Chương 466: Mercenaries and Vixens

A smiling security guard and a large nurse met Uncle Vern as he left the room where his career at ACME had taken a sudden downward turn at Albuquerque and stranded him in Nebraska. Vern didn't know much about Nebraska other than the fact that if ACME sent you there, you didn't come back. Many people might have enjoyed vacationing in a place with few people and beautiful wilderness areas to explore. Vern hadn't gone hiking in his life and couldn't tell a tree from a bush from a cornstalk.

He briefly considered hiring a lawyer, but the only lawyers he knew worked for ACME, and he knew how expensive a legal fight versus HR would be. He knew a lot of secrets and where the bodies were buried, but that was to keep people below him in line. He had no devastating secrets on anyone above him that could help him. But as he walked down that hallway with only TPS reports and a cold Nebraska winter in his future, he knew he'd do anything to save himself from going into exile.

A moment later, his resolve was tested as he saw Billy and Layla walking toward him, followed by some urchin in pigtails. Vern had to ask himself if he was desperate enough to beg Billy for help. He suspected Billy was behind some of his troubles but had never had solid proof. And ACME might not even care. ACME only cared about results, and Billy had gotten results. Vern swallowed some of his pride and spite, trying to spin things in his head and come up with a plan to get Billy to back him against HR.

While he was trying to think of something to say, they closed the distance. Billy grabbed his hand and shook it, "Hiya, Vern. Damn, you are looking terrible. Grab a seat and take a break." He turned to the security guard, "Go rustle us up some sandwiches and a few beers from the executive lounge and hustle them over here. Good Man." The guard had his orders, but he also knew Billy's reputation for remembering people who crossed him and Layla's reputation in general. He raced off to get the food.

Vern was confused, he'd expected Billy to either gloat or be angry.

"Billy, my boy. And the lovely Miss Vandergilt. Congratulations on the promotions. Nothing makes an old man happier than to see the students he mentored succeed. I was hoping to talk with the two of you." A stern voice cut in.

"Mr. Kovacs, I'm escorting Mr. Throckmorton to his seat on a private jet that is leaving for Nebraska in a few minutes. There's no time for talking, sandwiches, back door deals, gloating, or other traditional ACME pastimes. I'm on a schedule, and you are not going to get in my way." Billy turned to the nurse. He knew her. No one sent 'Battleaxe' Mary Rosenberg to escort someone unless they wanted that person to be on a plane immediately.

She had the authority to cleave through red tape the way a berserk Orc cleaved through Paladins. Billy's voice was polite and careful, "I need a small favor, Mary, if you would be so kind. I'd like to talk to Uncle Vern for just a little bit while he recovers his strength. We wouldn't want him passing out on you and having a heart attack. Can you give me twenty minutes?"

"Ten, and I'm sticking around, and you owe me a favor."

"Small favor.

"Big favor. Or I'm putting Mr. Throckmorton under my arm, breaking one of yours, and walking away. And he doesn't get his sandwich."

"A Big Favor it is then, and ten minutes. And yes, stick around. Vern may need a nurse after we talk. But back off thirty feet and give us some privacy." Vernon looked at his two ex-proteges.

"What are you two up to? Did you know they were going to do this to me? I need help, Billy! You can't let them do this to me, not after all of our time together!" Layla snorted, "Everyone knew, Vern. HR asked for an audit of your TPS reports and reviewed your employee complaint file. They only care about complaints if they need ammunition. Accounting was auditing your hours worked and vacation time. I pay good money to know who's getting audited each week."

"What?! Listen, Billy, I need... Billy glared at him.

"You need to shut the hell up Vern, and listen, I've got nine minutes left. If you're a good listener, eat your sandwich, and nod in agreement at the right times, I can save you."

"But..." Vern stopped talking and nodded. He recognized the speech. He'd certainly spoken that way to Billy, several times. Desperation sharpened his wits.

