FINANCIAL FREEDOM
A Tech Infantry Story
by
Edward Stasheff & Marcus Johnston
Copyright © 2011

 

Chapter 2:  For Love and Money
(click here for galactic map)

 

Heth shifted nervously on a guest perch in the waiting room outside the CEO's office of MIRADI—the Miu Institute for Research And Development, Inc.  Be confident.  No weakness.  No begging and no crying, he reminded himself, checking the gift box's wrapping for the millionth time.  And no manipulation, demands, or threats.  This is a sales pitch, after all, not a hostile takeover.  Pulling out his snuff box, he took a quick, sharp inhale of nepeta.  It worked immediately, calming his down and cheering him up.  You can do this!

Suddenly he froze, ears swiveling, nose sniffing the air.  Yes… that we her scent, her voice!

"Our stock dropped how much today, Aie?"

"One and half points.  And it's only mid-morning."

"I don't understand… what's spooking the investors?"

"If I knew that, Miu, I'd be a stock broker, not an executive assistant."

Heth heard Miu sigh, an adorable little noise.  "Well, issue another press release about the upcoming Impossibarium product line.  That always causes our stock price to jump.  What's next on my schedule, Aie?"

That was his cue.  Heth jumped down, anxiously smoothing his mane and checking his jewelry.

"Uh… you've got an appointment with a representative of Miao Mercantile, Inc."

Heth shot some breath spray in his mouth and checked his claw manicure, wondering if his cologne was too musky.

"The Miao?"  Miu's voice suddenly sounded suspicious.  "Wait… who is it?  What do they want?"

"Uh... looks like they didn't give a name.  And, uh… it just says they have a business proposition."

Heth checked to ensure he hadn't shed on the perch or carpet, then took a deep, calming breath.

"Oh, no… always get the name of a Miao representative, Aie!  For all we know, it could be—"  Miu turned around the corner and saw him.  Her eyes narrowed to slits.  "Miao K'Rrowr K'Heth."

Heth flashed his best grin.  "Gainful day, Prurr K'Aou K'Miu."  He extended his tail toward her.

Miu let out an exasperated breath, but swung out her fluffy tail to return the pleasantry.  "Gainful day, Heth."  She gave him the briefest of tail tip taps, then strode past him into her office, Aie following behind her.  "Now what do you want, Miao?"

"I'm here," Heth said, grabbing the wrapped box and following her, "to make you an offer you can't refuse."

"I've already refused it, Heth.  Several times.  Firmly."

"Yes, I know—but, believe it or not, this isn't about future reproductive rights."

"Good, because those are never going to happen."  Miu spun around to face him.  "I dissolved our merger, Heth, and nullified the Articles of Procreation.  Remember?"

"Oh yes, I remember well."  Heth nodded casually—but struggled not to let the hurt show on his face.  Remember?  How could I possibly forget!  "I have to admit, it was very clever of you to invoke the Nullification Clause due to low return on investment."

"You signed the contract, Heth."

"Indeed I did, and a deal is a deal.  I just never thought such a small drop in my net worth would qualify me for termination so quickly.  Investments are, after all, a long-term proposition."  Against his will, Heth felt himself getting sucked back into the old argument.  He knew he shouldn't ask… but just couldn't stop himself…  "I assume you received a better offer, yes?  Or are you still sole proprietor?"

Miu was silent for a moment.  "Not that it's any of your business… but yes, I am still sole propriety of my reproductive products.  And yes, I have a long list of potential investors—and you're not on it."

Heth blinked, trying not to let it show how much that stung.  He cocked his head and sniffed the air.  "So…potential investors, then?  No contracts signed yet?"

"Yet.  There will be."  Miu's fur bristled ever so slightly.  "I've already committed to sign with whoever wins."

"Wins?  Oh… so you're auctioning your reproductive rights, then?"  Heth's whiskers twitched at this new development.  "So you could end up merged with anyone."  Anyone except me…

"No, not anyone."  Miu rolled her eyes in exasperation.  "You know how reproductive auctions work, Heth.  I decide which investors get to bid—and my standards are high.  Give me some credit!"

"With your credit score?  Certainly."  Heth forced a smile.  If her explanation was supposed to make him feel better, it failed miserably.  Miu wasn't about to let him bid anytime soon.  "Well, an auction is certainly a… bold strategy.  Risky, too."

"High risk, high return." Miu returned, eyes narrowing.  "Auctions drive the price up."

"Yes…"  Heth nodded slowly.  "But not knowing the personnel you'll be contracted with involves highly uncertain future projections… making for a rather unstable long-term investment..."

"My company needs capital, Heth, now," Miu growled.  "I'll use whatever assets I have to remain solvent."

"Well, you're in luck then, Miu," Heth said.  "Your assets are excellent.  Undervalued, even."

