Chapter 11

In my past life, I'd been a working professional. My goals and compensation were decided by those above me, and it was up to me to achieve the former if I wished to enjoy the latter. Even during my time in the army, in spite of the danger, the basic formula hadn't changed - fulfill your objectives, get your reward. I'd been a rat running a maze designed by my betters, looking for my piece of cheese. Now I was a rat in the wild, an entrepreneur operating my own business.

It was uncomfortable. To extend the metaphor, at least the rat in the maze knew there would be cheese at the end if he survived long enough. But as a business owner I could do everything right and still fail - even leaving aside my fugitive status. And let's not forget Being X. I'd been well set in my military career, yet he'd found a way to muck that up. How much more fragile a fledgling company?

I had only one advantage - Velvet Iron Protection was mine. While Lena might officially be CEO, that translated to taking care of the day to day decision making. I was the one who had final say on our strategy. Before, Being X had taken ruthless advantage of my subordinate position in the military's power structure to constantly maneuver me into dangerous positions. Now he could no longer use my workplace environment against me. Any attempts to interfere would have to come from outside my sphere of influence. Thus, the best way to protect myself was to steadily develop my company into a top-notch service provider with a solid foundation. And eventually, I would realize the dream of every start-up of selling out to a larger conglomerate for a fancy sum of money and retiring to a sunny beach. I was thinking Brasilia.

Still, all that was far in the future. Right now, I had to focus on building Velvet Iron Protection into something that could survive the vicissitudes of the marketplace. In particular, I was wary of the Great Depression. While I didn't remember exactly what had caused the massive stock market collapse that had kicked off the whole mess, I recalled that part of the reason the Depression had hit so hard was because the preceding boom had caused the American economy to expand to unsustainable levels. Well, America's economy was definitely booming now, but I was too unfamiliar with the country to tell if they were past the point of no return or not. However, while I would not call myself an expert in business, I'd had enough exposure to understand the best way to protect a company from external shocks - expansion and diversification. Neither of these things were easy, but they held the key to success and security. I set to work with a will.

My first step to expansion was to expand my operations into Qintown. With the recent humbling of the On Leong, I figured I'd built enough of a reputation to make some inroads. At first things went surprisingly smooth. On Leong affiliates themselves would approach us with recommendations or employment offers. Of course, there was a catch, one which was not long in showing itself. The On Leong was an organization largely formed of business owners. Their biggest rivals the Hip Sing were rooted in the labor unions. All those juicy Qintown contracts coming my way? The majority of them were On Leong affiliates that were finding their profit margins threatened by the Hip Sing. It seemed they'd decided it would be much better to let V. I. P. bleed on their behalf.

The results were not long in showing. Repeated skirmishes and drive-byes became common, and five of my men ended up visiting the hospital in the first month. They gave as good as they got, though, and it should have been enough, but I'd underestimated the tenacity of the Hip Sing. Over twenty of them, armed with pistols, knives, and shotguns, managed to pin down two of my men in an alley. The resulting firefight killed both my agents, but they took six of the enemy with them. The papers called it 'The Battle of Qintown'.

And what was the result of this extremely public fracas? Almost nothing. The cops came around and asked questions and poked around for all of three days. Then they packed up and went home. Even when my own people managed to identify some of the surviving assailants, not one of them was arrested. As Lin explained to me, the police did not care for what happened in Qintown, and the Qintown residents did not care for them.

Faced with such a situation, for the first time, I made the conscious decision to commit a crime without being forced into it. The On Leong had been happy enough to point out several high-ranking Hip Sing members who were at least partly responsible for the attack on my men. I settled on Shun Lee. The man was notorious enough that even the usually aloof police had made the occasional effort in his direction. Best of all, he was currently involved in a multi-sided feud with his own colleagues for influence in the Hip Sing. When he died eight days after the attack on my men, his bodyguards would swear the killer had worn the face of a known thug in the employ of one of Shun's biggest rivals.

I had no doubt that the law would call what I had done murder. But given the situation, I considered it nothing more than preemptive self-defense. Between my illusion magic and the police's apathy towards all things Qintown, I felt far safer doing this than anything I'd been involved with on the Rhine front.