"You screwed up Vern. And I'm not talking about never changing your passwords, which you haven't, even after Sammy. I'm talking about two specific things: Screwing me over, and starting a war with the Empire. You should have learned the southern language better or had an interpreter or a magic item that translated languages. Instead, you bumbled along playing God-Emperor and told your underlings to build a big road to the Empire. Big roads mean War in the Saurian language, Vern.

Because of you, ACME has started a war with the Empire while they have Orcs threatening them from one direction and Winter from another. Luckily, few people know that outside of me and a few smart mercenaries that I can pay to be quiet. Right, Marcy?" The sixteen-year-old girl with blond pigtails wearing a Sailor Mercury shirt grinned as she said, "Long as you're paying, you're the boss, Mr. Billy." Vern sputtered, "What the hell is this child doing here?" The grin went away.

Marcy took a step forward, getting six inches from Vern, with her hands on her hips and a sneer on her face.

"Shut it, Grandpaw! You're an idiot that mistreated some of my best guys. Half of them have PTSD from dying so much in the game. I almost told Mr. Billy to shove it up his ass when he contacted me, but money talks and he's paying me to be here. And you aren't! You don't talk to me, you don't look at me, and if you ever call me a child again, it's going to get you a broken hip!" A wide-eyed Vern averted his gaze as the girl stepped back and ignored him. From where she was watching, the nurse nodded her approval.

Billy began talking again.

"The person you so casually and callously insulted is Marceline Mancour, the First Sword of the Scarlet Sisterhood Mercenary Company and the current head of the Mercenaries Guild. As I was saying, I have a plan to cover up your little faux pas, turn it to ACME's advantage, and further endear our Corporation to the Emperor. Nod if you're following along." Vern nodded, carefully not looking at Marcy.

"Good. Now, I can do this on my own, but surprisingly, there is actually a way you can help me out with my long-term plans. So, I have to ask you a question, Vern: If I can keep you on the Org Chart, help you fix your troubles with HR and Accounting, and get you back in the game, are you willing to go along with the plan?"

"Of course, Billy, we've always..." Billy interrupted him.

"No 'We' this time, Vern. For this to work, I'm the boss. Then Layla. You work for us now. In addition, you follow the orders of the people I assign to keep you alive in the game and in the real world. You're fething 113 years old, Vern, and in lousy shape. You need to rehabilitate yourself here, and you need the same in Genesis." Mary began walking forward.

"Out of time, Vern. Are you in or out? A few weeks in Nebraska or a one-way trip? Hell, you'll be spending half your time in Genesis, won't be that bad, and then you'll be back at ACME HQ and good for another 20 years." Vern nodded and held out his hand, looking even older. Billy shook hands, taking his time, "Get well, I'll be in touch." After Vernon was escorted out the door, Billy sat with Layla and Marcy, finishing the sandwiches. Marcy glared after him.

"I want total control when in the field. I'm not taking any shit from that ignorant old fart." Layla and Billy both nodded.

"You've got it. But don't break him too much. I need him acting like his old pompous self when we start parading him around and starting a rebellion. Which we need to go sell to Dr. Barklight and his minions." While Vice President Belmont didn't bat an eye when Billy and Layla entered the room dressed in all their cosplay finery of the Baron and Baroness of Ghadobhra, he was curious about the young girl with them. Emmet enjoyed dressing up himself and thought board meetings would be a lot more fun if everyone did.

It might even entice Willy to attend more. Willy insisted on full costuming for his many sessions of Dungeons and Dragons. The heads of HR and Accounting were less pleased, although Carl from Game Design was intrigued and jealous. Samuelson from HR was annoyed at the expensive waste of good material, but she knew Thune had done an audit of Billy's expenses and hadn't turned up any irregularities. The man spent so much time online that he barely claimed any expenses at all.