And they were.  She was.  She was priceless.  Heth had always profoundly respected and admired Miu.  She was a truly self-made female.  Born to a insignificant pride with no assets, she had nevertheless worked her way up to personally running a wildly successful start-up—an industrial research company, no less—and she wasn't even old enough to have kittens yet!  A prodigy.  Miu was a highly efficient administrator, a shrewd negotiator, a ruthless businesscat, and a financial genius.  Oh, and she was beautiful too.

Huge blue eyes.  Glossy white fur.  Her scent was natural perfume. She slinked around the room, fluid and graceful.  Her body was an asset, and she knew how to exploit it for maximum profit.  And she was unconventionally and dangerously fashionable.  Her business suits were perfectly tailored to display every lean muscle.  She eschewed the gaudy jewelry of most K'Nes females in favor of something far more subtle and alluring—thin strands of silver woven with her long white hairs into tiny braids, interspersed throughout her furred body in a pattern.  She glowed like starlight.  True, the look had caught on, but she had pioneered it—and collected the royalties.  Stars above, I miss her…

That's why Heth had to stop talking about the past, to shift the conversation back to the impersonal, the professional.  "But I didn't come here to discuss defunct partnerships, Miu.  This is strictly business."

"Procreation is business, Heth."

"Strictly supply and demand, then.  I've come to offer you a business arrangement that could make you and your company very, very profitable."

"And what will it make you?" Miu asked, suspicious.

"A tidy profit, of course," he answered.  "I'd take ten percent for facilitating the transaction, naturally."

"Naturally," she echoed.  "Look, Heth, I'm busy.  Time is money.  Don't waste my money."

Heth held up the wrapped package.  "I think you'll find this to be an adequate return for investing your time in listening to my lucrative offer."

Miu glared at the package, then at Heth.  "That had better not be a gift," she growled.

"Of course not!" Heth scoffed.  "You know K'Nes don't give gifts.  It's a bribe."

"Good," Miu said, slicing the wrapping open with a flick of her claws.  "If it wasn't, I would have lost all respect for…" her voice trailed off as she popped the sealed lid off the box and an intoxicating aroma instantly filled the room.  Her big eyes grew even bigger as she stared inside the box.

"Nepeta…" Miu said, surprised—and, Heth hoped, a little impressed.  She held up the potted plant, examining the gray-green leaves with tiny purple flowers.  She inhaled deeply, and her pupils dilated slightly.  Heth even thought he heard a faint, tiny purr.  "It smells… expensive…"

"The high-quality hybrids always are."  Heth smiled.  "It's Nepeta Faassenii, actually.  Known to the apes as Faassen's Catnip.  And you can't get any fresher than a live plant.  Watered daily, it could last you for quite a long time."

"But… where in the stars did you find this, Heth?  Nepeta hasn't grown on Earth for decades…"

Heth shrugged modestly.  "I know a botanist on Andersvald.  I was just there closing a deal."

Miu looked at Heth with her huge blue eyes, and actually seemed at a loss for words—which, Heth knew, was a very good sign.  It took a lot to strike Prurr Miu speechless.  He pushed his advantage.

"I know you're under a lot of stress these days, so I figured you could use something to make your office into a more… relaxing… work environment." 

Miu looked back down at the plant.  "Oh… Heth… Look, I…"  The rarity and expense of the bribe, the thought that went into it, its personal nature… all were having the desired effect on Miu.  She seemed touched… and troubled.  Heth could see the confused emotions whirling in her big eyes.  Maybe she still values me after all?  Just a little bit?

Heth decided to quit while he was ahead, offering Miu a dignified way out of the potentially uncomfortable conversation she was clearly bracing herself to have.  "Now tell me, Miu," he asked, "is a bribe of that value worth an hour of your time—just for a sales pitch?"

Miu looked back at him and the cold businesscat snapped back into place behind her eyes.  "All right.  Twenty minutes."

"Thirty."

"Done."  She set the nepeta down on her desk.  "So, what's this business proposition you have for me?" she asked as she slinked up onto her executive perch.

Heth was silent.  He glanced at Miu's executive assistant.

"Aie, could you give us a moment?" Miu asked.  Aie nodded, took one more deep breath of the fragrant room, and left wearing a goofy smile.  Miu turned back to Heth.  "A deal that important, hmm?"

"Potentially."  Heth hopped up onto one of the guest perches across from Miu's desk.  "A new and lucrative customer base for your flagship product."

"Impossibarium?"  Miu knew it was a silly, sensationalistic name, but her marketing department had insisted on it.

"Exactly.  I just closed a deal to escort a freighter convoy of minerals to Jurvain space.  In a few days, I'll have a rare opportunity to speak directly with a Jurvain construction administrator."

