In article
<1106780819.493274.279540.DeleteThis@f14g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
Charlie <jonathan_downie.DeleteThis@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Laurence wrote:
> > In article
> > <1106692891.354454.273990.DeleteThis@c13g2000cwb.googlegroups.com>,
> > Charlie <jonathan_downie.DeleteThis@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > > "The order said something about a nonorganic lifeform.
> > > Know of any?"
> >
> > "Non-organic? That eliminates everyone in here as far as I
> > can tell. And apart from the odd spirit or elemental I've
> > never met a totally nonorganic lifeform. I've met a few
> > beings that have come close though with all the cyber
> > they've stuffed into themselves."
> "I was told there was some sort of robotic spider. I have a
> contact called Wilf who said to give the spider, or was it
> spyder, 25000 1mm zinc pellets on a no downpayment deal."
"Robotic spider? That sounds interesting. I've often wondered if
my corp could have some intel gathering stuff made to closely
resemble insects.
If someone has made one I'll have to put it forward seriously."
> > > "Portal"
> > > Nothing happens.
> > > "ahem. PORTAL"
> > > More nothing happens.
> > Jonathon looks on interestedly.
> "It's really frustrating when this happens."
"Is it a common problem?"
> > > He turns back round.
> > > "erm, I appear to be stuck here for a while. Could you
> > > suggest something to make time pass quicker?"
> > "Well, if you tell a story you get a drink for free. After
> > that I think you have to buy them normally, or get someone
> > else to buy them for you.
> "I don't do anything normally. I'm not sure how much gold I
> have in storage. Hold on."
> He puts his suitcase on a table and opens it up.
> "Catalogue."
> A piece of yellowing paper appears in the main compartment.
> he shuts the case.
Jonathon watches the procedure.
> "Precious metals, precious metals. Ah, here we are. Silver,
> 3thou metric tons, bronze, figurines only, awaiting
> collection. Gold, one metric tons plus several gold objets
> d'art modelled on the Renaissance style. One life size gold
> model of the David statue, awaiting corresponding item. One
> miniature golden boat, out of sale time limit, not wanted by
> owner, reverts to company. Oh and one gold medallion.
> Would that be enough?"
"I doubt if inflation is that bad here. That amount of gold and
silver would keep most of the Centro drunk for several weeks,
and we have some very serious drinkers in there."
> I really must clear my stock."
"Sounds like a good idea. The one time I really needed to have a
large spending power without access to my normal credlines, I
bought up a lot of gemstones. It's amazing how little space a
million creds takes up in that form.
I had enough with me to have a large building built, to keep me
and the rest of the team in a luxury hotel for the best part of
the year it took to make sure the building would be built, buy
transport, hire drivers, just about everything really, and all
without putting any unsightly bulges in my suit.
I still tend to carry a few hundred thou in that form."
> > I'm sure you won't die of boredom."
> "Oh I have found plenty easier things to die from. Have you
> heard of the Ebola virus?"
Jonathon has to think for few seconds.
"Ebola. Mid to late 20th. Quite a nasty little bug. Not a patch
on the stuff that came later, but bad enough for the tech of the
time.
You contracted that stuff and survived?"
<Snip>
> > "I've not been in here long myself and it's rather chilly
> > out on the moors at this time of the year."
> Charlie gives him a wink.
> "Terribly cold things, moors."
"Especially on a winter's night."
Jonathon winks back.
> > > > "I'm Jonathon Young. Pleased to meet you."
> > > "Charlie Beener, trader at large."
> > "Part of the free enterprise system then?
> "It's only free enterprise when they pay me. My fee
> fluctuates with each deal."
"That's logical, it's almost impossible to calculate the risks
and cost to yourself until you know the deal."
> "I have been paid in gold, kind, food, vehicules, camels etc
> etc. One chief even wanted me to take his daughter as
> payment. Turned her down of course."
It might have been an idea to accept the first deal, there's
always a need for places you will be welcome without question,
and having such a place in the middle of Africa, well it could
be very useful for people who travel a lot. Not that I've done
much travelling outside Merseysprawl for the last few years."
> "Got some nice army fatigues instead. Poor germans."
"Whilst I deplore the loss of life that your comment indicates,
I do appreciate the skill that tribe must have shown to take out
a better armed group."
> > I prefer corporate dealings, but in my non-corporate life
> > I've bought and sold data and material with individuals.
> > Do you have a speciality or do you subscribe to that old
> > Ferengi law that opportunity plus instinct equals profit?"
> "I specialise in what my clients ask me to specialise in. I
> do corporate and individual trades. My favourite kind of deal
> is either a well-paid one of a difficult one. Usually they
> are one and the same."
"Oh yes."
Jonathon nods.
> "I like to find and trade rare things. I have a sideline as a
> military negotiator but that doesn't pay so well, gets
> dangerous too."
"Been there, done that, managed to avoid getting scars, so far."
> "To be honest, I don't usually do profits in the normal sense.
> mediums of exchange change in so many sectors that storing my
> wealth in any one resource would be foolishness."
"Understandable."
> I like to own land, tho'. Most of my oldest clients accept
> that throwing a few acres of prime arable or inner-city land
> will make me work that little bit harder."
"What's that old saying? Buy land, it's not being made any more?
That's not exactly true, we've managed to make a couple of
reasonable sized islands or extentions to existing land, but it
is very expensive."
> He winks. "I also tend to collect things that people forget to
> collect. There is a 30 day time limit on all deals. If the
> stuff gets trapped after that, it's mine."
"Reasonable."
<snip>
> > > "Interesting. How big is this 'corp'?"
> > "We're one of the biggest in the world, but also one of the
> > least known, mainly because we don't actually have any
> > manufacturing or administrative base in our own name. We run
> > on the Competitive Monopolization principle."
