them to attend the nightly meeting.

Blake rushed to the cookhouse and grabbed a bite to eat from his father. If he had to attend yet another meeting, he would do it on a full stomach.

An hour later, he filed into the faction hall’s conference room. When he entered, he was not surprised that Corwin was already present. The man seemed like the type to arrive far earlier than necessary. His mother, Donna, was also present, and chatted quietly with the ex-military officer as Blake sat down. 

Within minutes of being seated, Kasey, his head of security, arrived. The Native had been knighted, and was now in charge of internal policing and the external defense of Pinetop. Blake could not fathom why he had not included the man in the meetings before, but resolved to include all the faction town’s knights.

Chancellor Tessay entered the room shortly behind Kasey and greeted everyone present amicably before he too sat. Finally, when Jennifer rushed into the room with a quick apology for being late, he contacted Jessica and her knighted head of security, John. Blake had yet to meet the retired Payson police officer, but Jessica had nothing but good things to say about him. She found him both trustworthy and competent.

When they both appeared before him, he began the meeting. “Thank you, everyone, for attending. Before today, I met each night with my two chancellors, but had not included anyone else.” He glanced towards Jennifer. “It was recently pointed out to me that I need a council of advisors to assist with running the faction, hence your presence.”

Blake dipped his head to gesture toward the meeting participants.

“First, I want to introduce everyone. I’m sure everyone is aware that my mother, Donna, is the chancellor of the Pinetop faction town.” he gestured to his right. “Jessica, joining us on holo-chat, is the chancellor of the Payson expansion, and I have appointed Chairman Carlos Tessay as the third chancellor of our Eagar expansion.”

The tribal leader grinned. “Please, call me Chancellor Tessay. My days as Chairman of the White Mountain Apache tribe are over.”

After the Native finished speaking, Blake introduced the two knights. “To my left is Sir Kasey Mescal, the head of Pinetop security, and on holo-chat, we have Sir John Anastacio, head of Payson security. We don’t have a head of security for Eager yet, but once Chancellor Tessay appoints someone, they’ll join us as well.”

Both knights nodded when Blake introduced them, but remained silent.

“Finally, there’s Jennifer Taylor, who will head up Public Relations, and her father, Corwin, who will…” Blake trailed off as he tried to think of the proper tittle for the ex military officer.”

“Head of Intelligence,” Corwin completed for him.

John frowned. “Where does that fall in the hierarchy? I was told I only answer to Jessica and you.”

Kasey nodded in agreement.

“That’s still true,” Blake was quick to assure him. “Corwin’s role is more of an advisor.”

Corwin narrowed his eyes while Jennifer rolled hers. “My first piece of advice,” he emphasized. “Is to give me a budget so I can hire some intelligence operatives. What good is an Intelligence Advisor with no intelligence,” he stated blandly.

He does have a point. But, how much should we give him?

The influx of new faction members had a positive impact on their treasury, but their expenditures had likewise increased. The portal room alone used a huge chunk of their revenue, and they now paid everyone who contributed to the faction.

I’ll figure it out later.

Blake nodded. “That’s fair, but we’ll discuss it later, after we go over the budget and expenses.”

Corwin grunted.

“So, where was I,” he said aloud before he continued the meeting. “I’m sure you all know who Jennifer is and what her qualifications are. No need to go into that, so I’ll just focus on her father. He served twenty years in the military and retired as a lieutenant colonel. After that, he served another twenty in the pentagon, working for the DoD in the intelligence field. If you want to know more about him, you’ll have to pry it out of him personally. Evidently, everything’s classified,” Blake finished dryly.

The new Intelligence advisor ignored the snide comment, and Jennifer practically beamed at the statement.

When no one spoke up, Blake continued, “Normally, these meetings were pretty informal. There were only three of us, so we just talked. But, with seven people now, and another on the way, I think we need to have it a bit more structured. So, how about we start with the chancellors? They can fill us in on their current progress and issues. Then, we’ll move onto the security heads, and finish with our two advisors. Sound good?”

Donna and Jessica nodded, but the others did not respond.

Blake glanced over at his mother. “Can you go first?”

“Sure.” She nodded and cleared her throat. “I suggest, next meeting, each of the Chancellors prepare a joint agenda to make it smoother.” She smiled at her two colleagues, who nodded in agreement. “Today, we accepted another three hundred and forty-two faction members, mostly from the Show Low area. That brings The Dome’s total population to three thousand, one hundred and thirty.”

Blake rolled his eyes at the name.

The towns need real names.

He mentally filed that thought for later discussion. As his mother spoke, he noticed that Jessica seemed distracted.

Is she surfing the web?

Donna continued, “For the moment, we have plenty of housing, but we lack furnishings. Specifically, beds are the biggest issue. Right now, we have a single truck and trailer assigned to retrieve mattresses, but it can’t keep up with the demand. Most of our new members are forced to sleep on the floor and use their spare clothes as a pillow.”

Huh. I wonder if Jennifer slipped her dad some nano to buy a real bed?

“Our tailors are working around the clock to supplement scavenging efforts, but even with laborers assisting them, they can’t keep up with demand. I think we should assign more trucks and crews to retrieve necessities.”

Kasey shook his head. “If we did that, we wouldn’t be able to save as many people. Is a bed really worth dying for? Because that’s essentially what we’d be telling people. Sorry,” Kasey changed his inflection. “We can’t save you because someone wants a nice comfy mattress.”

“Obviously, we can’t turn people away,” Donna defended. “But, if we have any extra room in the trucks, we need to fill them with sheets and pillows. I’m getting a lot of complaints right now about the sleeping arrangements.”