His apartment and pod were both in this building, and he only left his pod for meetings. Even more interesting, Layla Vandergilt was nearly as frugal, a change from past years. The head of HR couldn't help but make a small comment as they entered, "That is hardly proper corporate attire." Layla and Billy took seats and made themselves comfortable and Billy replied, "Yeah? Well, it is where we live. We're used to dressing this way.

We're only out of our pods a few days a month, and 'proper attire' feels constricting. Do you have a problem with how we dress? Want to show me the dress code for Vice Presidents? Otherwise, let's worry less about how we're dressed and focus more on making money for ACME." Belmont enjoyed the look on Sarah's face. Most new Vice Presidents didn't find their footing quite so fast as these two had.

"Yes, let's do that. What do you have for us today, VP Kovacs?" Billy looked at the four of them, "First off, I want everyone to get off their asses, dump their outdated ideas, and get in the game. Things are going to get serious now that ACME has figured out part of the monetization. Being able to sell things for real-world dollars changes everything. Competition for resources is going to heat up and I need a support staff that understands the lay of the land and can make decisions.

I won't always have time to bring you up to speed." He waited for their replies like a fencer waiting for his opponent to lunge. Thune looked insulted, Samuelson was sputtering, Carl was angry, and Belmont was watching the other three. HR took the first swing, "I don't need to understand some make-believe game to handle my department."

"Really? Then tell me the value of the Contract Workers we have to employ. We have hundreds of them in small villages all over the Empire. In the Northern Region, I know who's performing and who's not, but half the managers are never online, they aren't utilizing their workers properly, and we're wasting time. Know who isn't wasting time? Brother Bobo at Nile Books. He's ready to move back to controlling the book industry and branch out from there. So are three to four other corps that know what they're doing.

You think your job is handling managers and people in pods for five years. Our true 'Human Resources' are the workers in the game, and you're doing crap about maximizing their use because you refuse to understand the political and financial complexities of the game." Sarah stated blandly, "Nothing in that game is real. Just pixels." Billy turned to Thune, "Is the money coming out of the game real? I'm selling items made out of pixels for real money.

And the real estate in earlier games could sell for huge chunks of cash. And if you haven't experienced the game, you don't know just how damned real it feels. Screw selling time-share condos. I can build and sell castles, and we can staff them with NPCs or Contract Workers." Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. The head of Accounting considered, "The money going into that game, and coming out are both real.

And you are correct that real estate in the more desirable places of the older games had value, mainly for advertising purposes and using them as catalogs. How far away are you from acquiring those places? I've heard we are blocked from the major cities. Even attempting to buy a simple warehouse cost us money when we were blocked." Layla touched a button on her watch, and the five screens in the room were filled with scenes from Gadobhra.

"Why buy when you can build? ACME doesn't need to rent or buy little buildings within the cities. Billy and I own this city. We're restoring it bit by bit and making money doing so." Carl scowled.

"What the hell!? I haven't seen any of these photos, only long-range shots of the gates when you were trying to gain entrance. Why don't I have reports with all this information?" Billy shrugged, "Dunno. I forwarded them to Vern. Maybe you should ask him? Did you ever go looking? Ever ask? I've seen the output from your team. You're mostly focused on the players, figuring out the stats and skills, quests, magic items, and crafting recipes. I've been filing reports for months. Where the hell have they been going?

Because I can tell you, you're missing a lot of the most important parts of the game." Carl was typing frantically and talking just as fast.

"That's the information requested by the field teams! Especially the teams in the East. They're using a different strategy. Most of the little villages are worthless, so they've been hiring out their workers to the locals and forming exploration parties to generate gold."

"Do tell. How much gold have they put into the ACME coffers so far?"

"Nearly 67, 000 gold pieces last year."

"That's chicken feed. We just made a quarter-million in gold by selling groats this month, and that's just part of what we're working on. Not even our best-selling export." Carl pushed aside his laptop.

"Groats? But I've looked at the commodities markets! You could almost make more money selling dirt to people, and dirt tastes just as good. It's why our little villages are failing. That can't be true."

