The Mech Touch

Chairwoman Calsie Doornbos had come a long way from her days in Cloudy Curtain.

As someone who regularly held talks with second-class CEOs, directors and other important officials, it was difficult to believe she used to be a third-class law student when she first got hired by Ves Larkinson.

It had not been easy to keep up with the meteoric growth of the clan. As the Larkinsons became more connected with the higher layers of human society, the difficulty and complexity of all of the work that needed to be done constantly grew as well.

Calsie needed to work harder and spend all of her free time on studying many different subjects in order to barely keep pace with the growth of the clan.

Even then, as the clan began to hire highly qualified second-class professionals and university graduates, she found herself unable to keep up with the rising standards.

Not even her augmentations could help her close the enormous gap in knowledge and skills between herself and those who were born as second-raters!

If not for the fact that the Larkinson Clan expressly rewarded the early employees who worked for Ves in his early career and proven their loyalty many times over, Calsie doubted that she would have been able to serve as the chairwoman of the increasingly more influential Open Consortium of Krakatoa.

When she started to lead this new business cooperative that operated on an entirely new membership model, she experienced a lot of hardships and difficulties in her work.

Fortunately, she already learned how to delegate and managed to pass on a lot of important responsibilities to her much more capable and specialized subordinates.

It was only after she had settled into her position for several years that she started to feel at home as the head of the Open Consortium.

She painstakingly raised her qualifications as a business leader and gradually accrued enough experience to be able to talk competently with the members of the Open Consortium.

Though she would not claim to have done the best possible job at leading the business and trade consortium, Calsie felt confident she could justify her continued tenure at 'her' organization!

That was until the expeditionary fleet finally returned from its latest adventure. From the moment she received a summons of the clan patriarch himself, her blood froze for a moment.

Would Ves approve of her stewardship of one of the daughter organizations of the Larkinson Clan?

Would he be happy with how many members the Open Consortium managed to attract?

Would he have any objections to the changes and expansions to the original rules of the trade organizations?

All of these questions and more swirled in her mind as her shuttle brought her out of the Open Consortium's headquarters in the Financial District and took her to the Cat Nest in Industrial District 2.

Not much time had passed since Calsie last met with the fellow Cloudy Curtainer in person.

However, much had changed due to a combination of internal and external developments. It shouldn't surprise her that much that Ves would want to receive a report so quickly after his return to the port system.

When her shuttle finally touched down on the expansive and busy landing zone, she stepped out and met another old friend.

"Gavin!"

"Hello again, Calsie."

The two long-time friends hugged each other for a moment before they began to chat in a familiar manner.

"How was the frontier?"

"Terrifying as always." Gavin gulped. "I will never get used to this sort of life, but… I don't want to stay away from Ves either. Our latest operations have been particularly fruitful for us. It would be too much to mention all of the direct benefits that we have obtained in the Boryan System and the Ramage Repulsor System, but our expeditionary fleet is about to undergo a massive string of upgrades as a result."

"That sounds nice. It almost makes me wish I was serving in the fleet instead of remaining stuck here in this safe and increasingly crowded city."

"Don't. Davute is heaven compared to the hell that is out there. There is nothing like getting targeted by alien warships to make you appreciate the safety of a heavily developed and heavily defended star system."

She supposed he was right. Calsie couldn't be any braver than her friend Gavin, so she would definitely not fare well under the same circumstances.

As they slowly made their way to the Blue Cat Estates on foot, Calsie quickly brought up a more relevant topic.

"Do you know why Ves wants to meet with me on short notice?" She asked.

"To be honest, I am not entirely certain." Gavin answered. "Although our business ventures remain important to our clan, I have noticed that Ves is paying increasingly less attention to them. Entire days and weeks go by where he has nothing else on his mind aside from raising his children, conducting secretive experiments and working on his design projects."

"That sounds like what any good father and a mech designer would do. Does that mean your workload has dropped."

"On the contrary. I need to handle a lot more work behind the scenes." The personal assistant sighed. "Ves had given me the authority to make small decisions on his behalf. I have spent enough time with him to know how he thinks and become familiar with his attitudes towards different topics. He trusts me to handle the issues that are too small for him to bother."

"What about larger decisions?"

"That is what the chief ministers are for. I only have to bring up the truly crucial issues to Ves, which doesn't happen that often these days. Our clan can handle most problems by itself and our patriarch is becoming less and less interested in managing anything that does not directly impact his own work."

That caused Calsie to frown. "If that is the case, I should be meeting with Chief Minister Novilon Purnesse instead. He is the person I report to most often these days, as he is the one who appreciates my efforts in Davute the most. What do you think Ves wants from the Open Consortium?"

