Weiss had become the resident expert in operating the Dust-finder equipment. That meant, as the sisters divided their labor, that she spent most of her time at the mining site, which put Winter in Skjulte Perle.
It made Winter nervous. Grimm were far more likely to encroach on the mining site than on the town, and Weiss had yet to demonstrate her mettle against the grimm on her own. There was no helping it: they couldn't both stay at the mine and leave the town unattended.
Winter had a note on her agenda to have them rotate periodically, but she'd wait to implement that until after Weiss wasn't needed so often on the Dust finder. Until then, she just had to hope that their culling operation had done the job.
There was hardly any time to worry about that, anyway. Plenty of other things demanded more immediate attention.
Example: today was when Cam would be starting up the Dust processing machinery.
"Just as a test," Cam said, less than reassuringly. "I've built it all and installed everything, but you always have to shake these things down."
"You built them to specification, right?" said Winter.
"Of course," said Cam.
"Good."
"…well…"
Winter had been dreading that word. Her eyes closed. "'Well'?"
"I did up the output of the crystallizer," Cam said, patting a machine Winter might have mistaken for a bank vault if not for the thick power cables leading into it. "You get a purer product and less wastage if you convert grains to crystals at a higher temperature."
"Is that what the manual says?"
"It's what the manual should say."
Winter's dread intensified. "But the crystallizer is built to handle that higher output, right?"
"Of course it is."
"Good."
"After I swapped out a filter, replaced a resistor, and installed a larger fuse."
Every time Winter thought she was done falling, the ground gave way.
"But we won't be testing that until we've got some Dust mined up," said Cam, shuffling towards a power panel. Circuit breakers closed with a loud crack Winter found alarming, like a gun fired next to her head. "For now, we're just making sure that everything powers up and gets to its ready state."
Winter resisted the urge to back away. After all, where would she go? While Skjulte Perle's old machine shop was still half-full of incumbent tools of indeterminate age and utility, the other half was now stuffed with SDR Dust processing machinery… none of which Winter understood.
It was a humbling thought. Winter knew much about Dust's weaponization and employment, and she knew enough about mining it to oversee an operation, but these in-between parts were fuzzy.
Watching Cam bustling amongst the machines was like watching a magician muttering arcane incantations. She had to believe the magician knew what to do—but how could she tell she wasn't watching a charlatan?
At last Cam went totally still. For a moment, there was a breathless silence. Then Cam, in an act of pure anti-climax, pushed a button.
Nothing happened.
Winter exhaled a breath she hadn't known she'd been holding.
The lights tried to fail.
Eiszahn leapt to Winter's hand as she stretched her arm, ready to draw glyphs as soon as she figured out which and where and what for—
"It's alright," called Cam, and sure enough as the seconds passed the lights returned to their usual levels. "It's alright. Just a bit of a heavy draw on the front end as it all powers up, but it evens out once the array's at nominal readiness."
The words did little to dispel Winter's feeling that she was surrounded by ticking bombs. "Will it be like this every time?"
"Hm? Well, I guess," said Cam ambivalently, gazing at gages one after another and occasionally making a note. "It won't be often we power everything down and have to turn it all back on again, not if we've got Dust going through all the time. Just a piece at a time for maintenance, and maybe if we run dry on Dust to process and want to save power."
Winter wished that was more comforting.
But then Cam smiled and pumped a fist. "Well, this looks like a successful test! Might wanna tweak the startup sequence a little to ease the initial power draw, and I bet I can streamline… hm."
Cam bustled about, scroll out in note-taking mode and fingers flying, and Winter talked herself down. This was good. This was why they'd hired Cam in the first place. Operations and R&D all in one person. That was literally irreplaceable.
Keeping Cam happy and engaged was just good business.
Winter frowned at herself. The words rang wrong in her head.
Keeping Cam happy and engaged was mission-critical.
There it was.
Weiss could critique Winter all she wanted for clinging to a military mindset, but if it helped her do her job, Winter would keep doing it.
