Winter was glad when the high drama—ugh—of the initial presentation had subsided. Afterwards, Winter and Weiss sat down with prepared materials and papers to explain in more detail what they meant. It became a floating Q&A session. It was exhausting, but still more useful and rewarding than all the stage play. In Winter's opinion, at least.

"All stockholders will earn proportional amounts of the company's profits," Winter explained to another new group of questioners. "This is how you'll earn more money than you ever could at Fall Dust or any of these other companies. The better SDR does, the more money each employee gets. We will all have a stake in this. When we all work harder and smarter, we all benefit."

"How much stock are we talking about?"

"Weiss and I will own 51% of the company, split between us. The remaining stock will be divided amongst all employees."

"That means you Schnees have all the control," someone grunted.

"On the contrary," Winter said, holding up a color-coded sheet. "Day-to-day decisions can be made with a simple majority, i.e. the CEOs agreeing with each other, but bigger decisions require higher thresholds. Taking on new contracts requires 67% of total stock in favor, for example. The most consequential decisions require both CEOs to agree and a majority of all other employees."

"Which you can rig by hiring more people," said someone else—probably Cristata.

Winter responded by pointing to her sheet. "Expanding the workforce requires an 83% in-favor vote—both CEOs and two-thirds of current employees. Everyone gets to defend the value of their stock."

"That seems like you'll need a lot of employee input. How are you supposed to get that?"

"We'll hold weekly meetings. Anyone who's on-shift during the meeting will be permitted to have a proxy to vote for them, when necessary."

"You're really gonna let people who don't know business make business decisions?"

Winter recognized bait when she heard it. She gave a tight smile. "I expect that people will learn more about business when it's their business at stake."

That bought her a respite from the questions as those around muttered to each other. She contented herself by reorganizing her presentation materials and waiting.

Changing minds wasn't as viscerally satisfying as defeating someone on the field of battle. It wasn't even as satisfying as it would have been to burn down the other Dust companies, repaying their sins with a blaze of righteous (doomed) fury. But it had a satisfaction all its own.


"Yes. I see. I understand."

Weiss twisted in suspense. Allegedly, she was doing final research on how to do business purchases of real estate so SDR could buy those buildings in Skjulte Perle. In actuality, she was listening in on half of Winter's conversation.

The less informative half, unfortunately.

"Is that so? Very well."

If Winter would say something, anything definite, Weiss would feel much better.

"That's it, then. We'll contact you later."

That was good, right? It meant the relationship wasn't closed? No, there were so many reasons to talk to someone even when things had gone poorly…

Winter returned to the table. Weiss couldn't even pretend to be working. "Well?"

"There's good news and bad news," said Winter.

Weiss' guts twisted even more. "Please, Winter, I can't take this any longer."

Winter nodded. "As we agreed, we didn't have anyone sign employment contracts on the day of our presentation. We gave a cooling-off period while we finished up business on our end."

"Is this the good news or the bad news?" Weiss said with a squirm.

"I'm getting to that. We made available a certain number of positions for people to apply to. That call gave me feedback on interest in those positions."

"And?!"

Winter took a deep breath. "For every open position, we had 1.3 applicants."

For a moment, unbridled joy swept through Weiss. They'd done it. Another hurdle cleared. They'd been scared they wouldn't be able to fill all their vacancies—instead, they'd get to be at least a little choosy.

Offering not just money, but control, was irresistible to people who'd never had either. And now SDR would have a work force of veteran miners who knew what they were doing and who wanted to do it well. How was that for comparative advantage, huh?!

Then Weiss flipped over to outrage. "You were leading me on! I was so nervous and impatient I thought I was going to throw something!"

Winter allowed herself a small smile. "It was entertaining to watch."

With an indignant hmph, Weiss sat down. "Okay… that's not bad news, that's good news, which means there is other bad news."

Winter sighed. "Many of the applicants selected a proxy to negotiate wages and benefits on their behalf. Of those who did, almost all of them chose…"

Weiss cringed. "Don't say it."

"…Aster Cristata."

"I said 'don't say it'!"


For as much as Atlas City reflected the desires and self-image of its wealthy, it was not—could not be—exclusively wealthy. Other people were necessary, and it wasn't feasible for all of them to live in Mantle and commute to Atlas.

Atlas included residential towers, built to pack in as many people and families as possible within the grudgingly-granted acreage. The larger apartments were suites suitable for an extended family and possibly a few cousins. The smallest could have fit inside one of Weiss' walk-in closets in Schnee Manor.