"I told you that I don't know, but if I have to make a guess, it may have to do with the changing landscape of Davute. Once the colonial state is founded, we will unquestionably become a key link in its economy. I think Ves is wary about increasing our dependence on Davute."

"We are already highly dependent on Davute." Calsie replied. "If we get cut off this planet all of a sudden, our clan wouldn't instantly fall, but we will lose access to a lot of goods and services that help with making sure our fleet runs smoothly. You can't imagine all of the logistics required to keep a fleet consisting of numerous capital ships and hundreds of sub-capital ships afloat."

After a bit of walking, they finally walked up to the mansion situated on a small hill. Calsie passed through a couple of security checks and followed Gavin inside.

They walked up the stairs and eventually arrived in front of the double doors that led into the grand office of the patriarch.

"Here we are. You are on your own from here. Good luck, Calsie."

"Thanks."

When Calsie Doornbos entered the large and exaggeratingly sized office, she strode across the empty floor and stopped at a respectful distance from the wooden desk.

Ves appeared to be reading a report projected from his desk terminal. Still, he possessed enough concentration to greet the new arrival.

"Please take a seat, Calsie."

"Yes, sir."

As Calsie sat down on a chair that rose up from the floor, the mechanical cat laying on the desk flew over and landed on her lap.

"Meow…"

She restrained the urge to giggle. "Oh hey, Lucky. Long time no see. Oof, you have grown a little heavier than last time. Are you okay?"

"Meow meow…"

As old friends, Calsie and Lucky seamlessly got along like old times. It was a pity that she was rarely able to meet with Ves these days, so she no longer got to pet and play with the gem cat as much as in the past.

So much had changed, both for the better and for the worse.

Eventually, Ves was done with reading the report and could direct his full concentration on the meeting.

"It is good to see you again, Calsie." Ves gave her a genuine smile. "You look as if you are doing well for yourself."

"Thank you, sir. You look much better than before. The differences are really noticeable."

Ves had changed more than she could ever know, and that was when he was doing his best to suppress his outward changes!

After a bit of chatting, Ves quickly brought up a more serious topic.

"Give me a summary of the current state of the Open Consortium. How many members have signed up at this time?"

"There are 203 formal members of the Open Consortium, sir. 12 of them are large organizations whose business activities are on the same level as our Living Mech Corporation. 50 of them are medium organizations whose businesses are not as impressive, but still significant on a more regional and local level. The remaining members are on the smaller side, but each of them are still useful due to the specialized goods and services they offer that are always in high demand. My staff and I have always been careful about controlling our expansion and preventing any deadweight from joining our trade consortium."

"How popular is the Open Consortium these days?"

"Very popular." Calsie grinned. "The amount of applications we have received in the last month has multiplied by 7 times. Your expeditionary fleet's successes have turned our clan and our consortium into much more desirable business partners."

"I see. What about the suppliers of the consortium? The original purpose of the consortium was to pool different companies together so that we can attract the cooperation of material suppliers. Have you noticed any progress on that front?"

"We did, but the LMC and the other institutions of our clan no longer need to rely on the Open Consortium to gain the cooperation of suppliers. We have already grown past that stage, and the latest changes only make that more obvious." Calsie honestly reported. "Right now, it is the members of the Open Consortium that benefit a lot more from all of the suppliers that we are working with. The biggest benefit that we can derive from the consortium right now is all of the internal trade that we have been able to foster between the members."

That was an interesting shift in importance and one that intrigued Ves.

"Tell me more. What is the value of the current Open Consortium to us if we have no need to make use of collective power to attract suppliers."

"Well, think of it this way. The majority of small and medium members cannot survive in Davute on their own. The Open Consortium is their only lifeline. If they get kicked out, it is unlikely they will remain afloat. This grants our clan a lot of power and influence over them. It is not wrong to say that almost all of the members of the Open Consortium have become the defacto vassals of our clan. We indirectly control a small but significant chunk of Davute's local industries."

Ves' eyes seemed to flash when he heard her description of how powerful the Open Consortium had become.

"Would you describe the Open Consortium as a major player of the local economy?"

"I wouldn't say that. We cannot make too many waves in Davute. It is also hard to corral so many unique members as they are all different from each other. Still, as long as we expand further, we can gain a substantial voice in the business community."

"I see…"

Calsie still had her mind on deepening the reach of the Open Consortium in the regional economy, and thereby turning the Larkinson Clan into an increasingly more important player in the process!