Sure enough, the Hip Sing were quickly embroiled in internal feuding, and I took the opportunity to shore up my presence in Qintown. While I never admitted a thing, it was clear the On Leong were grateful for the reduction in competition as they almost seemed to fall over themselves to give me anything I needed. Well, since they had used me, I felt no qualms about using them. Using their links to the business community I got myself a large unsecured loan at a very reasonable interest rate and a twelve-year maturity date. One could not underestimate the value of such a loan, as it gave me the financial depth needed should the Great Depression blow up at the worst possible time (which, knowing Being X, it would). Cold as it was to admit, it was almost worth the two lives lost. The Empire had certainly sacrificed more lives for less gain during the war. Now that my finances were secured, I could implement several things I'd been putting off.

First was a proper urban combat training center. While I might not know much about the tricks of door-to-door fighting, at least I could give my troops some experience of the terrain with mock-ups of streets, warehouses, shops, and apartments. A large warehouse with modular walls designed to simulate a variety of environments fulfilled this need.

Second, was a proper rapid-response force. So far my agents got around the city using a combination of vans and public transport, but the deaths of my men had underlined the need for quick reinforcement with heavy firepower. A dozen Indian Scout motorcycles for speedy transport and twice that number of Thompson submachine guns would hopefully alleviate the issue.

Part and parcel to the rapid response force, were rapid-response medical and legal teams. While I couldn't afford to run my own hospital, having trained medics to keep injured parties alive until they could get to a proper hospital was another necessity. And while the police might ignore Qintown, I was already seeing hard questions being asked about the heavily armed masked men in the whiter parts of town, so having an in-house lawyer on-call was a superior option to relying on law firms. The lawyer in question was a young public defense attorney named John Riley who had a decent record, but was looking to increase his income to support his new wife, and I was happy to pay well for someone with a proven track record.

Third was instituting regular magical testing of the ignored parts of the population. When I'd first started building Velvet Iron, I'd focused more on experience and discipline than magical talent. It had been blind luck that had led to the three mages in my employ. Now that I had a solid core of disciplined agents to train newcomers, I could focus on this untapped market. As one might expect, the cost of magic testing got much cheaper when you could do it in bulk. A trained nurse, a couple of laborers, and an old testing system was all I needed to start the process in local high schools. Even though I had no intention of hiring anyone below the age of 18, it was still good to build up a list of potential candidates from low-income neighborhoods who would otherwise never be able to afford magical training.

The funny thing is, I didn't even want mages for their combat potential. Once firearms come into play, the difference between a C-rank mage and a trained soldier isn't that big. What I wanted, no, what I needed them for was communications. I never realized this during the war since I always had access to communication spells, but the so-called portable radios of this time were a joke. Massive backpack sized instruments that required a dedicated trooper to carry, and a second trooper to operate if you wanted to talk on the move. Civilian orbs, on the other hand, could handle short-range communications just fine if there was a receiving orb tuned to the incoming signal. In hindsight, it was amazing the Imperial Army didn't enlist C-rank mages en masse just for this tactical advantage. But then, even the weakest mages were too rare to support an entire army. Even I was only hoping for a few in order to cut reaction times for emergencies.

The last major move I made was further expansion - this time, overseas. The best way to survive the Depression would be to get out from under ground zero. I was given a golden opportunity in this regard with the latest set of telegrams from Londinium. It seemed Barrow and his squad had done yeoman's work shoring up Murdoch's position. Murdoch himself was so impressed both by their skill and by Velvet Iron's business model that he'd written to Lena proposing a partnership - he would provide the manpower, funding, facilities, and local knowledge, and Velvet Iron would provide the core cadre and training for a brand new Londinium-based protection service.

That was honestly a pretty good deal. One of the biggest issues I was constantly running into was the lack of local knowledge. Having an expert like Murdoch take the lead was ideal. And considering a move like this would get a dangerous gang boss off the streets and into a legitimate line of work, it was practically my civic duty to take the deal. Of course, I wasn't going to be stupid about it. Just for starters, I couldn't leave Barrow in charge. While a fierce and disciplined fighter, when off-duty Barrow was what Americans called a 'soft touch'. Leaving him in charge would have Murdoch and his crew walking all over him in a matter of days. Instead, I turned to my second in command, Alfred Blake.