(She felt a dull ache at the thought, but she'd lived with it for a while now, and it didn't hold her attention.)

Winter was leading Weiss, not into the very smallest blocks, but only a gradation or two above it. Allegedly, they were going to meet a Dust expert. Weiss had no idea what kind of "Dust expert" might live in a place like this.

At the last apartment in the row, a dizzying height in the air and still nowhere near penthouse level, Winter stopped and knocked. There was a pervasive sour smell at this end of the hallway. Weiss' apprehensions rose.

The door swung open to the limit of a chain. There was a mumble from behind the door; it closed, there was a click, and then it reopened enough to reveal the apartment's resident.

In all Weiss' years of operating in Atlas' upper-class circles, Weiss had never seen someone who looked like this. Their face was broad and bland, with eyes that seemed unable to focus, crowned with short, spiky hair. They were wearing a gray smock and brown pants, a combination that by itself made Weiss want to wince, and which concealed basically all bodily features. Weiss imagined that if she asked a preschooler to make a crayon drawing of a person, the result might look like this.

"Professor Cam," said Winter, making Weiss blink in confusion. Professor?

"No, no, none of that, I'm not a professor anymore. Just Cam," was the reply. Cam looked for another moment, then squinted at Winter. "You were one of my students, weren't you?"

"Yes. Winter Schnee."

"That's right, that's right. Heavy on practical use of Dust, surprisingly light on theoretical knowledge, meticulous in notes and details." Cam smiled. "You had one of the better marks in my class, and you had by far the most partial credit. Even when you didn't understand something, you put enough stuff you did understand around it that I had to give you points."

Weiss couldn't tell if that was supposed to be a compliment or a joke. She wanted to laugh, but didn't know if she should. A glance at Winter showed that Winter couldn't tell, either. "Can we come in?" she said instead.

"Hm? Oh, sure, sure. Mind the mess."

Cam hadn't been exaggerating. The apartment wasn't rundown, dirty, or poorly maintained in the way the Crater or Skjulte Perle had been; it was just full, packed to the gills with things not put away or partially finished. Klein would have torn out the little hair he had left just looking at it.

(That memory was a stab. Weiss carried it more gingerly.)

Weiss revised her opinion when her gaze got to the kitchen area. The counter space was dominated by a baffling array of pipes, chambers, gages, and spigots. The sour smell was much stronger here and was steadily wafting from the contraption.

Weiss barely remembered to shut the door behind her. Once she did, Winter immediately asked, "Pr—Cam… what is all that? Is that a Dust—"

"It's a microbrewery," said Cam with a sniff, and Cam went over to it and checked several of the gages. "Getting a good Dust lab into a place like this? Much more expensive, hard to fit, and the utilities costs… nah, microbrewery was a better idea. Would you like some? This is my fourth batch of beer, and it's the best yet."

Weiss noted faintly that "best" was a relative term, and resolved not to even entertain that offer. "This is pretty elaborate to set up in your apartment," she said.

Cam shrugged. "I'm not much of a drinker myself, but I was bored. It was either this or a lab for making m—"

"Professor," Winter interrupted, before shaking her head and correcting herself. "Cam. Could we talk?"

Cam looked up from the microbrewery in confusion. "I thought we were talking?"

"About business," Winter specified.

"Alright? I guess." Cam stepped away from the microbrewery, right hand shaking slightly.

"I was telling my sister, Weiss, how you were my Dust instructor at Atlas Academy."

"That's right," said Cam. Weiss had the unsettling feeling that Cam was looking both at and past her at the same time.

"I respected your command of the subject matter," Winter went on. "And I knew you must have had a strong background in Dust for the Academy to hire you."

"That's right," said Cam, who seemed to be on more comfortable footing now, even as the right hand kept shaking. "They prefer licensed teachers, and I don't even have an Aura. I was hired strictly on subject matter grounds. My first job was for the SDC, and then I did academic—"

"You worked for the SDC?" Weiss interrupted, unable to help herself.

Cam blinked. "For about eighteen months, yeah. Why?"

Weiss' burst of excitement faded. Why had she expected that to mean anything? Why did it feel like she ought to know Cam because Cam had worked for the SDC? That was unreasonable. At its height, the SDC had been a leviathan, with thousands upon thousands of employees. How could she have expected to know all of them? How could she have expected to know any of them?

Just another thing to do differently with SDR, she thought.

"Never mind. Continue."

Cam's right hand kept quivering. "Yeah, eighteen months with the SDC, then into academia. Did some good research, wrote a few papers. My best was about the conversion of Burn Dust from grains to crystals."