> "How does that principle go exactly?"
"Pick an area of manufacture or a specific service, for the sake
of arguement lets say it's Pocket Secretaries. We would slowly
and quietly buy control of nearly all the companies who make
these without letting them know they are all now owned by the
same corp. They all produce basically the same product with
memory, vidphone, appointment scheduling, all the regular stuff,
but each company is then encouraged to improve one or two areas.
Let's say that company A produces a ruggedised version that can
stop a 44 and keep going. Company B decides to produce a smaller
and lighter version with a styling that says, I've made it.
Company C goes for the youth market, their product has a larger
memory and a processor modified to handle trid files, and a case
which looks like it's fallen through a fight between Dali and
Picasso. Company D is for the wanabees, they make stuff which
looks like any of the above but internally is only a cheap basic
model and the price is lower. Obviously we own more than just
those four so a lot of the improvements overlap.
Each of these companies believes it's in competition with the
others so they work to keep costs down and profits high without
having to jack up the prices too much.
What the buyer sees is a wide range of products, each with
different advantages and drawbacks, and all of those with the
case and/or contents they are are really looking for are at
reasonable prices so they tend to buy from our companies rather
than the few independents that are left or one of the bland
clone machines that the corps make for themselves.
We don't make as much as we would if we were to run a straight
monopoly, but the companies are kept healthier becasue they are
still in competition with each other, the economy doesn't suffer
from there being only one supplier, and no one sees the strings.
There are other advantages. If one of the R&D departments makes
a breakthrough, the data is checked and if we can do so without
compromising the company that made the advance, we slip it to a
couple of the others which stimulates the rest to improve their
products as well. Plus the other corps look at the market, see a
lot of strong companies making the product, decide that there's
no way they're going to make a profit in a reasonable time, and
wander off looking for easier prey.
We do have to fight off the odd hostile takeover of one or two
of our subsidaries on occasion. But it's amazing how fast a corp
will back off when it suddenly finds itself facing ten times the
resistance it expected."
> > > Charlie swings his briefcase up and flips it open.
> > > "Got a few outstanding orders here. Nicolame IV needs 3
> > > kilotons of grain with enough trucks to ship them
> > > cross-country. i have an anonymous client who is looking
> > > for some kind of warhead but I can't make out what. Oh,
> > > and I have someone by the name of Nic who wants to sell
> > > panzers for grain, camera tripods and some artillery."
> > "The weapons I definitely can't help you with, G.A. have a
> > policy on that sort of deal, and you don't want to know what
> > they did to the last board member who transgressed that
> > particular rule.
> "Pity. It's amazing what you can get for weapons."
"They have their uses, but the other corps who do sell weapons
are constantly looking for new players moving into their turf,
and we don't want to start a major corpwar. Oh we have an
internal company or three making stuff for our own use, just
like any other corp, but we don't sell."
> > Transporters I could get you fairly easily, although we'd
> > have to get the grain itself elswhere. Perhaps we could
> > extend our links with another corporation that we've been
> > working closely with for the last few years to see what they
> > have, I know they're much more agronomic than we are. What
> > would Nicolame IV have to offer?"
> "He is a multi-dimension specialist and a monarch. He rules a
> small province just on the edge of some galaxy. He told me
> once that he has wormhole technology but I haven't seen it.
> He would be happy to trade the same kind of technology I have
> in my case here."
"It's certainly interesting. I'd have to check with the rest of
the Merseysprawl board and they'll probably bump it up to the ,
> "This thing is actually a portal of some sort. Whenever I put
> anything in it, it transports it to a storge facility that is
> slightly out of phase with the rest of our reality. It also
> includes psychic technology allowing me to recall objects by
> thought only. Although I like to speak it as well."
"Now that last bit of technology could be useful if we can adapt
it to other applications.
Is the system designed to be keyed to one user or can anyone
call it up?"
You can almost see Jonathon's brain making links.
> "The beauty of it is that the portal is totally adjustable. I
> can pull pretty much anything through just so long as I can
> imagine it fitting. It also includes an autocatalogue and
> retrieval system (ACRS2). It never needs organising by any
> human."
"Very handy. It would reduce our need for warehousing, although
it would also make the last run I Johnsoned rather difficult.
Sorry, I acted as a corp hirer of a small team. One of our
subsidiaries had an old warehouse that was full of old stuff
we'd collected in our intermittant disagreements with DNA plus a
load of old gear that was unsellable, and the site would be very
useful for one of the other subsidiaries to expand into. We
wanted to get rid of the DNA stuff in a way that they couldn't
recover it, and to reduce the security costs of stopping them
trying to snatch it back. We had seen a couple of their snoopers
in the area. The costs of doing this normally were prohibitive
though, so I hired this shadow team to torch the place claiming
to be working for one of the competitors of the company who
owned the warehouse.
By the time fire control were finished, half the cost of
demolition had been met by their work, most of the metals were
in a state suitable for recycling, and the local gov' were eager
to agree to the change in use of the site rather than have a
wreck on the edge of one of their improvement zones. Insurance
covered a lot of the rest of the cost and we also managed to
write off a lot of dead inventory so we paid less tax. The
runners were well paid so they'll be willing to work for me
again, pretty much a win-win situation."
> > Jonathon.
> > Don't worry, I'm not hungry. And I have a problem with
> > snacking on food that objects strongly. 
> Charlie
> I object very strongly to being eaten
Jonathon.
In that case we have no problem.
--
.... I am Coffee of Borg. Sleep is irrelevant.
__ __ __ __ __ ___
|__||__)/ __/ \|\ ||_ | And isn't your life extremely flat
| || \\__/\__/| \||__ | with nothing whatever to grumble at.
....Running the RISC... lbATargonetDOTcoDOTuk
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