The former sergeant had proven himself an adequate second-in-command in these months. While not up to the standard set by Weiss, he was still stolid, reliable, and efficient. I impressed upon him the importance of his task - under no circumstances was Velvet Iron to compromise its standards of training and integrity. I knew Murdoch would pressure him to get boots on the ground as fast as possible. His job was to make sure the agents certified by the new firm were up to the standards we had established in New York. Once he was properly briefed on his role, he left for New York along with a dozen agents who didn't mind moving to Londinium, as well as Lena.

I hated losing Lena, and I wouldn't have let her go at all if I hadn't thought she was sincere when she promised to come back. After all, there was still an arrest warrant out for her in Londinium. To minimize risk, she was going to make the trip as short as possible. Get in, make sure Blake got settled in, and get out. And maybe catch up with her boyfriend (who she insisted wasn't, but she was only fooling herself). All told, she was only going to be gone for three weeks. I could cover for her that long.

Of course, the months leading up to Lena's trip (or should I call it infiltration?) to Londinium wasn't all work. I took some time to have some fun too. I realized I might have a bit of a sadistic streak, considering how much amusement I found in putting a soft city girl like Changying Lin through my version of boot camp. Credit to her, unlike those idiot cadets in Officer School, I never actually had to stick a gun in her face. A few death threats and extra-hard drills was enough to convince her of the virtue of never slacking off or being late. There was just something satisfying about taking soft clay and whipping it into something strong and useful - and if I took more pleasure than I should in the cute sounds of distress she made along the way, well, I never denied having issues of my own.

Now, I didn't just use her as my personal chew toy. When I wasn't training her, she was training me in the art of Feng Shui. I use the word 'art' advisedly, since there was little logic to be found in the exercise. First of all, Lin had never been taught any kind of theory of magic. Her efforts were almost purely by rote, learned from an old book on the subject owned by her family. And when I asked her to replicate her efforts, absolutely nothing happened the first few times. After some close questioning, and some experiments using my own vastly greater power, it turned out the reason I'd seen a noticeable effect at all was because Lin had been doing the exact same ritual, on the same rooms, for going on six years.

Well, I didn't have six years. Now that Lin had modern mage training, she could consciously tap into her magic, but even then we were hardly seeing any effect. Even my greater power was producing barely any result, and pushing it just caused damage to the focusing objects. After playing around with it for a few weeks, I determined that the problem lay in the rituals themselves. A lot of rituals in the books Lin dug up were simply useless - they refused to absorb any power at all. The few rituals that actually seemed to be absorbing power were doing it too slowly for my taste. It was clear these rituals were horrendously inefficient, and needed to be optimized.

That... was an issue. All my spellcrafting experience was rooted in computational orb theory. Even for me orbless spells, I was modifying my prior knowledge. And even here, my specialty lay in the various combat and support spells useful to an aerial mage. Ask me to modify a medical or metalworking spell and I'd be lost. Feng Shui as a system had spell structures that I could hardly recognize, let alone modify. Might as well ask a graphics designer to write the operating system for a vacuum tube mainframe. I hated to admit it, but to create a formalized system for spellcasting using Feng Shui, I needed someone on the caliber of Schugel, and even for him I suspected it would be a long-term project. Still, even if a general theory of Feng Shui was beyond my reach, I and Lin could still tinker with the few spells we knew might work.

It took until after Lena's departure for Londinium before we finally had a breakthrough. We finally managed to move around the right objects to the right places to see a greatly improved rate of power absorption. It was one of the most useful rituals too - a generalized ritual of health and good fortune.

The new and improved ritual took me two hours of careful meditation to power up. For Lin it would have taken two weeks, a couple of hours each day. Once it got going though - well, I knew it was doing something. Further waiting also showed that unlike the spells I was used to, a Feng Shui ritual could keep going for a long time without recharging, and recharging it only took a short daily effort on Lin's part. Now I had to find out what it actually did.

In the spirit of scientific inquiry, I had my agents perform a number of repetitive tasks both in and outside the ritual area. Considering it was supposed to promote good fortune, games of chance like dice or cards surprisingly showed absolutely no effect. Maybe because all the players were within the area of the ritual? However, when it came to things like equipment maintenance and physical exercise, I could feel the ritual stirring. The results, compared to the control group, were small but significant. Equipment repair, would, on average, take less time and give better results. People exercising under the field went for just a little bit longer, and their bodies showed less signs of stress when they were done.