That, Weiss recognized. "You wrote that?"

Another blink. "What if I did?"

"It's just…" Weiss remembered when the article had been published. There had been a big commotion amongst her mother and some board members. There'd been outrage that an outsider knew Dust better than someone working for the SDC, why weren't they working for the SDC, and start using that technique before the other Dust companies swoop in on us dammit…

"…it was well received in the private sector," Weiss concluded tactfully.

"Oh." The bland response was accompanied by zero change in facial expression, like Weiss' compliment hadn't registered one bit. "Uh, after the Burn Dust paper and… some other stuff… I got picked up by Atlas Academy. Worked there for four years."

"I consider myself fortunate that your four years overlapped with mine," Winter said.

Cam almost smiled, but didn't quite make it. "Well, then, that job… got over, and I bounced around a bit, and… well, I'm sure I'll get another one, sooner or later."

Even not knowing this person's rhythms, Weiss could see Cam's nerves and discomfort talking about those last few jobs.

"I was surprised when I heard you weren't teaching at the Academy still," Winter said. "I thought that job suited you. What happened?"

"Ah… well…" Cam swallowed visibly. "I was… I was doing research on my own. Using the Academy's facilities. I did that in academia all the time, that was, you know, normal. The Academy said they only wanted me doing research that directly related to the curriculum. I said I was."

"And?"

"…we agreed to disagree."

Weiss felt more than saw Winter stiffen, but she knew as well as her sister what Cam was saying. The job didn't just 'get over'; Atlas Academy terminated it.

"Is that what happened at your other jobs, too?" Weiss said, unable to resist.

Cam looked from one sister to the other and back again. Shoulders slumped. "This is a job interview that I'm failing, isn't it?"

"We're just gathering information," said Winter, but Weiss knew better.

From Cam's expression, Cam did too. "Yes, I got fired from those other jobs, and for basically the same reasons. I get bored. When I get bored, I tinker. I explore. It's… what I do. I want to do more, I'm always seeing things I can fix, or improve, and it, it truly bothers me when other people can't see that, or when they're okay with something being bad. I have to…"

Cam trailed off, right hand shaking as badly as ever. Weiss blinked and looked again. No, Cam's hand wasn't shaking at all. The thumb was tapping against each finger in turn, rapid-fire, in sequence.

Cam was so restless, and had so much energy, they couldn't even have a conversation without also doing something else for mental-physical stimulation.

"This job seems like a bad match for you, then," Winter was saying, though Weiss heard her only distantly. "We'd have you operating our Dust processing machinery, mostly."

"Would I be building that machinery?"

"Not after the first few weeks."

"Would we be processing types of Dust? Like, Burn one week, Wind another week, Gravity the week after that?"

"Probably not."

"Oh. I see. In that case, I don't think I want the job any more than you want to give me the job."

Weiss didn't really hear that part; she was looking at the room again. She'd thought it just a mess, but with this new idea in mind, she saw the order to it. There were lots of magazines and books, but those were all in dedicated piles, and all together. (All showed signs of having been read.) Any in-progress projects or disassembled things had all their pieces and parts together in one place. The tools were all out, but they were all out together and in one place, and she could almost see a method to their haphazard arrangement. They weren't ordered by size; they appeared to be ordered by wear—the ones Cam used most often were closest to hand.

Something in Weiss' head snapped into place. "What if you could tinker?" she blurted.

Both Winter and Cam inclined their heads towards Weiss in surprise.

"What if," Weiss said, ordering the thoughts as they came to her, "you ran our machinery and our processing operations for most of the week. Then, on the last day of the week, the afternoon is yours. You could use the equipment and machines however you wanted."

"However I wanted?" Cam repeated.

"However they wanted?" Winter said with even less belief.

"Within reason," said Weiss, shrinking before Winter's glare. "All the equipment still has to work afterwards, we don't want you breaking anything or hurting anyone. Just… if you wanted to modify it, or even use it for research, you'd be allowed."

Cam's mouth opened and shut like a fish out of water. Winter's gaze was a blast of cold.

"Would you like that?" Weiss said, her confidence gone.

"I… would?" Cam's voice was that of a person who knows they can't be this lucky but doesn't know what the trick is yet.

"May we have a moment?" Winter said, her voice clipped.

Weiss felt herself shrinking. She walked in mincing steps back out of Cam's apartment and waited, head bowed, for the tirade to come. She already knew how it would go—"this isn't what we agreed", "you're going too far", "you're making this about your feelings again"—and knew she could fight it, but that wouldn't make it any more pleasant.