"Let me know if there's anything else you need," Winter said.
"I will," said Cam, who then looked up from the scroll and smiled. "And thanks for dropping by. I can't wait for us to really get started! There's so much I want to show you!"
Winter knew that Cam had just mentally signed Winter up for periodic visits, which was near the bottom of the list of things Winter wanted to do.
Maybe she could make Weiss do it.
"I want a caboose," said Weiss.
"Are you six?" said Winter.
"We need a caboose," Weiss amended.
"Apparently you are six."
Weiss glared at Winter. "Do you even know what a caboose is for?"
"The romance of it all?" said Winter.
"I won't deny that's part of it, but it's also practical." Weiss pulled up an image of the Skjulte Perle area. The mining site was drawn according to its planned dimensions rather than its current dimensions, which were still nerve-wrackingly small. The rail line from Skjulte Perle curved around the mountain, out into the tundra, and out of sight off the edge of the diagram.
Weiss zoomed out, bringing more of the rail line into view, and between that and scrolling over she was able to see where the line terminated. "The rail commute from Skjulte Perle to Junction is six hours," Weiss said. "Unless we can spring for a newer engine."
"Which we can't," Winter said firmly. She'd seen their account balance—specifically, she'd seen the way it was emptying.
"Which we can't," Weiss agreed. "So it's six hours there, six hours back, plus time at Junction disconnecting our cars, exchanging them for new and empty cars, and joining the full ones to the primary trains that transit the Port Solitas-Mantle line."
"And those trains will take the Dust to the Mantle wholesale markets," Winter said, remembering that detail. "What part of that means we need a caboose?"
"The part where one of us needs to be on every transit," Weiss said. With a wave of her fingers, a new overlay appeared. Light red concentric circles were centered on Skjulte Perle. Dark red, almost brown, circles ringed Junction, while the Port Solitas-Mantle tracks were bounded by thin pink strips. There was no red of any pigment along the Skjulte Perle-Junction line.
"We can clear out the grimm around our base," Weiss went on, gesturing to the circles of safety around Skjulte Perle. "And Junction pays to ensure no grimm come near that town—the military keeps a garrison there, too. There are occasional sweeps along the length of the Port Solitas-Mantle rail line, but it's just too much ground to keep completely clear. That's why the trains themselves…"
"…Are armored and guarded," Winter finished, seeing where Weiss was going. "But our train isn't."
"Nor can we afford to upgrade it, and the Skjulte Perle-Junction line is far too much area to keep clear manually. That means one of us needs to be on every trip the train makes."
The logic was inescapable. "Fine," said Winter, "but what does this have to do with a caboose?"
"The original purpose of the caboose was to be the office for the train's cargo master," Weiss said. "Those were people who lived with the train. They kept track of the cars, on- and off-loads, navigation and timestamps, accounting, things like that."
"None of which apply."
"Not as much—but with us running around like griffons with our heads cut off, do you really want to go a full business day, maybe two, with us not being able to do any work?"
"No." Winter didn't even have to stop to think about it. Not work? The idea was anathema. Her team leader at the Academy had needed to order her to take periodic breaks. Her team leader wasn't here now.
"Me neither," said Weiss. "Hence, the caboose. It can be our mobile office while we're on train escort duty. It's perfect for the task."
Winter gave Weiss A Look.
"Yes, it also happens to be… aesthetically pleasing."
Both sisters would sooner cut out their own tongues than lower themselves to the dialect of commoners. "It's so cool" was peasant talk.
"Fine," said Winter with her best impression of Ironwood's put-upon sigh. "We can look into the market, price it, see if we can fit it into our budget…"
Weiss maneuvered around to show Winter an article on her scroll. "The Mantle Museum of History was pruning its collection and decided it had one caboose too many. If we're willing to haul it away, it's ours. And the Skjulte Perle crew needs practice operating the engine, preferably before there are cars full of Dust attached to it…"
It was a lot of thought and effort Weiss had put into satisfying a juvenile desire, but it had just enough utility for Winter to allow it. And there was something affecting about Weiss wanting it so badly.