All told, the improvement boiled down to barely three or four percentage points. But as any banker (or gambler) in the world will tell you, every single percent matters. Even if it was the only ritual we could get working in a practical fashion, it was time well spent. Lin and I took a weekend to redecorate and sanctify the main office and primary training facilities. Once I had a few more mages under my employ, I'd extend it to the smaller safehouses, and maybe to the Londinium offices as well. Should I provide it as an optional extra to my clients? That would first require convincing them it worked, which would require revealing the mages in our ranks, and that was something I was trying to keep a low profile on. Something to think about for the future.

I was however, looking forward to seeing Lena's face when she saw the newly decorated offices. It wasn't that they looked bad, in fact the effect was quite harmonious, but it would certainly be startling to someone of Western sensibilities, if the strange looks it got from most of our employees was anything to go by. It would be interesting to hear her thoughts on the matter, and she was due back any day now.

November 4, 1926, Londinium, Albion

Lena raised an imperious eyebrow. In spite of his size, Barrow cringed like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar. After letting him squirm for a moment, Lena spoke, "This is the 'promising recruit' you mentioned in your last letter? Really, Barrow?"

"Oi, don't talk as if I ain't here!" broke in the 'promising recruit'.

"Hush Jenny, I'll deal with you later. Well, Barrow? I'm waiting. Isn't she a bit young for you?"

"It ain't that, Miz Brown. It's just that, she been coming for the last two weeks every day for the training. She been really going at it, almost keeping up with the boys now, and I figure she been trying so hard, what it hurt to give her a chance?"

"Oh, I don't know, maybe because our cutoff is eighteen, and she's what, twelve?"

"Oi, I turn fourteen in a month!"

"Which is not eighteen. Honestly, why would you even encourage her like this, Barrow? You know better..."

"Lena, stop ignoring me! And stop pretending any of this age bullshit, if Tina's a part of this then so am I!"

Lena narrowed her eyes at that, and said sternly, "Tina and I went our separate ways. There's no one of that name in VIP."

"Hah, as if you'd get to be in something like this on yer own! I know all about your Big Boss Jenny. About my height, cute as a button, and a stone cold bitch? Ring any bells? I dunno how she's passing herself off as a redhead and eighteen, or why she stole my goddam name, but there can't be two Tinas running about in the same country! And if she's actually eighteen then I'm a nun!"

"For god's sake, keep your voice down!" Lena hissed furiously while glancing about. "Are you trying to wreck everything? What do you even want?"

"I want to go to New York. I want to work for her again. Murdoch's nice and all, but..." the brash tone actually turned into something almost sad, "If... if she really don't want me around, I want to hear it to my face. Please, Lena?"

Lena rubbed her head for a moment, then sighed. "Fine. Fine! But you keep your lips zipped, got it? As far as the world knows, there's going to be two red-haired Jennys in New York, and no one called Tina. And that goes double for you Barrow! What part of 'only show the mask' did you not get?!"

"Sorry, Miz Brown..."

She gave a sigh. "Jenny, I hope you got your papers in order, and start packing. I'm leaving on the 7th, and I guess you're coming with."

November 16, 1926, Amstredam, The Empire

Two young women sat at opposites ends of a busy restaurant during the dinner rush. Both of them were eating alone, yet neither paid any attention to the food, focused as they were on the conversation no one else could hear.

"So, Elya, you leave for Londinium next week?"

"Yep! After that bitch Mary blew up at you my boss raised enough of a stink that I've been permanently assigned to Strong's little team."

"She hates Imperials... so they're going to assign an Imperial to work alongside her?"

"Of course, because the Unified States and the Empire are the best of friends! Or, at least, we haven't shot at each other recently, which is probably the best we can get. In the spirit of continuing cooperation between our great nations, the American Interpol team will be joining forces with the Empire. Plus, neither of them are very good with Germanian, and we are chasing a Germanian fugitive. It makes sense if you don't think about it too hard."

"Hmph. So you are going to join them in Londinium. They've been there for almost six months though. What have they been doing?"

