And another police department had a round of 'restructuring'. THIS one hadn't even been contacted yet!
Jeremiah happily hummed. "This is all going much more smoothly than I expected." Although it helped that a number of oddly specific and unremembered taskings had been given out over the last few days with his signatures on them.
Taskings that somehow pointed out some very good people and organizations to investigate, or uncovered some internal rot that needed to be carved out from his own people… Very handy, those orders.
Wish they'd actually been his idea, but to be fair he was pretty darn busy these days and the extra help was appreciated.
Plus he knew on a fundamental level that these untraceable orders with his codes attached to them came from competent people he trusted, even if he wasn't allowed to know that he knew that. Or knew that he knew them, or any of that mess.
…The mind can go a bit odd when it ages.
Still! "I barely used any favors and basically no money and look at how they all fall in line!"
Oh sure, much of it was temporary lip service while the small army of politicians, judges, news agency personnel, and so forth all waited for him to kick the bucket (Again) and life could 'return to normal', but that was good enough for now!
Charlotte also seemed less worried and stressed these days. "Sir's performing very impressively these last few days indeed!"
Pshaw, don't kid a kidder. "I'd take credit like a prick but I'll be honest, most of this is due to the chopstick effect."
…That caught her off guard. "Sir?"
He hummed. "You know how when you order Chinese food, some places give you extra chopsticks? And you know it isn't worth anything, but it feels bad to throw away perfectly fine chopsticks, so you set them aside for future takeout orders… Which ALSO have an extra pair?"
The old man snorted. "Well, political and personal favors can build up like that too. And when you have ENOUGH chopsticks, people feel so intimidated about messing up my 'collection' that they actually borrow chopsticks from OTHER people while still feeling grateful to me for POTENTIALLY giving them chopsticks and…" Uh. "I think the metaphor fell apart somewhere in the middle there."
She was still looking at him in shock. "Sir has ordered takeout? From a local 'fast food' restaurant!?"
Sure he had! "God that takes me back… Oh there were fancy places back when they were still gaining popularity, but even if you didn't go to some place like Hong Kong Low Chinese Cafe or whatever, I used to spend a dime or two on a bit of takeout every month or so and…"
Oh. "I suppose I haven't actually ordered anything not from our chefs for some time now."
Actually, now that he thought about it… "On second thought, I haven't ordered actual takeout instead of our personal catering company for years… What, about twelve years ago? No, longer than that…"
Carefully reviewing what he could recall… Jeremiah sighed. "A long while. Years before I brought you into the company…" Charlotte HAD probably been born at least by then, right?
Maybe?
Good lord, he wasn't sure. All these brats were so damned young it was hard to keep track.
Anyway, it doesn't matter. "Point is, I've been around a while and a LOT of people owe me a lot of favors. It's to the point where I don't even have to spend most of them. No, just the fact that I have the POTENTIAL to call some in? That already has people willing to bend the knee if I request, even if I've never done business with them before."
Or at least pretend to, working with favors was never a cut and dry deal. Double crosses were common and expected, not to mention under performance or lazy compliance.
It was why a reputation was important, in Jeremiah's opinion. That and making sure people benefited as well when most favors were called in, creating a mental association with profit whenever people did what he required.
…Damn, why did those days of eating cheap food late at night feel so familiar while being so long ago? Hell, he still had a few bags full of chopsticks somewhere, probably locked up in a storage room no doubt.
Being a penny pincher made hoarding a real concern that had to be attended to or it would get out of hand.
These days however, he generally chooses to hoard personnel and contracts rather than soy packets and penny chopsticks… Yeah, those past tendencies were pretty much established at this point.
He shook off the odd thoughts and gave a grin to his second in command. "I'll need to keep the pressure on for a few months and probably survive a few meetings and whatnot, but eventually all these sycophants will have to put up or shut up! THEN some real change will start being put into place instead of all this lip service and short term stop gap measures."
Her eyes narrowed. "I may need to ramp up the security threat level again…"
Ha! "Like you haven't already girl! You think I didn't notice the extra youngins running around keeping an eye on us here? Not that you're wrong, I'm sure more people are going to try to off me when they realize I'm not going to flip flop on this issue like they expect."
Always a good way to wake one up, watching security handle an early morning assassination attempt or two! Got the blood pumping and helped aim the legal teams towards the next nail to be hammered down.
Unfortunately Charlotte seemed far less amused. "I've had to retrain a few girls that let things slip by while on duty, but at this point they SHOULD all be performing to the standard I expect from our people."
Oh? Well, that was likely for the best. "Don't be too harsh on them, girl. You know I deserved a lot of the flack they've been sending my way, at least till I could think straight again."
Those brats thought they were being subtle and hiding their growing disdain for him back when he had been spiraling into mad rage… And to be honest, they were lucky he had reacted by locking himself away from almost everyone instead of retaliating back then.
God, he had been a damn near mindless mess of paranoia towards the end…
Charlotte on the other hand didn't disagree, not directly, but she clearly didn't support his opinion. "My people should perform to peak standard at all times on shift. I wouldn't be able to call any of them my elite security force otherwise! Despite any particular issues they may have with a specific client…"
Heh! "Such as me being a racist angry paranoid asshole who would occasionally scream about how 'muties made the freaking frogs gay'?"
She winced. "...Some days were more stressful for the staff than others, yes. But you've always treated our people well, and never directed your more dire opinions directly towards those on duty."
