When I told Evelyn that I had to travel to England for a couple of weeks, she used it as an opportunity to shop for a whole new wardrobe for me. Honestly, I appreciated it as I didn't have that much that would be considered fancy clothing or even casual clothing that was less than three or four years out of date as far as fashion went.
We spent a day at it and hit a number of clothiers that were on the high-end in Night City. I spent more than I expected, but I felt that I got a lot of outfits that I could use for years. I bought Evelyn a new outfit at each place we shopped as compensation for her assistance, which she practically squeed at. Personally, I thought I looked like some Euro-poseur, but Evelyn seemed to think I looked very chic.
Most were still in the subdued colours that I preferred, although the outfits were more European in style to befit my destination. I even brought two dresses with me, the more casual of which I was wearing right now.
Paying for first-class on a supersonic, rather than economy on the slower subsonic, did give me some niceties when I arrived at the airport to check in. There was a young woman that claimed she was a concierge waiting for me. Blonde, perky and about my age. She helped me check my bags and walked me through security, where I received another security band on my wrist, although this time, they let me select from four different styles rather than picking the ugliest one available, like when I went to Seattle.
I also had access to the airport lounge both in Night City as well as in Charles de Gaulle in France during my layover, the latter of which I intended to use as I had a multi-hour wait before my flight to London Heathrow.
I had timed things pretty well, so I did not have to wait too long to board. I got on with the first group and was ushered into a window seat in front of the aircraft. The first-class section was kind of small; most of the cabin was split about evenly between business class and economy. I kind of wondered why they had economy fares at all until I realised that groups of obvious Corporate employees seemed to be flying together, with the boss up in first and the minions in the economy or business class, depending on their current position in the hierarchy. I found it very amusing.
I would have been delighted with everyone having the same seat but in this world? If there wasn't a first-class, then it would have been necessary to invent it.
'There I go, thinking vaguely socialist things again,' I thought, amused. Unlike in her old world, here, there were pseudo-socialist nations that functioned pretty well in this world. The Soviet states, for example, had a high standard of living, higher than the NUSA for the average citizen, but it was all built off state capitalism as well as a dictatorship of the proletariat where the dictator was, in effect, an artificial intelligence, at least in practice even if humans did make all the decisions in the end. But why wouldn't they listen to his suggestions? After twenty years of always having correct suggestions, in many ways, the humans had become something of a rubber stamp.
Герои, or Hero, was the Soviet artificial intelligence and was theorised to be one of the most powerful in the world, including those trapped behind the Blackwall. He was built in the years following the DataKrash, and NetWatch hated him but had no basis by which they could object to his existence. He was, in effect, grandfathered in because NetWatch as an organisation had been very weak at the time he was born. The Soviet data scientists had been right, though; in no other way beyond sheer computational power could a single entity effectively manage an internal command economy.
I wasn't exactly an economist or a political thinker, but I felt the issue with truly socialist nations was that, until recently, there was no practical way to replace the information the free market provided. Many people waxed philosophically about what precisely the free market was, but I thought it was pretty simple. It was nothing more or less than the sum total of millions and millions of people all trying to screw everyone else over.
Still, at the same time, it did convey what needed to be manufactured, what needed to be sent where, and the like efficiently, even if, as a by-product, certain people were enriched while most others were impoverished or exploited.
These days a hyper-intelligent AI like Hero could model an economy well enough to perform this necessary function, sucking in all data about everything and managing production and logistics. However, then you were just trading an exploitive boss for a god, and I didn't particularly like that idea, but then again, I was a boss. Perhaps I would have thought differently if, instead of having all the advantages and abilities I did, I was just one of the workers in my factory producing a product every day.
I paid my workers way above average, but there was no way I could pay them what I actually thought they were worth. If I tried, it would quickly become public knowledge, and nobody would take me seriously. It would be like a low-level Amish shunning, where I wouldn't be able to buy goods and services unless I paid treble the price, at least . I would go out of business in months.
Although it wasn't close to balancing the scales, I tried to provide a number of fringe benefits that were difficult to quantify the value of, like free or discounted medical services at my clinic and pharmacy, extra days off, rotating into the highly-sought after quality-assurance jobs and the like, as well as a somewhat flexible schedule. This did seem to be very popular with my workers, at least.
About AIs, though, I thought if it was inevitable that there should be gods in this world, it should be something you had to work to become, not something you were born into. That was my major gripe against AGIs in general, that and jealousy .
Still, I thought, wistfully, that it would be nice if everyone could work together somehow.
I glanced to the left as I saw a man slide into the aisle seat next to me. I had been staring out the window at nothing in particular while I was woolgathering.
I blinked, mouth opening in surprise as I recognised the man. And I could see that he recognised me, too. Although I didn't have blonde hair now, and I had made subtle alterations to my face, those alterations were only designed to prevent simple facial recognition software from identifying me. It had been a mathematical way to slightly change a face to prevent being identified by computers, not people. I had still looked pretty much exactly like myself, except blonde, when I had been Miss White.