"Beats me. I'm sure I'll find out when I get there. But from what we've heard, they seem to be almost going door to door for anyone with in the city with even the vaguest connection to the Empire, trying to find a clue to the team that snatched the Major."

"I see."

"You're still not going to tell me what really happened?"

"Elya..."

"Yeah, yeah, need to know. Well, wish me luck. And keep your head down, things at court are still a bit unsettled I hear."

"Don't worry I'll be careful. And all the contact points and dead drops are ready in case you need to pass anything along to me."

"Well, don't expect anything from me unless it's really important. And I know there's only one thing - or person - you consider important, Visha."

"Can't you find something else to tease me about?"

"Never!"

December 12, 1926, New York

"Jenny, you finished your reading?" asked Lena, as she served up dinner.

"Yes, Mom," groaned the young girl. "I can't believe you two are going to make me go to school! This is not what I came to New York for!"

"Well, tough," I responded as I sipped my coffee. I was back in my Moana guise as we were in our home (a much bigger apartment than when I first arrived in the city) and I looked sternly at Jenny. "Feel lucky I'm letting you work part-time and take part in the exercises. But I won't have any illiterates in my company. You will go to school come spring."

"Can't you make it so I get it early like you did?"

"Well, do you already know all the material? No? Didn't think so."

Jenny huffed, then changed the subject. "Are you actually going to go to Jersey after New Year's?"

"I'm afraid so. VIP is still expanding, and I need to open up a new market. Some of my customers here have been good enough to recommend me to their Jersey colleagues, and I can't turn down the opportunity."

And wasn't that the truth. Honestly, I had absolutely no interest in going to Jersey at the height of winter, the weather was going to be absolutely miserable. But VIP needed to expand and diversify to different markets. While New York was a large city, there were only so many opportunities for a high end private security firm that specialized in long-term protection.

The truth is most people who could afford our services were also usually well off enough to either live in well-policed areas or have private security of their own. The number of people who both needed and could afford our services, like my first customer Brady, were few and far between. Most of the time I had squads, or even single agents, protecting entire streets, the residents all pooling their money together to hire us. My company's field strength was nudging close to 150, and I really didn't see New York needing too many more to service our customer base. I'd started operation and Manhattan, and had already expanded service to Brooklyn and Queens. I needed to start looking for new markets, and the next state over was the logical choice.

While I had the cadre in Londinium, most of the strength in the newly founded Tilbury Security was going to be locally recruited. I planned to do the same in Jersey. Take a core of veterans to get things started, then start recruiting locally to establish the New Jersey branch of Velvet Iron Protection.

My thoughts were distracted by Jenny's next words, "Can't I just go to school in Jersey then? That way I can stay with you!"

"Two reasons. One, my company HQ is still in New York. Once things get set up, I plan to come back here. Second, I actually managed to get you into a pretty good school, I doubt Jersey has anything better. Finally, it's not that far. You'll see me on the weekends. So stop being a baby."

"That's three reasons."

"Eat your food and shut up."

Just then there was a quiet curse and I found Lena almost tipping over a small rooster statue that was sitting on a stool. "I know you said this Feng Shui thing reduces the chances of accidents... but did you calculate the increased chance of accident from all these fool knickknacks?" came the loud grumble.

"Oh, you can shut up too."

January 12, 1927, New Jersey State Police station, Jersey City Downtown,

The station commissioner looked up as one of his senior detectives entered his office after a brief knock.

"This had better be something important."

The detective ran his fingers through his greying hair. "Oh, I think it is. Just came in from dockside. There's a brand new sign out on one of the buildings. Velvet Iron Protection."

"That... sounds a bit familiar."

"It should be. Battle of Qintown, ring any bells?"

"Oh right, that fight between those chinks and them strikebreakers. A few folk died on both sides, right? So, what, they setting up shop here?"

"Strikebreakers, is that what you think? Hah, these boys ain't no Pinkertons. No, the Velvet Irons are downright nasty."

Now the commissioner was taking notice. "Have you heard something, then."