"Constructing what, exactly?"  Miu sounded interested.

"Why, the new Jurvain Fleet, of course."

"But what would they need Impossibarium for?"  Miu narrowed her eyes.  "Razors for the sailors?"

"No—armor plating for their ships, of course.  It's insanely strong, the perfect material for armor.  As far as we can tell, the only thing that can damage Impossibarium is… well, Impossibarium."

Miu shook her head.  "I doubt the Jurvain will take the deal.  Impossibarium is far too expensive for anyone to purchase in those quantities.  And we can't lower the price—it costs too much to synthesize and produce.  It's the product's main drawback."  Miu sighed.  "Even if we added only a ten percent markup for profit instead of the usual thirty percent, no company could ever afford to buy enough of it to armor a spaceship.  It's industrial applications are limited to small but important component parts—blades and cutting tools, containment units, products like that."

"And for the apes and K'Nes, that's correct," Heth conceded.  "But this is the Jurvain we're talking about.  A communal hive mind.  Cooperative economics.  When their leaders decide to focus their race on a goal, every member falls into line.  Properly motivated, the Jurvain can mobilize the resources of a dozen star systems to purchase what they need."

Miu looked doubtful.  "An entire civilization bankrupting itself to buy vast quantities of my company's product?  And what would motivate them to do that?"

"Freedom.  The Jurvain are very nervous about maintaining their new-found independence from the humans—as well they should be, considering they have almost no fleet to defend it with.  What few ships they have are no match for the apes' fleet.  But if the Jurvain could armor those few ships with Impossibarium… well, they would become a much more effective defense force."

"And you think you can sell this idea to them?"  Miu sounded skeptical… but interested.

"I know I can," Heth answered.  "The only question is how much Impossibarium can your company produce, and how fast?"

Miu was silent, crunching the numbers in her head, thinking through the potential implications.  Heth watched her, letting the tense silence draw out.  He could tell she was tempted… but it was a big and risky decision.  One more nudge should do it, Heth thought.  She's taken the bait; it's time for the switch.

"I follow the stock market reports, Miu," Heth said softly.  He hesitated, trying to phrase it delicately.  "Your company is having… difficulties, to say the least.  MIRADI needs a fat government contract like this."

Miu sighed.  "You're right.  We do."  She shot him a suspicious glance.  "But why are you being so helpful?  After I dissolved our merger?  I'd think you'd want to see my company and I go bankrupt."

"Come now, Miu," Heth chuckled, shaking his head.  "We both know that if I wanted to sabotage MIRADI, I could have done that ages ago!  I'd simply get your Impossibarium patent revoked by going public with what I know about its origins."

Miu froze—then her fur bristled.  Heth, her ex-mate, was the only other person besides herself who knew where Impossibarium really came from.  "Yes… and I always wondered why you didn't…"  She narrowed her eyes.  "If you're planning to blackmail me—"

"Relax, Miu."  Heth cut her off with a wave of his paw.  "I've haven't gone public, and I don't intend to."

"Yes…"  Miu's fluffy tail swished back and forth pensively.  "But why?"

"Well, if I allowed petty revenge to override my profit motive, why… I wouldn't be much of a K'Nes then, would I?"  Heth gave her a Cheshire grin.  "Besides, with the sales figures I'm envisioning from an Impossibarium deal with the Jurvain, even my ten percent commission would quite substantial."

"I see…"  Miu nodded slowly as she relaxed back onto her perch, apparently reassured that Heth's greed superseded his broken heart.  "So you're simply using your insider information to make a little more money, right?"

"No—a lot more money!  In fact, properly reinvested, my commission could drastically increase my net worth."  Heth widened an eye.  "Perhaps even enough for you to consider renewing our merger…?"

Miu blinked at him, and her tail swished.  "Look… Heth… I simply can't wait for your stock to rise again, you know that."  She grew uncomfortable.  "Females can only reproduce once every eleven years—I won't get another chance to bear a litter until I'm twenty-two.  And the mating cycle starts in fifteen weeks!"

"Well, that just gives me fifteen weeks to grow my assets, then.  I'm working on another lucrative deal with the Earth Federation at the moment.  If I do well, they'll be repeat customers—with a very high profit margin."

Miu stared at him, shocked.  For an instant, Heth thought he'd gone too far, that he'd angered her.  But the she smiled and purred out a chuckle.  "You never give up, do you, Heth?"

"Not when I value something this highly, no."

Miu's eyes softened, and for the second time in an hour, she clearly didn't know what to say.

I'm up another point, Heth thought, and pushed ahead.  "So is it a deal?  I pitch Impossibarium to the Jurvain for you?  Come on, Miu… what have you got to lose?"

"That's a good question," Miu said.  "There's something you're not telling me, isn't there?  You didn't need to see me in person to negotiate this deal."