“I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon,” Kasey informed her. “Now that monster activity is picking up, we have a lot more desperate people. We can’t keep up with demand, and had to create a sign-up list to reserve spots.”

“What do you mean by ‘picking up’?” Blake asked for clarification.

Kasey turned to Blake. “We’ve only been killing monsters when they attack our convoy. We just don’t have enough manpower for anything else. Now, the smarter monsters have started to band together. They’ve been breaking into houses and killing people. Word is getting around, and people are freaking out.”

Blake grimaced. 

He wished more people had listened to him and joined before the monsters appeared. However, from experience, he knew people would reject his offers of safety until the last moment. Despite that knowledge, he found it difficult to stay away. Blake desperately wanted to go door to door himself and save people. But, in the grand scheme of things, one person would make very little difference. He was better served to stay here and focus on large changes.

And I need to start earning more nano.

Blake shook off his thoughts and focused on his mother, who had resumed her report. “...wall is almost completed. After that, we’ll upgrade it to level two, which, according to Owen, will take at least a month.” Donna turned to address Blake. “Do we need to destroy the inner wall for The Dome to extend out to the outer one, or will it create a double dome?”

Blake shook his head. “No, I’ve never seen a double shield before. It was always active on the external wall. A few of the towns I visited kept their initial walls, so I know we don’t have to tear them down if we don’t want to.”

“Can you choose which wall The Dome rises from?” Corwin asked.

Blake shrugged. “I don’t know, sorry. I never asked, and I wasn’t involved in any meetings about that kind of thing. If it isn’t obvious, I can summon Metal and ask.”

Corwin shook his head in disappointment.

After Donna sensed the tangent was over, she continued, “The portal room should be completed in another week and a half, which should speed up recruitment efforts and free up trucks to retrieve more supplies.”

Corwin cleared his throat. “Excuse me for my ignorance, but why will it do that?”

 Blake decided to answer for his mother. “For a million nano, any faction member can open up a portal back to their faction town, once a day. The portal lasts until the person who created it steps through, or ten minutes passes. We’ll be able to use that to ferry people and supplies through quickly without having to drive all the way back. Once the other towns build a portal room, we can also travel between them for free, as much as we want.”

Corwin scratched his chin as he considered how that would affect logistics. “So, not only can we quickly reinforce towns with troops, but we can rely on it for a quick retreat if necessary. Does this work for subfactions as well?”

Blake nodded.

“Then we need to worry about any nearby towns loyal to Warner,” Corwin thought aloud. “What’s the nearest enemy town to ours, and how quickly can they construct a portal room?”

“I’m not sure,” Blake admitted. “Probably Phoenix, that’s where the governor is. It’s close to a hundred miles away from Payson, more from here. As far as time goes, it’ll probably be three or four months before they get a portal room built.”

“Probably,” Corwin growled. “I don’t like that uncertainty. Do you have any people watching the passes between there and here?”

Blake shook his head. “No need. We’re the only ones with vehicles. Without them, It’ll take a week to reach us, especially in the heat. Can you imagine marching twenty miles a day for five days when it’s a hundred and thirty degrees outside?”

“Pretty soon, we won’t be the only ones with vehicles,” Kasey reminded him. “Tomorrow morning, Cochise and his team will be making the trip to Phoenix. He’s bringing ten conversion kits and some potions as well. Are you sure this is a good idea right now? That’s a long trip and will put them in danger.”

Blake nodded. “Trust me, it’ll be worth it. We’re going to sell the kits for a hundred mega-nano, each. That’s a billion nano just for those ten kits. Anything we get for the potions is just extra.”

Jessica’s eyebrows rose in surprise. “Does Rajesh have that much nano? Is he really willing to pay that much?”

Blake snorted. “I have no doubt he set his taxes to fifty percent or higher. He either has the money, or will soon.”

“What if he attacks our convoy and attempts to steal the kits?” Kasey asked.

“Then I’ll head to Phoenix and wipe his faction out,” Blake promised. “He’s smart enough to know what’ll happen if he tries something like that.”

Kasey frowned, but did not disagree with his assessment of Rajesh.

“This Rajesh fellow, I take it he’s another faction leader?” Corwin asked.

Blake nodded.

“What sort of relationship do we have with his faction?”

Frenemies.

Blake almost repeated his thought aloud, but decided to be a bit more circumspect. “I’d say we aren’t quite allies, but are willing to trade with each other.”

“So, no mutual defense,” Corwin surmised. When Blake agreed with his assessment, his advisor asked, “Would they be willing to scout out the area for us? Report back on any factions present, loyalties, numbers, that sort of thing? Can you trust this Rajesh?”

Blake immediately shook his head. “At this point, the only thing I trust Rajesh to do is look after his own self-interest. About the only thing I’m sure of is that he will never submit to another faction. But, as long as we don’t expand into Phoenix, he might be willing to sell us information about his competition, especially if he thinks we’ll eliminate it for him. But, if he thinks we’re going to move into the area, he won’t help at all.”

“Will he turn on us?” Corwin asked.

Blake hesitated to respond. His instinct said no, but that was based upon the Rajesh he knew in his previous life. He had learned the hard way that the new Rajesh was not the same as the friend he once had. After a bit of consideration, he carefully answered, “Maybe. I don’t think he wants a war with us, but if he feels threatened, he may retaliate.”

Corwin grunted. “This is information we need ASAP. If we’re sending a trade convoy tomorrow, that is the perfect opportunity to find out about our neighbors without additional danger. I need that budget before then,” he warned.

“You’ll have it,” Blake promised. “For now, let’s get back on topic. We have a lot of ground to cover.”

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