Winter was angry and ashamed. She had hoped that the rumours would not be confirmed or that it would be plausible to believe that if true they were merely isolated incidents. She had not expected to find six branded Faunus at one mine. She was also appalled that the brand had used the initials of the SDC on the faces of the Faunus including two who had been branded over an eye.
The junior inspector she had kept with her during the inspection was either a verry good actor or genuinely had not known about the brandings. The doctor at the mine avoided looking at both the Faunus and Winter. He had refused to discuss the brandings because of patient confidentiality and corporate policy. Winter had taken one of the Faunus aside to ask him to waive his confidentiality.
The reply had been brutal. "You will not be here tomorrow. I have brothers and sisters who rely on my wages."
The lead inspector had been called in by the junior inspector and he arrived with Lieutenant Beamish at the medical facility on the base. He looked taken aback at the extent of the brandings if not the fact of them.
He had asked for a word in private. They had gone into a vacant office and checked that there were no recording devices. He had then said "Clearly this is a serious matter. The senior local management of the SDC has bene notified that there is a matter of concern with reputational implications. I anticipate that an airship will arrive in a few hours tie with representatives of the SDC and their lawyers. I will notify the chief inspector in Vacuo and I expect that he will also be joining us. I have ordered my team to secure the personnel records and to ensure that the medical records cannot be tampered with pending the arrival of my superior."
She said "Inspector, I am concerned that so far as I am aware this mine has been inspected once a quarter for the last ten years without this issue coming to light and without the labour practices being checked."
"Our emphasis has been on health and safety as regards the mine operations. My standing instructions warn me against second guessing how the multi-kingdoms organise their business and I have never encountered such injuries on previous visits. Privacy and confidentiality considerations have meant that we would need to have taken a court case to allow us to inspect personnel and medical records and the decision to take such action is above my pay grade. I would respectfully request that you postpone any discussion of policy decisions until my superior arrives."
Winter nodded. She asked for the inspector to send Lieutenant Beamish in.
"Lieutenant, please keep close to the inspector for the next few hours and detail your men to guard the mine records. If you are threatened with consequences or are offered bribes, note them, but do not otherwise react. What did your investigations reveal about the company store?"
"The pricing is artificially inflated. The store is operated by a separate company and is charged rent by the SDC at what seems to be a steep price. The store also pays a licence fee for the use of its name to a separate SDC subsidiary. The safety equipment sold at the store is bought from the SDC and there is a double mark-up applied in that the SDC sells to the store at a price 20% above its acquisition cost and the store adds its 5% to that cost. The charges paid to the SDC for delivering the goods also appear inflated. As most of the staff are independent contractors they need to buy the safety equipment from the store. It is unusual for them to be able to afford to buy it outright and the HP interest rate is 20% per annum."
Winter thanked him for his input. She knew that Nicholas Schnee had traded off low wages for not gouging his employees at the store. His view had been that running costs should be recovered from the customer and not from the employees. She also reacted badly to being told that the miners had to buy their own safety equipment. Certainly, the thought of making troops buy their own armour and bullets repelled her.
She then thought about what she would do next. She knew that the pressure to pretend that there was nothing wrong here would be intense. She also knew that even if she were not a Schnee, she would not be in favour of publishing to the world the fact that the rumours of the SDC branding its employees had an element of truth to them. However, she would make certain that the highest authorities in Atlas knew the truth and the rumours. An initial report would need to be sent to General Ironwood, Colonel White and to the Ambassador. Her guess was that the ambassador would be inclined to cover up the brandings but would use them as leverage to force the multi-kingdoms to amend their pricing structures and to supply all staff with the necessary safety equipment regardless of their employment status.
In a just world the brandings would be investigated. Corkran had explained what he had been told about them. Vacuo did not have a large prison network and there had been a tradition of community justice whereby persistent thieves where branded on the cheek with a T mark before being expelled from a tribe to warn others not to trust them. More violent persistent offenders tended to disappear unless they belonged to a gang and even then the more psychotic tended to be kept in control. However, in Mistral the infamous Sam Raven laws had been used to control uppity Faunus and brandings had been used to punish those who escaped from prison and those who had attacked police or prison officers.
He had said, "The Vacuoan laws treat each mine as being a tribe and allow the mine owners to dispense justice. Within most tribes there is a system of checks and balances which means that such powers are rarely used excessively. The most important of these is the threat that a large group will leave the tribe if the leadership behaves oppressively and the fear of attracting Grimm if the level of strong emotions within the tribe reaches a fever pitch. The workers at a mine are not normally able to leave. The debts which they incur to buy their equipment and the fact that they are usually the main wage earner for a wider family group means that they cannot in practice leave. The mines tend to be remote which is one of the reasons why they were not worked to exhaustion in the past and the Atlas military can be called on to deal with significant outbreaks of Grimm activity."
