DLM, Bk 6, Ch. 9

From a single realisation, a multitude of ideas came forth, all of them in need of testing and verification, to further our understanding of the world. Sophia spent an hour or two each day trying to learn how to fly by turning the concept of climbing without a rope into something less awkward. The rest of her days were spent with her own project, an attempt to formulate her education-plans for Powered into something tangible. She also discussed her idea with Isleen, though both of them were aware of the massive problems.

I had my own part to play. Galatea and I were slowly working our way through the hypothesis Galatea had proposed, trying to validate the individual parts and turning the results of our experiments into something tangible. Normally, it would be the work of a lifetime, shared between hundreds, maybe thousands, of physicists all around the world, all working on their own, small parts, formulating their own experiments while trying to either replicate or disprove the work of all the others. A savage survival of the fittest idea, where the only thing that mattered at the end was results. At least that was the theory.

In our case, there was no way that we would share the original hypothesis, nor the experiments, equations and deliberations that had led us to our idea. It was nothing new, the idea of higher dimensions and unobserved connections on the quantum-level had been around for decades but making in-roads into a potential application? It was ground-breaking and the more Galatea and I learned, the bigger the implications became. Things we had considered pure science-fiction just a year ago suddenly seemed to be plausible within our lifetime, things we had seen and had been forced to discard the observation as an expression of a different Power suddenly began to make sense. We had yet to crack the code but there was progress and with progress, there were spun-off results.

Given that I had worked sixteen hours a day for a month, I should not have been surprised that Sophia was fairly determined to make me take a break. Not only had I mostly neglected her, I had also left the job of interfacing with Nisha and the rest of the world to her, She had done her part, extracting only a small price of pleasure from me, one I was glad to pay, but now, there was an event we had to attend in person. Namely, the grand opening of the Powerplant upstairs, with Nisha taking administrative control from TitanTech, while symbolically flipping the lever, alongside her father. It was all great theatre, demonstrating just how hard they were working for their people, bringing benefits to those still impacted by the disaster three years ago. It was annoying, but there were formalities and procedures involved in everything, the elaborate song and dance of high society was something to be endured, if I wanted to keep the advantages and connections that helped me build my foundation.

One of the big advantages of working near the powerplant was that Galatea could act as a chauffeur, driving a specifically prepared limousine with a humanoid robot. Since I had been forced to incorporate the Nanites into my body, we had made great strides in the construction of humanoid appearing robots, after all, I had been forced to conceal that my arm was entirely mechanical when moving around as Diana, or later Catherine, as a human walking around with a shining, chrome arm was rather eye-catching, standing out like a beacon. The absolute death of any secrecy. And if we could hide that my arm was mechanical, we could hide that the driver was not human, but robot, even if it only worked thanks to it being within an area we controlled, allowing us to set up seamless communication- and control-channels.

The ceremony itself was incredibly boring, the speeches even more so. Even my own speech was meaningless boilerplate, complementing the people who had worked on the power-plant, Mr. Acharya, his party and a variety of local business-people who had played a minor role. I even added a few fictitious companies that were under the banner of TitanTech, simply to add a layer of legitimacy to the construction, further concealing the truth. The speeches of Mr. Acharya and Nisha were about as inspired as mine, it did not help that I had read theirs before, just as they had read mine.

Just as boring, though in a different way, was the reception afterwards. Given the rather remote location, the guest-list was rather eclectic, a mix of local and national politicians that only worked thanks to Mr. Acharya. A few representatives of his party had made the journey, adding their presence to the event and, in turn, drawing a couple business-people who worked with them, turning the whole affair into something with a bit of status. Otherwise, as he had put it during the planning a while back, people would assume that our efforts were doomed from the start but if we had the ability to draw the respected personages, we would be respected in turn.

It was so similar to the lessons regarding decorum for business and society my father had me take as a child, I almost missed him, just a little. That small part that, armed with a bit more experience, somewhat more secure in her own person and knowing more of the circumstances, wanted to talk to him again, maybe try to see his perspective. If nothing else, his behaviour had forged me into who I was now, and that small part of me wanted him to see it and to be acknowledged, if not as a daughter, then as… something. Maybe not an equal, not yet, nor a competitor, but maybe an up-and-coming entrepreneur. Not that I wanted to reveal myself, there was far too much baggage there, most of which with the potential to blow up messily. Still, the thought remained.

During the reception, Nisha moved with Sophia and myself, introducing us to the attendees, pointing out aligned interests and acting as a liason, something I was quite grateful for. During one of those introductions, the conversation turned to recent topics and the origin of TitanTech as a company. It was something Galatea and I had long prepared a history for, one partially rooted in the truth, but with a massive dose of misdirection, seasoned with a good helping of straight-out lies to give us a thick coat of legitimacy. Nonetheless, part of our roots remained in New Brunsburg and apparently, our conversation-partner had an interest there. That led to a discussion of the recent political development and how, in their opinion, the changes in national status would pan out in an economical setting.

Curiously, in their opinion, the unification of large swathes of Europe under the banner of Europa Magna did not actually change all that much. Previously, European unification had worked within a financial and economic framework and little of that changed. The changes were mostly in the top-levels of government, an overall shifting of power as a unified political framework was formed. That the authors of such a framework had an influence and impact that would echo for generations, was just a happy coincidence a certain group would never seek to exploit, of that I was certain.

However, what made me listen up was that there seemed to be some economic upheaval going on, as apparently the changes in political framework allowed the unification of previously diverse interests under a single, economic banner. Some of the names mentioned tickled something in the back of my head, with the data I had stolen while rescuing Sophia. The interests were all aligned to the Colours, and from what I could tell, they were planning to push their economic agenda forward. It sounded almost pedestrian, using political change and upheaval to position a company for economic gain, but what made me frown internally, was that I also recognised some of the other names, though those echoed with things I had heard even further back.

Those names were companies my father had expressed an interest in, in his quest to diversify the holdings of KingCorp, to protect from changes to the economic landscape. That same quest had led to my erstwhile engagement to Clark, in an effort to establish a connection between the massive pillar that was KingCorps and the broad carpet that made up the Greene’s holdings. While the construction-branch my Great-Grandfather had used to establish the company remained a strong pillar and the electronic-branch by Grandfather had used to catapult it into the economic stratosphere was the back-bone, the companies mentioned were those my father had invested in to provide stability in a shifting market. And those were mentioned in connection to the Colours. The image of a net, or maybe a web, came to mind, a web that held a spider, looking at my father, inviting him in. For dinner.

I would have to look into that, if only to make sure the Greene’s did not profit from my family.