There was a long, slow intake of breath.

Weiss dared to look up. Winter's eyes were closed. When at last she opened them, the ferocity Weiss expected was lacking. "In the past," Winter said evenly, "I assumed ignorance from you when you did something unexpected. I haven't been giving you enough credit. You've had reasons behind your actions more often than I thought."

Her face screwed up, like it was a challenge to get the words out. "So… I will give you the benefit of the doubt, this time. Explain to me what you were thinking just now." Her face sharpened—there was the glare. "It had better not be pity."

"No," blurted Weiss, before she composed herself. Act like a Schnee. "Of course not. Naturally I have reasons."

Winter quirked an eyebrow. Somehow, the eyebrow said both "go on" and "this had better be good". Winter had very expressive eyebrows.

Weiss swallowed and plunged on. "You know all those articles I've read trying to learn about these different parts of the business? One of them talked about employee freedom and side projects. It talked about a business that tried something like this—every so often, they told the employees to work on whatever they wanted to. Any work-related project they could think of. They said that more work got done during the "free time" than all the rest of the time."

Winter frowned. "That can't be right."

"That was my instinct, too. But Winter, I think… I think you and I, we've been trained to believe that the higher-ups know best about everything. The Dust companies think that way for sure. But what if that's less about knowledge and more about control?"

"Don't speculate," said Winter, and Weiss knew she'd hit a nerve.

She backpedaled. "What I'm saying is, if Cam was your instructor, they probably know more about Dust than you, and probably more than me, too. Which I will take as a personal failing, and study harder to try and address, but still. A person who knows that much about Dust, and just wants to find better ways to do that business? The odds that Cam thinks of one before we do are high. Really high."

"Enough to be worth it, though?" said Winter, looking off-balance.

"Remember the Burn Dust innovation that Cam just freely released to the world? It saved the SDC more money than Cam will earn in a lifetime," Weiss said quietly. "Whether you think that's fair or not is another issue. But if Cam comes up with even one more innovation like that, it'll be a better investment than a whole Research and Development division. This way, we get the R&D and the machinery operator in one person."

Winter closed her eyes. Weiss waited in suspense. "You did have reasons," Winter said eventually. "Good ones, at that."

"Why the voice of surprise?" Weiss said playfully.

Winter's look was flat. "And then you go and ruin it."

"Are you that allergic to humor?"

Winter shook her head. "I can never get your proper measure. Sometimes, you're wise beyond your years. Other times, you're a child. You make it impossible to get a bead on you. I would prefer it if you were one or the other."

"I'm being as much an adult as I can," Weiss said as annoyance strangled her good humor.

"I know," said Winter with unexpected grace. "Keep it up." She hesitated, and for a moment embarrassment flickered across her face. "I'm glad you salvaged this. This was my contact and coming here was my idea. I would have been very embarrassed if it had come to nothing."

Before Weiss had re-hinged her jaw, Winter had turned to the door and gone back into Cam's apartment. "Cam, my sister and I are prepared to offer you employment with Schnee Dust Reborn."

It was hard to tell if Cam or Weiss was more surprised.


"I'm glad that's settled," said Winter.

"Yes," said Weiss, giving Cam's employment paperwork a final looking-over. "Thank you, Sir… miss?"

"Cam," said Cam patiently.

"Cam. Right. Well, thank you, and I look forward to working with you more."

Cam smiled. "Me, too. I feel like celebrating!"

"Why don't you celebrate with a drink?" Weiss said. Winter's face jerked to look at her with deep suspicion, but Weiss ignored her sister. "You said you brew beer."

"Good idea!" said Cam, who went over to the refrigerator. "Like I said, this fourth batch is my best yet."

"I'll have to pass, unfortunately," said Weiss graciously. "I'm below the legal age and I don't qualify for the Huntsman exception. But Winter could join you."

"Perfect," said Cam, putting one of three glasses away but keeping the other two. Now Weiss allowed herself to look at Winter and drink in the expression of betrayal on her sister's face. "Here we are! Cheers!"

Winter looked like she'd have rather fought another batch of Centinels bare-handed than touch the glass, but she took it all the same and, as Cam took a sip, did likewise.

She buried her immediate reaction with ironclad Schnee self-control, but Weiss saw the way her eyebrow twitched. After the shortest sip that could be considered polite, Winter pulled the glass away. "I think it might be an acquired taste," she managed.

"Could be better," said Cam, apparently unfazed by the vile concoction. "I'll keep working on it. I promise I'm much better with Dust than I am with beer."