He had paused at this stage until Winter had signalled him to continue. "Around a decade ago, rules were introduced by Atlas regulating the conditions in the mines owned by Atlas corporations in Vacuo and raising wages. This was in reaction to the novel "The Desert" by Upton Sepia who had spent some time working undercover for the Mistral Dust Company. They traded off the Atlas military providing protection for agreeing to be regulated."
Winter nodded. She recalled her father ranting about the introduction of these rules and how they would ruin business.
Corkran continued, "I have been told and have no reason to disbelieve the story that a team of three youngish expats from Mistral were employed at one of the SDC mines in Vacuo. They saw their opportunity to rise within the organisation by circumventing the new rules. One of them was an accountant who was good at identifying ambiguities within the rules. One was in security and had a reputation for despising Faunus. The other was the local manager and had a reputation for persuading people by telling them things they wanted to believe. One revisited the prices charged at the company store and perhaps at the time merely recouped the extra wages paid to the workers. The move to selling workers their tools and the move to independent contractor status followed shortly thereafter. This provoked a strike which was broken using force. Amongst the techniques used was to accuse the ringleaders of the strike of violent crimes, criminal damage, and theft. Workers from Vacuo were simply sacked and the cost of their flight back to Vacuo set off against unpaid wages. Those who came from Mistral and Mantle were imprisoned and some were killed or branded with the initials of the SDC. It is safe to say that rules of evidence and a strict attention to the burden of proof were not seen as important in suppressing the strike."
There had been more and while she had not asked for names it was clear to her that Umber Raddock had been the local manager. His success in increasing profitability at the Rising Sun mine had led to him swiftly being promoted to becoming the operating manager of the Vacuoan operation of the SDC and eventually to being the CEO of the Vacuoan operations. She recalled her father remarking with approval that the military in Vacuo had left the SDC to sort out its internal problems and that the inspectorate appreciated the limits of their role.
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Blake was on the Mistral express with Julie and Illia. For once she was not wearing her bow, Julie had groomed her tail and Illia was allowing her colouring to change on a regular basis. They were all dressed in school uniform and fake IDs identifying Blake and Illia as being 17. In Mistral this meant they were allowed to drink alcohol but were not permitted to buy drinks themselves. Julia's identified her as 18 which permitted her to buy drinks, but the preference was for him to offer to buy them wine at an early stage.
The main initial concern which they had with the plan was that businessmen other than Beige would insist on joining them and that they would not be able to end up in his cabin by themselves. Illia had been sent on ahead and had returned saying that he was by himself and the other businessmen in the bar area were playing cards or had already made arrangements for companionship.
Blake had recently turned 15 and her relationship with Adam had recently deepened. While the age difference remained five years, the maturity gap had lessened. She was now a young woman and not a little girl. This had brought problems. It was no surprise to her that she was treated with more respect when she wore the bow than when she did not, but the number of men who felt entitled to stroke her ears without permission had still been a shock. Julie had shared her irritation at the number of men who thought it was amusing to talk about chasing her tail or saying that she was a foxy lady. Unfortunately, this also applied to some Faunus men. Blake was not entirely certain how she felt about the fact that the rest of the White Fang left her alone because of her relationship with Adam.
Julie approached the bar and asked for the wine list. She quickly showed her fake ID to the bartender who stared at her intently. Luckily, this hesitation gave Beige an opening to approach them. He invited them to join him in drinking a bottle of crémenant and they were quickly seated with him in a booth for four. He also showed no inclination to invite anyone else to join them.
He was slightly less sleazy than she had been expecting. Adam had not believed his informant when they had said that he was seen as an OK client by the providers of negotiable affection at Los Lagas. The informant said that OK was not exactly a high bar and simply meant that he did not try and hurt people or leave without paying the agreed fee. He was also seen as a generous tipper. Eventually Adam said perhaps it was true and that while he had been exploitative at the mine, he had not gone in for physically hurting his victims.
They had finished the fourth bottle of crémenant, and it had been easy to ensure that he had drunk at least 60% of the wine himself. The toasting game had helped as only the one of them facing him was required to finish their drink and the glasses were refilled quickly to hide the lack of swigging of the other two. He was starting to handle them (a human would have said paw) but so far he had not groped. He ordered two more bottles and invited them to join him in his compartment.
Julie giggled and said "You a naughty man. Can we trust you?"
He laughed and said, "It is three against one and I would not commit a criminal act on a train."
The three girls exchanged glances. Blake nodded to Illia. It was clear that she was the one in whom Beige was least interested and therefore would be the one tasked with palming the Mickey Finn into his glass and watching out for him trying to drug them. Adam had insisted that this would be a real risk. It was also clear that Beige was more attracted to ears than tails. Blake therefore needed to be the one to get him to open his lap scroll, leaving Julie to memorise his password.
