Downzone 10: Advance
Almost as soon as you move your operations to Shutterbug, you begin to miss your old office building.
The new one is more secure, certainly. It's a small two-storey building, built from reinforced titanium and CFRP, with numerous surveillance and check-in systems built in to (hopefully) discourage and-slash-or prevent anyone from infiltrating the building. You've stress-tested it yourself- with a vibroblade, you'd managed to score a deep cut into the outside wall of the building, but the blade had stopped short over an inch from penetrating through.
It's more comfortable than your old office, even. When the operating costs were running that high, paying an extra hundred thousand didn't strain your budget significantly. You've forked out for an upgrade over the standard office supplies Alfonso had outfitted your office with. A pleasant air conditioning system hummed almost silently overhead, and everyone had ergonomic gear now (what a concept!). You've even allowed Shamus to purchase new computer… things. Things he could do computer stuff with.
(You're pretty sure that XL is a clothing size, not a computer thing, but you just shut up and let him buy it. If he wants to hide that he was gaining weight behind the facade of buying more computer stuff, you'll allow it. You're not here to judge your employees for their body shape.)
But you just can't stand the scenery of Shutterbug.
Laine had reported that Shutterbug was overrun with crime. You had half-expected that he had been exaggerating for effect, but if anything, he was downplaying it. Just walking through the streets to get to your office building, you counted sixteen different gang insignias spraypainted on the walls, stopped to greet twenty-one different homeless men and women, and passed by four houses slated for demolition five years ago.
The scenery outside is the architectural equivalent of a meth addict. It's old, it's run-down, and it's unable to do a damn thing to save itself.
You have your work cut out for you.
Alfonso's face on the screen is pixelated. The connection is even poorer than usual- the thickness of your office walls wasn't doing your conference call any favours. It's good enough that you can hear his voice, though, and only cuts out often enough that you can make out four of every five sentences.
You open the meeting by taking attendance. There aren't very many people attending the meeting, honestly- of your enhanciles, only James had followed you to Shutterbug, and both Eamon and Naomi had stayed behind to continue the efforts of your militia back home. Nathan, the leader of Lima Seven-Nine, had stayed behind too, although he'd sent Conor in his place in case you needed an officer (and, you suspect, to keep an eye on you).
Seven people in attendance, then; Conor, Tara, Lucas, Karena, Alfonso, James, and yourself.
"Okay," you say eventually, when that's all finished and James has his sheafs of paper out, ready to take the meeting's minutes. "I've called this meeting as the first of what I hope will actually be monthly meetings this time." Last time had been a disorganized mess, as you'd still been setting up and getting used to everything going on. "Alfonso, has anything changed?"
He shakes his head, or you're pretty sure he does, it's hard to tell given how jerky the movements are on the monitor. "Everything has remained stable since you left," he says. "The militia is still undertaking regular patrols and training, and Naomi is undertaking recruitment efforts to make up for the men you took with you. The gangs seem to be keeping their heads down still."
"Okay." You glance aside at James, who is writing furiously in an attempt to keep up. "In that case, any objections if I move on to the purpose of today's meeting?"
Everyone shakes their heads, although you catch Conor rolling his eyes.
"In that case…"
"The purpose behind today's meeting is to discuss our goals and approach in Shutterbug," you say neutrally. "As I'm sure we've all seen, the region is in a bad state. We don't have the influence here to affect major changes, and we're running with minimal resources again, so we're going to need to work on solidifying our base here."
[] "Before we start, though, we need to settle on a timeline. We can't remain in one place indefinitely if we want to keep expanding, so we need to set a goal and work towards it."
[] Alfonso is the first to speak up. "Three months," he says calmly. "I know it doesn't leave you with much time to work in Shutterbug, but the longer you remain there, the less stable things will get here. I need you back as soon as possible to keep things from going south here."
[] You continue before anyone can speak. "I think six months is the most appropriate goal. It gives us a substantial length of time to work on gaining influence in the region, although it does mean that Alfonso is going to have to keep an eye on things so his region doesn't get too unstable. I expect we'll come back to trouble there."