"Oh yeah. Had a word with some friends in Midtown. Those bastards rule half of Manhattan. Officially, they're a private security firm. All nice and legal with contracts and taxes paid and everything. Underneath, you got one of the most brutal and terrifying protection rackets in the country. Word is, the first anyone knew about them, was when one of their boys put four of Luciano's in the ground, and they got Brady's bunch paying tribute to them almost right off the bat. Qintown was just the latest. They been picking off competition and taking over turf without even slowing down."

"And the cops are keeping their hands off?"

"Not much they can do. Them boys are real clever about toeing the line while out in public. Any shooting they do is all provably self-defense or defending their clients. It's gotten to the point where they don't even bother hauling them in for questioning any more, it's always the same. And when no one is looking, folk who might give them trouble... just tend to disappear or have unfortunate accidents. No evidence, no witnesses."

"And the other gangs are just taking it?"

"Oh, a few try to fight back. It never ends well. See, that's the thing. Whoever's behind Velvet Iron, they got some serious muscle. As in ex-military, maybe former Marines or some shit. Their boys ain't the kind of thugs who go around waving guns and making threats. Word is, each is a trained killer. Can shoot the eyes off a fly at twenty paces, they got armor, bikes, training, the works. They less a bunch of crooks and more a fucking army."

"... I think the Mayor might need to know about this."

"Yep. And you get to tell him."

"Fuck."

January 14, 1927, Londinium, Albion

They'd been in this city for almost seven months. The truth was, after the first four they'd run out of leads. At that point, they'd sat here spinning their wheels for the lack of anywhere better to be. Even the presence of their new Imperial 'consultant' had barely merited more than brief interest. Well, Captain Strong didn't seem to mind, he'd been taking the opportunity to build closer ties to Scotland Yard and British Intelligence.

Mary Sioux understood the importance of networking. After all, Interpol was meant to be a permanent organization, there would be many other cases, and a good working relationship with the Albish could only help future endeavors. But Tanya von Degurechaff was the only case she cared about, and the waiting was almost intolerable.

Waiting for what? Why, for the Devil to show herself of course! The Captain was convinced a personality like Degurechaff couldn't hide for long unless she was dead.

At least Mary had managed to use her time productively. Not that she'd enjoyed the results. Under the pretext of investigating Degurechaff, she'd demanded records of Albion's every single encounter with her. And just as Serebryakov had said, there was the report confirming the death a Legadonian mage, Anson Sioux, who had voluntarily joined on during Albion's last skirmish with the 203rd.

Now, sitting in the chilly office, she once more stared at the proof that her father had ultimately placed his - what? His vengeance? His patriotism? - over the love for his family.

Once more, as many times before, the report slips from her hands and she buries her face in her arms, and as she has been taught since childhood, she prays. What does she pray for? At this point, Mary herself isn't sure. It is less words and more a wail of anguish. A desperate voice seeking for a sign, anything, that there was some meaning to this world. Some purpose beyond betrayal and cruelty. That there could be some kind of reason why a good and kind man could abandon his family without a word, whereas a monster like Degurechaff could command loyalty undying.

As so many times before, she finds no answer. Drying her tears, she gets up to collect the scattered files and papers. As she is moving about, she notices a few pages that have slipped to the floor under her chair. Being a naturally neat person, she picks them up and glances them over. She recognizes them, part of a criminal investigation report. In a desperate effort to find Degurechaff, they'd been going over every major reported crime in Londinium since her disappearance. It was a Herculean task, given the sheer size of the city. The only reason she even recognizes this report is because it had been somewhat unusual even for Londinium - six men found dead in a public shootout, including one police officer. She hadn't looked too closely at it since it seemed like it would have nothing to do with Degurechaff - the other five men had all been known criminals, it was an obvious gangland shootout.

As she returns the papers to their proper file, though, something catches here eye. At the very end of the file, there is a list of persons of interest in connection to the shooting. Included in the list is a girl of estimated age 12, dark hair, dark eyes, Chinese features, calls herself Tina, speaks accented Albish, suspected of being a thief, approximately four and a half feet tall.

Tanya Degurechaff was about four and a half feet tall, spoke accented Albish, and looked around twelve. She was also suspected of having come into possession of a computational jewel, and was infamous for her use of illusions in combat.

It could be nothing. It could be everything. It could be the sign she'd been looking for. Mary didn't know what the truth was any more, but she was going to find out.