Winter would indulge her, just this once.
"Go and get it, then," Winter said.
Weiss looked ecstatic for a split second before she smothered it with Schnee control. "Of course. I'll be back presently."
"And I expect you to use the caboose for its intended purpose on your way back," Winter called after her sister. "You'll fall behind if you don't."
"Of course," Weiss said as she made her escape.
Once she was clear of her sister, Weiss looked around carefully to ensure she was alone, and then said, quietly but clearly,
"Choo-chooooo!"
The novelty of the train ride didn't last long.
It had been interesting for maybe fifteen minutes, but it had turned out to be underwhelming compared to airship travel, which Weiss had gotten used to during the survey trips. Weiss still liked the idea of traveling by train, but the reality wasn't holding her attention.
She entertained herself after that by talking with the crew. How Skjulte Perle owned the engine as a leftover from the town's days as a port of call, how the citizens had kept up just enough working knowledge to get back in the saddle now, though they were very grateful to get this chance, and could you explain how the engine works…
By the time train-related topics were exhausted, the trip wasn't quite half done yet.
Having run out of distractions, Weiss sighed to herself, got out her scroll, and sat down with SDR paperwork.
As Winter was passing between Skjulte Perle's warehouse and her de facto office in the hostel, her scroll rang. Weiss' image appeared on the ID block.
Odd—there was no way they'd gotten up to Mantle yet. Why an urgent call like this, then? Had the engine broken down? Had there been a grimm attack? Winter never should have allowed Weiss to do this alone, she wasn't ready—
She realized that if Weiss really was in mortal peril she ought to take her call.
Heart hammering in her chest, she connected. "What is it?" she said, trying not to sound breathless.
"We just got into range of Junction's CCT repeater," said Weiss. "I thought, while I was here, that I'd look at prices on the wholesale Dust market."
Winter's shoulders sagged in relief. "So you're not dead."
"How would I have called you if I were dead?"
"…never mind." Winter shook her head to dispel those images. "You were saying?"
"About the wholesale Dust market?"
"Yes. Of course." Winter dimly remembered how that all worked. She'd been the first to be trained as the SDC's heiress under her father's merciless eye, and she'd learned about the business—out of self-preservation if nothing else—right up until she'd found her way to escape that life.
With a few exceptions—the Atlas military, for example—the Dust mining companies didn't directly sell their Dust to the people that burned it. The miners sold to wholesale distributors who bought in bulk. Those distributors sold it to retailers, such as the Dust stores found in virtually every city, town, and village on the planet, and to large consumers like utilities.
Jacques' next ambition had been to buy out the wholesalers and have the SDC take over that function, concentrating ever more of the supply chain (and the profits) in his own hands. His death had put an end to those plans; Willow had lacked both the drive and the skill to follow through with them. The wholesale markets remained, and even grew more important as new, smaller companies cropped up with the SDC's decline.
"Remember," Weiss continued, "how we were going to do all our sales through the wholesale markets in Mantle?"
"Yes."
"Well, that was before I saw what prices look like these days."
That gave Winter pause. "We estimated what the prices would be when we entered the market. We had brackets—best case, worst case, median estimates…"
Because the price of Dust, ultimately, was the most important single variable controlling their business, and while that catchall term was an oversimplification because the different types of Dust had their own prices, the logic controlling them all tended to be similar.
"Current prices," said Weiss, with a sharpness that betrayed her irritation, "are ten percent below our worst-case estimates."
"How is that possible?" said Winter. "I double-checked your assumptions when you made those estimates. Below that worst-case, no Dust company would be profitable, not even Fall Dust."
"That's right. Turns out the big companies are flooding the market even more recklessly than we expected. We knew the big players in the market would try to devour the small ones, but I didn't think they'd be trying this hard."
And SDR hadn't even mined and purified its first full shipment yet. Would they get any money for it when they did?