"I hope so," said Winter, her eyes darting with no small fear towards the briefcase holding Cam's employment paperwork. "In the meantime, my sister and I have other work to do to establish this company."

"I bet. I'll start reading the manuals for your equipment so I'll be ready when you are."

"Excellent."

After they'd finally made their polite escape, Weiss turned on Winter with evil eyes. "So, how was it truly?"

"I would sooner drink paint thinner than another drop of that."

"Call me a child and I'll act like a child."

"Duly noted."


The ball was well and truly rolling now. Sometimes, Winter felt like said ball was a boulder rolling downhill to flatten her, like in those trashy Anima Jones movies her Academy classmates had loved.

Mixed metaphors. For shame.

Regardless, Winter was relieved that the company was finally coming together, meaning it was finally getting more into her arena. The more talk there was of logistics, of first-this-then-that, of setting up and building and laying down and operating, the more comfortable she became.

At last she was able to bend the full breadth of her training and experience to the task. Atlas Academy, for all its various classes, had taught Winter little about establishing a business; her experience in the military had taught her less. But both had taught her about making things happen, about making plans and directing people and establishing thresholds and deconflicting things, and those skills were now coming fully into their own.

About thirty-two percent of the job was keeping Weiss from getting away from herself.

"You can't start work on renovating the warehouse until here," said Winter firmly, pointing at a blown-up image of the schedule.

"Why not?" was Weiss' petulant response.

"Because that's when the first round of housing finishes up," Winter said. "That has to come first. If people don't have a place to exist, you can't bring them in."

"That pushes the whole schedule to the right side of the calendar," was the irritable reply.

"Yes, it does."

"Which further pushes out when we can start operations, which pushes out when we can start generating revenue, meaning even longer before we can start paying off the Huber loan."

Winter nodded. "It's good that you understand that."

Weiss grumbled, but adjusted. Which was a microcosm of their relationship, now that Winter thought of it. Grudging accommodation. Reluctant acquiescence.

And, somehow, as a result, something new and better than either of them could have done on their own.

Which was how Winter found herself, almost before she understood it was happening, on the pier at Skjulte Perle. It was bright despite the early hour, such that even the town's dreariest buildings seemed more vibrant. Before her were two large groups of people, one of townsfolk and one of Crater Faunus. (The groups did not mix.) At the head of the Crater group was Aster Cristata, his clothes as heavy as ever but his expression marginally less surly. (Winter had trained herself—mostly—to ignore the nose, but it was ever challenging.) In front of the townsfolk was a Mayor Leif who was utterly beside himself with happiness.

Even Cam was in attendance—sort of. Cam's image could be soon over a scroll call nearby.

"I wish Klein could see this," said Weiss from Winter's elbow. "He told us the bankruptcy wasn't the end, and he was right."

It wasn't something Winter had expected, it wasn't something she'd given much thought, but she could understand the sentiment. Having everyone who'd played a role in this be present would have had a nice symbolism to it.

Even Winter would tepidly acknowledge that dramatics were useful sometimes.

Which explained the comically large scissors in Weiss' hands. Leif's people had stretched a long ribbon across the pier. That ribbon now separated the sisters from the rest of the project.

Well. After all the barriers they'd sundered just to get this far, a ribbon was a trifle.

"I'm obliged to remind you all," Winter said in a loud voice, "that this has been the easy part. We haven't even really started yet. From here on out, the real work begins."

"Killjoy!" someone in the crowd yelled. Laughter rippled through.

She raised an eyebrow. "If you're all so eager, don't let me be the one to hold you back," she said drily, to scattered chuckles. Winter raised her scroll. On it was the business license for Schnee Dust Reborn to begin operations. She and Weiss both pressed their thumbs to it. The background pigment changed from red to teal.

Excited applause built at that, applause that got louder and faster as the sisters raised the scissors. When the scissors closed and the ribbon went slack there was a general whooping and cheering.

It was the most unabashed excitement Winter had seen since Atlas Academy's graduation day… over the start of a new job.

They really were making things different for people, weren't they?

Weiss's smile was brilliant under the bright morning sun, as free and joyful as it had been since the bankruptcy. Even Winter couldn't help but be affected by it all. The excitement was a current running beneath her skin. "I think it's time," she said, barely audible to Weiss even standing next to her, "to quote an eloquent speaker I know."

Weiss turned a curious eye on her sister.

Winter smiled. "Here's to Schnee Dust Reborn. Let's get started."


END OF ACT 1


Next time: On the Edge of the World