'Stressful days', huh? Yes, now that he thought back about it? Some of his rants had gone downright odd at that point. Very odd…
…Huh. "Didn't I once put everyone into lockdown because I thought alligators were infiltrating my home because they wanted to drink my beer?"
Her smile was a bit odd. "We managed to distract you after a few hours. Once you realized you didn't have any beer in that location for any reptiles to consume, or steal. Although you did have us go out and procure a few bottles of Nail Brewing's Antartic Nail Ale in order to 'ambush the fuckers' when they would eventually 'come for your booze'. Sir."
Holy shit. "I did NOT pay any of you enough to put up with that."
She hummed. "Do not be concerned sir, those events were compensated with hazard pay and annual leave bonuses. And after that episode concluded, the staff enjoyed the beverages you purchased and you mostly settled down for a few weeks."
Which was fair, he had basically been closing towards dementia before his heart gave out… Or flat out overtaking it! "God, you're an angel for putting up with a messed up old grump like me. Especially towards the end."
Her eyes glistened with memories. "You helped me at my worst, so I will stand by you at the last. That you can tell me old stories again is nothing short of a miracle, one I assumed would never occur again when your health declined."
Sniff. He wasn't crying, SHE was crying damn it! "Well, if there's one thing I got a supply of, it's more grumpy old stories about me kicking people around the financial playground."
He shifted his still bound and healing arm, slightly frustrated that he had to use his other arm to pick up the tablet. "You got those notes I put together about Roxxon Energy Corporation? The high level stuff, not the shit about stocks and shares and legal cases and all that."
She gave him a nod and her eyes lit up. A damned good kid. "Well this one ain't about them, but one of the smaller companies they own called Kronas Corporation, started by this dick General Aleksander Lukin. Or did Kronas actually run Roxxon… Whatever, doesn't matter, let me tell you about this asshole Lukin."
And an old man regaled her about a Soviet KGB agent and his ongoing vengeance boner against both Captain America and Red Skull and honestly a large number of other people, and how all the bullshit antics that Jeremiah had done to the little shitstain over the years as well as the people put they in power that followed said leadership afterwords…
Being careful in the process to not skip the laundry list of actionable intel that could be used to manipulate the little fuck and all the rest that followed him to dance to someone else's tune.
After all, a good story should teach you something, even if it's only as useful as teaching you how to get some KGB's personal company project to pay you for the privilege of kicking itself in the balls.
~~~Pocket System~~~
Bolivar Trask wanted to murder someone.
To be fair, this wasn't exactly a NEW feeling for the man, but the day had begun on very much the wrong foot. Pulling out his phone, he began to… It wasn't charged.
WHY wasn't it charged? He had left it on the stand on the way out, hadn't he? Even in a rush, he shouldn't have forgotten… Whatever.
Focus on the soon-to-be dead people who were responsible for fucking up his drive to work.
Sure, he could get a chauffeur or arrange other options, but driving his custom modified death tank of a vehicle was one of the highlights of the morning.
A vehicle that could take a dozen RPG rounds and laugh it off. It could put some real fear in some muties eyes, if ever needed… Thing was heavily armed too, if illegally.
His car was one of his minor passions, and he treated it as such.
His car was missing.
He was staying calm. Maiming and murder would come after he found those responsible.
FIrst, he returned to his home to call up the… His power was out.
Which explained why his phone failed to charge and why his alarm hadn't gone off, putting him into such a massive rush to head out this morning.
…Great.
A glance to the nearby streets… No, only his power was out.
Because of course it was.
He'd address that issue and others later, there was IMPORTANT information in his car that needed to be recovered NOW! Anything else was UNACCEPTABLE!
Thankfully he was paranoid enough to ensure that the multiple safety precautions in his car's secured safes would give him enough time to correct this situation without data being compromised or distributed.
A half hour later and he was actually using a damned payphone of all things! "...seven three three. Hello, this is Alpha 3 Orange Q Ten Twelve, confirmation code Tree 2 Onion Green Coppa Coppa Phau. I need my HIGHLY PAID security team to tell me WHAT THE FUCK THEY…"
No. Calm. These morons needed him to use basic words and sentences to get shit done, apparently.
"Allow me to start this over again: My car is gone. Find me those responsible, end anyone in the area that might have seen something, fire everyone on my payroll who fucked up this badly to allow shit like this to happen in the FIRST place, and get me transportation to facility Twenty Three C Beta NOW, or heads will roll."
He'd scream at whoever was responsible for that power outage issues later, when those who STOLE HIS CAR were secured properly and had gone through an undetermined amount of torture to encourage cooperation.
Having priorities was vital, after all.
As for the electronic failures of his home, well they were minor issues compared to the potential security compromise of his stolen car.
It was acceptable to have already notified his personal repair crew so they would be on their way to fix everything within the next hour or so.
Then, while they corrected his power issues here, he could start spinning more plates after reaching facility Twenty Three C Beta and enjoy HUNTING DOWN THOSE RESPONSIBLE FOR STEALING HIS…
"Mr. Trask, this is your security overseer and manager. Confirmation code: Beat 7 Apple Orange Salt Honey Tango."
…The FUCK!? "You are ALWAYS to refer to me as Alpha 3 Orange Q Ten Twelve! THIS IS AN UNSECURED LINE! Operation security is PARAMOUNT and I pay MORE than enough for the BARE MINIMUM of professionalism from you incompetent…"
"Mr. Trask, your account with our organization has been terminated. Have a great day." [[Click.]]
…The man stared at the payphone, unmoving.