"So… that's it?" said Winter. "We can't compete?"
"Hardly," scoffed Weiss. "We just need customers."
"If we're losing money mining Dust, we can't make it up with volume."
"I mean we need to find people we can sell to directly. Cut out the middleman. Going through the wholesalers eats too much of our profit for us to survive."
"Sell directly? To whom?"
"I don't know," Weiss said with annoyance, "I guess we'll talk about it when I get back with the caboose."
She ended the call as if expecting Winter to let things stand there. No way. It was a problem, and Winter felt much better trying to tackle problems, even hard ones, than churning her way through paperwork filings.
For a moment, Winter wanted to resume her trek towards the hostel, but inspiration struck her. Instead she used some glyphs to ascend to the roof of the warehouse.
Everywhere she looked was activity. People were moving into the newly-completed houses. People were preparing the gardens around those houses (alongside cheery signs proclaiming "Grow Local!"). People were working on the pier's infrastructure, or preparing the road for a new finishing layer of Stone Dust, or cracking open new crates of Dust processing equipment by the machine shop.
Almost all of these activities required Dust. Imported Dust, since SDR's mine wasn't producing yet.
Something was percolating in Winter's mind.
This was a logistics problem, and when Winter had taken her Logistics electives, she'd gotten the highest grades Atlas Academy had ever seen.
Mayor Leif was nearby, and that was who Winter needed to talk to. She dropped to ground level in a single bound, Aura cushioning the fall, and approached him.
"This isn't the only town along the coast here, is it?"
Leif blinked. "Well, that's apropos of nothing, but, uh, no, there are more. You go up and down the coast in either direction, and you'll find a bunch between Port Solitas and the ice line."
Winter nodded in familiarity. There was a point along the Solitas coast where the warming currents no longer reached, the so-called ice line, where the fjords froze over for most or all of the year and the climate was as brutal as the tundra beyond. Past the ice line, permanent human settlement was marginal at best, barring Atlas-like expenditures of Dust.
"Pretty decent population if you summed it all up," Leif added.
"How do those other towns get Dust imports?" Winter asked. "By ship, like you do here?"
Leif shook his head. "A decade or so ago, the SDC swapped over to only using C-class and bigger ships to carry Dust. It let 'em consolidate the fleet and save money by shipping with a smaller number of big boys. The thing is, other than Port Solitas, Skjulte Perle is the only town around with a harbor and pier big enough to dock a C-class freighter."
"And the roads in this area range from awful to nonexistent," Winter said, the picture forming in her mind.
"That's right. So these other towns use…"
"Cargo airships," Winter said, skipping ahead. "Which are expensive, so they only schedule one or two bulk deliveries a year to keep costs down. Because airship transport is rough, they ship the Dust in crystal form for stability, meaning the towns have fewer options for using the Dust once they get it."
Leif gave her a suspicious look. "You sure you haven't been out here before?"
"I'm sure, but I'm also sure I understand how these things work." She looked appraisingly at Leif. "Can you get in touch with these other mayors?"
"A few of them," he said warily. "And they might be able to reach a few more. Friend-of-a-friend, you know how it goes."
"Good." She hadn't realized she'd been frowning, but at last the frown relaxed, which for her was almost like smiling, algebraically speaking. "Your grandfather wanted Skjulte Perle to be a regional transportation hub? Well, it may serve that purpose yet."
Leif's face lit up.
"…It also has a small refrigerator and a heater, so we don't have to eat survival rations on these trips," Weiss gushed.
"Hm," said Winter neutrally, her hands behind her back.
It was the sort of reaction Winter had been making throughout Weiss' tour of their new caboose. "You don't seem impressed."
"It is… adequate," Winter said.
"It's just what we needed, and we got it basically for free."
"Other than the time spent fetching it," said Winter.
"Well, what would you have done with that time?" said Weiss defensively.
The edges of Winter's mouth curled. "I found us several new customers and new revenue streams we hadn't even considered, and which should be enough to keep us afloat even when Dust prices are low."