They all walked towards the compartment area of the first-class coaches. There was a cheer from some of the passengers left in the bar and the bartender was clearly disapproving. The bartender was a sheep Faunus himself as was traditional on Mistral trains. Blake made a note to ensure that one of them came back to the bar and confirmed that nothing untoward had happened. Perhaps using the phrase "Oh what fools these humans be" and suggesting that the guard be warned to ensure that Beige was awoken just before Mistral station and perhaps put in a taxi to his hotel would suffice to allay suspicion or concern.
/-/
Umber had sent his deputy to the mine and promised that he would follow shortly. He had put in the request for Beige to be seconded back and had little doubt that he would receive a call from head office tonight. The euphemisms used by the manager at the De Lagers mine made it clear that evidence of the branding had been discovered. A scapegoat was clearly needed and preferably a dead one. He knew everyone would be glad to say that the worst excesses happened in the past and that if they could be attributed to the over enthusiastic activities of the dead and those who were alive could claim that they had been conned by the dead, then so much the better. He also did suspect that Bruce may have kept secrets from Umber. A problem with Umber's semblance was that he could not entirely control it and he suspected that it could have allowed Bruce's crueller instincts to run wild. It was a disadvantage of being a pragmatist that you could not truly understand what a true believer was capable of.
He met Bruce at the SDC main airstrip in Vacuo. Bruce had clearly lunched well, and Umber was confident that he had not yet heard the rumours.
"Umber, you said it was urgent?"
"An inspection team at the De Lagers mine went rogue on us and uncovered past history of disciplining our contractors. I need to know what they could have found there and what may be at the other mines. We need to shut down any investigation quickly and so I need to know what we need to hide."
Both were taking care to hide their faces from onlookers. While lip reading was not an exact science and there were probably no onlookers, better safe than sorry. Umber was hoping that the use of we would reassure Bruce that Umber had not decided to throw him overboard.
Bruce said, "Are you certain you want to know?"
"Yes. Winter Schnee was at the mine and the new ambassador will be happy to throw us under a bus. He has made it clear that he suspects us of having arranged the interruption to his hunting trip."
"Forty eyes, sixty cheeks and one hundred backsides. Fifteen of the cheeks and fifty of the backsides were for real thefts."
Umber kept a straight face. The figures for the eyes were four times what he had been expecting. The cheeks were 50% higher than he had thought. Perhaps he should have kept a closer watch on Bruce.
"I presume that they are evenly spread among the mines."
"Yes. They had the best moral effect if all the animals knew what we were capable of. It also meant that there was a limit on what would be discovered in any one mine if someone from the inspectorate or the military decided to try and squeeze us."
"Frack. What is in the personnel records?"
"Not a lot. I have substituted the names of dead people where I can, but a real investigation would uncover the truth. You know the Mohawks in particular would love to have an excuse to dump me and you in it."
"We just have to make certain that there is not a real investigation. Unless ordered to tell the truth by a Schnee, the Mohawks will not breach their contract."
As Umber had expected, it was important that Bruce Crimson should disappear today. They had been close for twenty years, but he had outgrown Bruce and the man was a sadist. He had rehearsed the scenarios in his own mind earlier today. If he had the chutzpah for it he would have gone for the White Fang assassination option. However, it would be stretching credibility for the White Fang to take Bruce out on the same day his misbehaviour had come to light. He felt that between them ambassador Campion, Major Magenta and Winter Schnee would insist on digging deeper rather than simply burying the story to prevent the White Fang getting further oxygen for their stories of atrocities. On balance even if they went for the hushing up option, they would insist on taking down Umber as well as Bruce.
No one who knew Bruce Crimson would believe suicide and Umber did not see how he could make any death look like suicide. There were people whose Umber's semblance could be used to persuade them that death was the best option, but Bruce was not one of them.
This left three high risk options. He decided that he would go for the highest risk highest reward variant and hope that the two people he had hired were good shots.
"Bruce, I will give you a chance to run for it. "
He saw Bruce draw a knife and start to throw it. Two shots rang out and Bruce fell to the ground. Umber decided that things had worked out for the best in that Bruce had managed to throw the knife at him but that the only result was a flesh wound.
He took out his scroll and contacted the control tower. "Please arrange for the doctor to accompany me on the flight to the De Lagers Mine."
He decided to gibe himself a few hours to think through the next steps. Jacques Schnee would forgive a lot for good damage limitation and he needed time to think through what was the line which most people wanted to believe. He also arranged for the most respectable of the marksmen to accompany him to the mine.