"And yet the money is in the bank, waiting to be used to fuel growth. In those failed villages, what level were the farmers? And what quality was the grain they were harvesting? Did they have any special skills? Proper tools? It all matters. Guess who my best customer is? The Legion."

"The military is based on several historical models. What does that have to do with anything?" Thune was becoming interested in the conversation.

"Because armies need supplies. The biggest customers for food and raw materials in a pre-industrial civilization will always be the military or the government that controls the military. What else are you selling them, VP Koracs?" Layla put up several spreadsheets: "Rawhide, smoked hides, finished leather, high-quality leather armor, smoked meat, sausage, bacon, catapults, onagers, trebuchets, ballista, s and Greek fire. Oh, and we build fortresses, very nice fortresses.

The first one took care of our taxes for a couple of years." Thune nodded, "Building a military-industrial complex. A traditional way to make money and something ACME has always excelled at. But explain to me the link between in-game wealth and the money going into our bank account." Layla took over, while Billy enjoyed watching Carl stare at the spreadsheets on the wall and Samuelson looked disgusted. VP Belmont stayed quiet, letting things play out.

Billy and Layla had a reputation for drama, but this was a different type.

"To make money at this point, we have to sell in-game items. This is going to be from narrow categories of items needed by players: Enchanted armor and weapons, spell scrolls, magic items, and potions. We have two ways to get these, the first being passive management of the dungeons in Gadobhra, where we skim a bit off the top as a management fee."

"Secondly, by buying items from the players going into those dungeons. With the gold made from other endeavors, we can aggressively purchase from players. We're also building a trade network and purchasing from NPCs in the game. I won't bore VP Samuelson with the concepts of buying goods from traders traveling to the Fae Lands or Elemental planes, but suffice it to say that we are going places no one else is and reaping the early profits from these opportunities."

Thune was nodding and making a few notes, "What's next? Land?" Billy nodded to him, "Land. Buying is difficult, but as Nobles, we can expand our reach by being useful, taking care of the peasantry, and supporting the military. We can add millions of acres for free and hold it forever. Then we can sell small bits, or lease out farms, and charge taxes as needed. There's a whole world out there for the taking. I was skeptical at first, but it's real."

Thune was looking at the data but then put it aside, "And you want more people to 'get in the game' and understand what you're talking about." Layla pointed to a screen with their projections for grain crops next year.

"If I said that part of our success was from better soil and fertilizer that other corporations can't match, you'd want to know why or how. And then I'd have to explain about unicorns blessing trees, enchanted unicorn shit, fertilizer ground in a windmill from monster parts, and improved soil we earned from a war with gophers." Samuelson, "What nonsense are you making up?" Carl yelled out, "NO! I've heard about some of those things. There were corporate announcements.

We got all kinds of angry messages from other corporations, and players have talked about Unicorn Vale and visiting there. Look, it's still just math. Whether the extra growth rate comes from chemical-based fertilizer or unicorn shit doesn't matter. But I think what VP Vandergilt is saying is that if they don't have proper support from people studying the game and experiencing it, they can't maximize profits."

"And profits are what matter," Belmont said, forcefully.

"What are you proposing, then?"

"Everyone at the top needs to make a character and join the game. You need to gain levels to understand more, and so you can travel and not get killed by a rabid field mouse or wandering kobold. We can show you our farming and training methods and explain more of our money-making techniques. Once you have a grasp of what works, you'll know better what doesn't and who is slacking. Layla and I need more control now that Vern is out of the way. Any time we wanted to sack some underperforming manager, they ran to HR.

I don't have time to waste on them, and they're costing us money. We need those workers in other places, earning money or producing goods. Our political power is in the North, and there's a power vacuum I plan to fill. I need more people, but I also need the authority to make changes and the backing of the rest of you." Samuelson shook her head.