[] James speaks up for the first time in the meeting. "We need at least nine months," he says decisively. "I know this area, or ones like it, at least. If you want to make long-term changes here, we're going to need at least nine months to get them implemented permanently. We'll need a lot more resources, and we'll probably have to make some enhanciles to help keep Alfonso's office safe, but it's what we need."
That resolved, you move on to the next matter; your resources.
[] "Alfonso is doing his best to get our money flow to increase, but there's only so much he can do for us." You try to keep yourself from sounding too self-deprecating as you continue. "And he was always the better of us at business matters, so don't expect that to change under my leadership. But we're running with next to nothing beneath us, and our quarterly budget is getting tighter all the time, especially as our demands keep increasing. I don't expect we'll have very much time within the next month, especially with all the other demands on our time, so we'll probably only have time for us to focus on obtaining a couple of things."
[] "I'll focus on bringing in money," you begin. "If I can hit up the obvious large gangs, I should be able to free up a lot of the money currently tied up by their leaders. There won't be too much there, but I expect I'll be able to bring in a few hundred thousand before the month's over. A million maximum."
[] "I'll focus on bringing us in any resources I can get my hands on," you begin. "There's going to be a lot of shady aug clinics and black-market production facilities nearby. It won't bring us in any money immediately, but I'll send anything I get over to Alfonso. They should help our research divisions, and hopefully bring up our quarterly income a bit."
[] "I'll focus on hitting the really nasty stuff where I can," you begin. "Any human trafficking, sex slavery, really hard drugs, that kind of stuff. It won't help us with getting any money, but it'll raise our influence in the region. And I expect a lot of the people James and I help will be more than willing to seize better job opportunities."
[] "Presuming that's done without issue," you continue, ""I'll try see what I can do about gathering information on the region. Laine's doing a very good job with that- you should see about giving him a raise, Alfonso, we gave him his augs but he's doing a very good job- but there are certain things people will only be willing to tell me. Or any other high-rank enhancile with spec-ops experience, I guess."
[] "Presuming that's done without issue," you continue, "I'll see what I can gather about local figures of influence. Where the augs are, what they're doing, what the worst gangs are after, that kind of stuff. Maybe a bit specific, but I don't have the time to be grabbing general information while doing this."
[] "Presuming that's done without issue," you continue, "I'll see what I can gather about the local economy and whatnot. See where employment's still good, see who the local corps are, see what schools are still bothering to educate people, that kind of stuff. Give us a better idea of the region."
And with that done, you turn to the last thing you have to deal with today; your militia.
[] You hadn't been able to bring much of your militia to Shutterbug with you. Only Tara, Lucas and Karena were here, and they'd each only been able to hand-pick a squad of less than two dozen men. They are among the more capable of your militia, but less than seventy men won't do much against a place the size of Shutterbug- not without much better equipment. They are augmented, to a degree, so they wouldn't utterly fail within the next month, but you need to build them up.
[] "Tara, Lucas, Karena." The three of them look over at you, a bored expression on Karena's face, the others appearing attentive. "I need you three to focus on building our militia up again. There are a lot of gangs around here, and between the three of you and James, you should be able to get a decent number of members again within the next month."
[] "Tara, Lucas." The two of them look attentively towards you. "I need you two to focus on building our militia for the next month; it's in a sad state. It'll probably still be in a sad state after, but at least we'll have the numbers to do stuff afterwards. Karena." The woman looks skeptically towards you. "You take the rest of the militia and begin patrolling a two-block radius from here. Get yourself and your troops some action."
[] "I'm going to assign each of you a different task." Your militia members look curiously towards you. "Lucas, I need you to focus on recruitment. We need at least twice as many as we have now, so you'd better be snappy. Tara, you're on training duty with Conor. Get your men in better shape, and start on the troops Lucas will send you. Karena, you take yours and begin patrolling a two-block radius from here. Get yourself and your troops some action."
