Taking over Globalsoft was almost frighteningly easy. Like dynamite with a laser beam. She was on the board of directors easily; it was twice as easy to have them bending over backwards to please her. The few old sticks who could withstand the concentrated attention of Killer Queen, he'd…dealt with.
The first board meeting when she was officially in charge, they went to together. 'Do I look the part?' she asked. It was the first time since they were children she'd asked his opinion on anything. Possibly the first time she'd asked him about clothes.
'Guaranteed to blow my mind, Madame.' He called her Madame now, because his old pet name for her had become universal, and he felt the need to have something that only he called her.
She laughed, the deep, throaty, erotic laugh that he'd always loved. 'So, my old friend, I'm ruling the world. How shall I go about it?'
'Security, Madame. It was too easy to get here. We have make sure no one can do the same to you.'
'You'll do that.' They looked at the empty boardroom, soon to be filled with the only influential people on Planet Mall. 'They have to stop thinking,' she said. 'To stop thinking about anything. Imagination is all it would take to change the world, and I think it's changed enough now.'
'Yes.'
'Who will you be now that you belong to Killer Queen? Still Casey?'
'I have always belonged to you,' he paused, tugging down the sleeves of his immaculate grey suit. 'But no, not Casey. Something more euphonious. Ka-Khashoggi.' He rolled the nonsense syllables off his tongue. They sounded deceptively kind. 'Yes. I will be Khashoggi, Madame.'
'That's not a name.'
He smiled at her, a small, dry smile he'd perfected for her. It frightened most people. 'I shall make it one.'
She laughed again, and he smiled, a smile that only just reached his eyes. They heard movement outside the door. She turned and moved toward it, ermine coat sweeping out behind. Commander Khashoggi, two steps behind and to her left, still smiling a dry, sarcastic, little smile, put on his sunglasses and followed her.