"I'm not getting in a pod to go to a fantasy world and play dress up." Belmont turned to her, "Then you're out. Frankly, I'd already decided you were out, but you made it easy for me. Leave please. I'm sure there are other positions for you, and I have someone in mind to take your place." The former head of HR for the division sputtered, glared, and then left to begin finding a new home within ACME. Within two minutes, another woman entered.

She was short and slim, maybe five foot four inches, with short brown hair and glasses.

"You asked to see me, Mr. Belmont?" Belmont pointed to the still-warm chair.

"Yes, Miss Chambers, I did. You just moved up a notch to Senior Management and will be taking over Sara Samuelsons' job. Hit the ground running, there's lots to do. I've been told you play the Genesis game on your time off. Give me the details, please." That was the last thing Avril Chambers had expected.

"I play a Barbarian Axe Master named Varsil Skullcleaver. I'm finishing off Level 14 in a few days. I've got a crew of other women from HR that I play with." Carl looked at his notes.

"I don't have you or any others in HR in my notes. I need to get details about what you know about the game." Avril shook her head, "Oh, hell no! What happens in Genesis stays in Genesis. What me and the girls get up to is none of your damned business. Find your own bars and brothels." Layla whispered to Billy, "I like this one already." Belmont held up a hand, calling for peace.

"Carl, I'm sure Miss Chambers will have some information for you on subjects she feels comfortable talking about. I think that her statement should be a hard and fast rule. I don't want anyone to casually give away corporate secrets. Information flow should originate from VP Kovacs and Vandergilt or myself. What happens in Genesis stays in Genesis." Everyone relaxed. Billy asked Avril, "Where are you located, currently?"

"A mercenary camp over by Cedar Falls, killing orcs."

"We're going to need you to relocate to Gadobhra temporarily. Travel costs are on me, and you won't have trouble with teleports. Bring your whole crew. We've got several dungeons running, and it's a quaint little area." Avril's eyes got bigger.

"Ah... my crew is a little notorious in that area. How do you feel about war crimes and forgiveness?" Billy nodded to Layla, then winked at Avril, "I'm pretty sure that, as Baron, I can pardon you for causing a little trouble."

"Then we'll be there as soon as we can. I just have to work out the details of our contract with the Merc Guild. Don't want them mad at me." The young girl, who'd been quiet up to this point, said, "Damned right you don't. But give me the details, and I'll get you released early." Billy made introductions.

"This is Marceline Mancour. She's the current head of the Mercenary Guild and an important part of my plans." Avril's eyes got big.

"I saw you once! You'd just come back from hunting that huge hydra of the Abyssal Swamps. Damn girl, you're a badass and a half." They shook hands. Marcy was curious, "None of my business, but what war crimes did you commit? I'm always looking for new ones to collect." Avril looked at Billy, "In the misspent youth of my first Tier, my group took a contract to help conquer this little town called Sedgewick. We might have also stolen a few kegs of beer and attempted to kidnap a Butcher.

I'm happy the Baron here is big on forgiveness." Billy was silent for a bit.

"Oh, what the hell, sure. We still won; just don't bet against me again."

"No problem there, boss. Just happy to return. Might have some unfinished business." VP Belmont spoke, "Good, we have a head of HR that is already involved in the game. The rest of us will catch up. Now, what is this new plan, Billy, and how does the head of the Mercenary Guild fit into it?"

"Don't worry. I plan to increase earnings without spending another dime of real-world money. As to the plan, it's a bit complicated, and a key part will be played by Uncle Vern. Layla, please show the new head of HR our revised organizational chart. As of a half hour ago, VP Throckmorton has agreed to work in a new position and report to Layla and me directly." Thune looked at Belmont, then back to Billy.

"He's heading to Nebraska already." Billy grinned, "Where I want him. The old boy needs a check-up and some physical therapy, so he doesn't die on us. That would be inconvenient since I need him when we start carting wagonloads of gold out of the South and saving the Empire from a third war."