Weiss' jaw dropped.
"Still," said Winter, eying the caboose's interior, "I'm sure you didn't think of this as wasted time. Why, you probably even thought of it as… fun."
She left Weiss seething in her wake.
The new few weeks were full of firsts for Schnee Dust Reborn.
The first full load of Dust for processing. The first refining and purifying of Dust with company machinery. The first export of Dust to Mantle using the company train, and the first sale of that Dust on the Mantle wholesale markets. The first trickle of revenue, which marginally slowed the emptying of SDR's bank account.
There were more: the first meeting with new customers. The first outreach for direct sales. The first negotiations over new contracts, and the first submission of those contracts to stockholders for consideration.
And, on an unhappier note, the first employee turnover. Winter didn't think she'd been too demanding of her personal assistant, but when said assistant resigned without explanation or notice, it left her flat-footed.
She was not looking forward to doing hiring interviews. To her surprise, a candidate came in almost before the search had started.
"If I had my druthers, I wouldn't even have a personal assistant," Winter said, reviewing the resume in her hand.
"Yes, ma'am," was the soft-spoken reply.
"However, I clearly need one, regardless of my preferences," she said, giving free rein to her distaste. "My previous assistant left unexpectedly, which is how we came to this point."
"Yes, ma'am."
Winter looked up for the first time. The interviewee was sitting with the petrified stillness Winter associated with new recruits: wanting the job, and terrified they'd do something to mess it up.
Not that Winter would show mercy because of that. She wasn't Weiss. "This resume is underwhelming. Short on work experience."
"I'd say I have the enthusiasm of youth." The words might have been confident, but they came out half-strangled.
Winter was too composed to roll her eyes. Instead, she turned the resume over to its blank side and handed it back along with a pen. "Take notes for me."
Wide, gray eyes blinked. "I'm sorry?"
"I am about to say some words and I want you to take notes on them. I will not repeat myself. You need to be able to keep up. This is the key skill I demand."
"Y-yes," was the reply. The pen almost fell out of her fingertips before she grasped it firmly.
"I, Winter Schnee, do solemnly swear allegiance to the Council of the Kingdom of Atlas, and to obey its orders without reservation." She paused only long enough to take a breath. "Applications requiring a magnetic effect may be satisfied using Gravity Dust and Lightning Dust in combination." Pause. "Plan to order thirty days' worth of food for one hundred workers with five days' slack."
The pen raced across the paper. Only two seconds elapsed before it stilled. "Any more?"
"That's enough. Show me," Winter said. The paper was obligingly slid back to her. Her eyes skimmed it. Interesting… the candidate had started out trying to transcribe word-for-word, but obviously hadn't been fast enough. Most of the way through the first sentence, she'd swapped to using a curious shorthand. "Where'd you learn to write this way?" Winter asked.
"S-self taught," came the hitched reply.
"Hm." Winter didn't believe that; there was a murmur of a lie there. It didn't matter that much, Winter supposed. Wherever it had come from, that notation was quick enough to keep up. She looked the candidate in the eyes. "Unfortunately, I don't have enough time to do a thorough search, and I have to pick an assistant quickly. So, while your presentation leaves something to be desired… you do come with recommendations from other SDR employees. Given that SDR is an employee-owned company, I have to respect those."
The candidate's mouth opened in surprise, then her eyes widened as she understood. "Does this mean I get the job?"
"It depends. Are you comfortable with the hours and pay we're offering?"
"Yes, ma'am," the candidate said with an eager nod.
Winter sighed and pushed a stack of forms across the desk. "Very well. Fill these out. We'll start your orientation when you're done."
"Thank you!"
"Welcome to Schnee Dust Reborn, Ms. Amitola."
Ilia Amitola's smile was genuine, but Winter found it unsettling for reasons she couldn't put a finger on. "Thank you for this opportunity, Ms. Schnee.
"I'm exactly where I want to be."
Next time: The Face of the Enemy