The fact that he had been wounded gave him plausible deniability on not knowing what Bruce Crimson had been up to. However, the level of brandings which Bruce had admitted to him was more than he felt he could admit to Jacques or the military without being sacked for wilful blindness. He would need to hide thirty of the eye brandings, especially those which had happened since he had become CEO of the Vacuoan operations.
/-/
Marrow was feeling confused. The Major was flying him out to the mine with the intention that he immediately accompany the captain back to the base and then leave on a 96-hour pass to Atlas.
Something was going on which Marrow did not understand. Marrow had known from the start of his career that he had to be the best-behaved huntsman in training. Even those who intellectually believed Faunus could be as good as humans found it hard to believe in practice. His performances at the Vytal Festivals had helped in Atlas and Captain Schnee always treated him with respect. However, she was not good with people who were not perfect and assuredly Marrow had some weaknesses. In some odd ways the Major was easier to deal with. He stressed the art of the possible and had at an informal assessment suggested to Marrow that he should not be so eager to please all the time. He had been as close as marrow had encountered to making him feel he was being judged solely as an officer rather than as a Faunus officer.
It was interesting to watch the Major talking to the chief inspector. It was clear that both were worried as to what they would find at the end of the journey, but the chief inspector was clearly not expecting anything good while the Major seemed to be half expectant.
The Major asked "What on Remnant could have happened out there which requires both of us to be there, but no one wants to say openly? It surely must be something more extreme than ripping off the workers at the company store."
The Chief Inspector responded, "Neither of us are businessmen and so profit margins are less crucial to us. Perhaps that is what has upset the SDC and if there is an issue here it will undoubtedly be a problem for the other multi-kingdoms. I would stress that the annual deaths at all mines have gone down 30% since I first started inspecting them 10 years ago."
"Still, it has been a good ten years for the SDC. Have you seen the houses which Crimson and Raddock own now?"
The inspector grunted at this.
Marrow listened carefully and realised that what the Major was doing was stressing how much more the multi-kingdom executives were earning as compared with the chief inspector and the Major.
The Major asked "Are you still in contact with inspector Marine? I gather he is doing well in Argus."
The chief inspector responded "A good man. Whatever else people may say about Colonel Cordovin, she does take safety and preventing smuggling seriously."
Marrow wondered what they were signalling to each other. He wondered if these were two people who preferred to be honest, but were living in the real world, signalling to each other that they would back each other up on mild reforms.
They eventually landed at the De Lagers mine and joined Winter Schnee, Beamish, the local inspector and the mine manager in the main office buildings. The chief inspector asked to be allowed to meet with privately with the inspector and his team. The manager said that the SDC initial airships should be with them in ah hour and a second ship including the local CEO and the lawyers within another hour.
Major Magenta asked if he could a room to speak to Beamish and Schnee. This was granted. They walked in and the Major took out an anti-bugging device. He said "If they complain about me using this they reveal that were trying to listen to us which is an offence. It will not come as a surprise to them that I do not trust as far as I can throw up on them."
Beamish laughed while Winter was stony faced.
The Major continued "Why does everyone want me to be here today? We all know that the SDC robs their employees blind and no one in Atlas cares."
Marrow was shocked by the fact that the major was so honest, but not by what he said. Winter and Beamish were shocked by the fact that he knew it.
Beamish said "I find that hard to believe. However, if they knew they blinded their employees then I do not want to be a part of the system."
Winter showed them some images on her scroll.
The Major nodded. "Captain, join me in the manager's office shortly. I will announce to him that you have been returned to base along with Lieutenant Amin. If you leave within 30 minutes the SDC management will be unable to insist on you remaining here. I should mention that Lieutenant Amin is on 96 hours leave from when you return to base and that he has been reserved a seat on a flight to Atlas which leaves shortly after you arrive back there. Mr Corkran is due back from his mission at around the same time you arrive back at base. I expect you to respect the chair of command in reporting what has happened here today."
Winter saluted.
Within twenty minutes they were in the air back to base. Winter was tapping away at her lap scroll throughout the trip.
At the end of the journey, she handed him two USB sticks and a ring. "Please take the first flight to Atlas. Go to headquarters and ask to meet Clover Ebi saying that you have a message from Winter Schnee. When he meets you, show him the ring and ask to be taken to meet General Ironwood. Give the General one of the USB sticks and ask him to deliver the other to the Schnee mansion for the attention of my father once he has watched it."
Before he could leave, Corkran, the lynx Faunus arrived.
"Mr Corkran. You have 48 hours leave commencing safter you have delivered this USB stick to the Ambassador."
Corkran said "As you command, sir. I thought you might like t' know that the head of security at the SDC Bruce Crimson was shot today allegedly trying t' assassinate Umber Raddock."