"True," Heth admitted.  "I need something."

"I figured as much.  What is it?"

"If I'm going to convince the Jurvain to purchase Impossibarium… well, at that price, they'll want to inspect the merchandise first, test it, measure it.  I need a sample."

Miu almost hissed.  "I haven't publicly launched the product yet!  Any sample that leaves my corporate headquarters runs the risk of being intercepted and stolen by our competitors!"

"Yes…" Heth conceded, "but they'd have to know about me having a sample first.  No one but the two of us even knows that much."

"They'll still try to block the deal.  Varrless Financial in particular could get desperate enough to use… extreme measures."

"I'm a Miao.  We can take care of ourselves.  Security is one of our best selling products.  Besides, how would the other corporate clans even learn about the deal?

"From the Jurvain," Miu answered.  "What one of them knows, all of them know, remember?"

"Yes, and what one of them wants to a keep secret, all of them try to keep secret.  And can you think of a better secret to keep than that what few ships they have are being upgraded?  Anyone seriously considering invading the Jurvain—the Holy Terran Empire, perhaps—would want to attack before the upgrades are complete, preferably while the ships are in dry dock.  No, it's in the Jurvain's interest to be just as tight-lipped about this as we are."

Miu was silent, drumming her claws on her desktop.  She was running out of objections.

"I'm your prefect salesman in this situation, Miu," Heth pressed.  "I'm already heading to the Jurvain Commonality anyway to meet with their naval officials on completely unrelated business.  No one need ever know that you or your company is involved in any way."

"True…" Miu said, "but I'm sure it hasn't escaped the attention of our corporate competitors that you and I were formerly involved in a reproductive joint venture."

Heth shrugged.  "So we convince them that I'm angry, biter, vengeful, and what nothing more than to see your stock drop like a rock.  That would be easy enough to believe."

"Yes… if you hadn't shown up here today and talked your way into my office."

"True… but negotiations aren't over yet.  We can always create the illusion that it ended badly."

"Yes, we could."  Miu nodded slowly, thinking.  "But then how do we explain you walking out of here with an Impossibarium sample?"

"I don't—because no one except you and I will know I have it."

Miu wrinkled her nose disdainfully.  "Come now, Heth.  A product that proprietary and expensive is under tight security.  My accountants will notice if I just give a sample away—or if any goes missing, for that matter."

"Yes, I've thought of that, too."  Heth winked at her.  "But you already have a sample with you: your ring."

Miu's face blanched as she raised a paw to look at her simplest—but by far most expensive—jewelry: a plain, glossy black metallic ring.  Heth understood her hesitation; it was valuable, yes, but more importantly it was a proud symbol of her economic success and scientific achievement.  She'd come a long way from her start as a creditless cub.  Miu looked up at Heth and narrowed her eyes, thinking, weighing the cost-benefit analysis.  Finally she signed and nodded.  "Well, you were right, Heth.  It is an offer I can't refuse."  She slid the ring off and pawed it for a moment, reluctant, then finally handed it to Heth.  "But I want that back, Miao—understand?"

"Perfectly."  Heth slid the ring into his breast pocket.  "I'll guard it with my life, Miu."

"You'd better," she growled, leaning back on her perch.  "So, shall I have my lawyers draw up the contract?"

"Normally, I'd say yes," Heth nodded slowly, "but a paper trail might be a liability for an enterprise this sensitive and confidential.  A simple tail-tap agreement would be more secure."

"And if you were anything other than a Miao, I wouldn't trust that.  But…"

"A deal is a deal."  Heth smiled.  "That's the Miao motto, and we live and die by it."

"Yes," Miu nodded, "I know."  She hopped of her perch and strode forward, her fluffy white tail swinging out, and Heth extended his own tail to meet hers.  She did more than just tap this time—their tail tips entwined slightly.  She held it for a moment, and then released.  "You know, Heth," Miu said, sounding mildly surprised, "I do believe I've actually missed you."

"Not nearly as much as I've missed you, Miu."

"Well!" she said, returning to a brusque businesslike tone.  "If we want everyone to believe that negotiations have completely fallen apart between us, I'm going to have to sell it convincingly."

"Yes, I know."  Heth braced himself.  "Avoid the face if you could, please."

She was quick.  Heth was knocked to the floor, his suit slashed by her claws, before he even realized she had moved.  "Get out of my office, you worthless vermin! Security!" she yowled.

Heth sprang back up, hissing.  "Worthless?  How dare you, you vixen!"  He hooked his claws into a cushion and hurled it at her.  "My assets are huge!"

That was when the door burst open and Heth was dogpiled by three suited security guards.  He was dragged spitting and hissing from Miu's office and thrown out of the building on his tail.

Overall, he thought things had gone pretty well.