He grinned as he settled into his seat, tilting his head to the side and saying, "Miss Barnes! I am surprised to see you here today. More personal business?" He waggled his eyebrows.
I coughed. Although it likely didn't matter at that stage, I didn't want any association with the temporary Emma Barnes identity. Besides, I hated that bitch, and just hearing her name aggravated me. I wondered why I had ever picked it.
Still, he clearly knew who I was. I considered trying to blagger my way out, but it would have been obvious. I still had the accent chip installed from the other day, so I switched to the posh accent I used the last time I saw him and said, "I'm certain that you have me mistaken for someone else. I am called Taylor Hebert, sir." I tried to keep my tone slightly disapproving. Although what I said denied everything, my non-verbal cues amounted to 'You got me, but kindly shut your mouth.'
He chortled and accepted my scolding, saying, "Ah, sorry, Miss Hebert. You reminded me of someone I met once. My name's Richard Stewart. I work for British Aerospace."
I grinned slightly, remembering our previous conversation, "Over here to service those observation drones the city bought? I saw one briefly break stealth the other day when a cloud got in the way. The refresh rate on that stealth system could be improved, I imagine."
He chortled, "Madam, that platform is over twenty years old! The newer versions have all been improved! Still, I suspect Night City is getting a lot of value out of the system." Then he shook his head, "No, I don't do service, just sales. A fertile ground for sales of military hardware these days, what with the unpleasantness in this part of the world."
I nodded grimly. What had been called a mere police action at first was looking like it was heating up into an actual brush war with little sign that either side was putting on the brakes. Casualties were heavy on both sides, although each side had kept its cadre of professional soldiers intact and was mainly fighting battles using reservists and mercenaries at present.
The Soviets were sending shiploads of "humanitarian supplies" to the Free States and even Night City, but word on the street was that they were filled to the brim with weapons. The motives were clear. They preferred a North American continent that was broken up into different polities, and if the NUSA wanted to push things for the sake of unity, then at least they should be mauled for doing so.
Although I didn't like the NUSA invading, I had to admit that I hated outsiders wanting to prolong the conflict for their own personal geopolitical reasons even more. Still, I'm sure the Free Staters appreciated the assistance, so perhaps I had the wrong opinion.
We quieted there for a while as the aircraft taxied and took off. I glanced out of the window, looking at the green-blue algae that was hugging the coast as far as I could see. My seat buddy saw me looking and nodded, "Strange days, isn't it? How many things can change in just a short amount of time."
I tried not to look bashful and nodded, "Your boys must have some plans, I suspect. Arasaka's new drone-based harvesting system sure looks fancy."
He snorted and nodded, "Sure, and it'll take at minimum nine-months from now to see the first prototype platform designed and built. We'll have harvesters in the azure main in three months at the most."
I raised an eyebrow. The term he used for the open sea was a bit odd, so I searched for it and immediately got a match for an old patriotic song from the United Kingdom. This one I hadn't heard before, unlike the IRA one I sang for Evelyn, but I looked at the lyrics and remembered Mr Stewart mentioned a lyric from it before. I snorted, "Britannia rules the waves?"
"You're god damned right," he said, and then he coughed, "But in truth, we're taking a lot of ships of a specific class out of mothballs from the Scapa Flow and refurbishing them quickly, turning them into drone harvesters in an interim. The multifuel engines on most of those wrecks can burn anything, so they'll be self-fueling after the distillation apparatuses are installed." He nodded, "We'll have a system very similar to Arasaka's that we're developing in parallel..." He then admitted, "... probably about the same theirs comes online." That actually meant "probably afterwards," I thought.
He shrugged, "Still, I'm sure we'll have buyers for these first interim drones who can't afford a brand new system from Arasaka or us. I hear Militech is partnering with Petrochem to build similar systems, as well. SovOil, obviously, is doing the same." He shook his head and finished ruefully, "Everyone has gone algae-crazy. "
I rubbed the back of my neck and chuckled, but it sounded forced.
The flight attendants were very attentive, but I declined anything to drink and just watched the BAe executive down two Dewars in rapid succession. Although we were already supersonic, it would still take a little over five hours to reach Paris, so I just decided to superficially pretend I was napping while I instead focused on other things.
The design for the militarised sleep inducer had been finalised, and we were in production now. I had lucked around meeting the commanding officer of a small band of mercenaries. Most of my work with mercenaries had been singletons, but this man approached me for a bulk discount. He was a white South African, and he and his entire band of mercenaries had arrived for the upcoming conflict. That was, apparently, what they did all over the world. When one war died down, he left and found another.
The idea that there was still something like independent Freikorps or bands of mercenaries like this was kind of ridiculous, but of course, there was. Because why wouldn't there be in this world? Everyone could be their own PMC. This guy had a long-standing mercenary company and was reconstituting it after some losses in Central America. He had heard about how cheap I was selling relatively new Sandys.
He had walked in my door wanting a bulk discount on such boostware but walked out getting that, but also agreeing to purchase one platoon worth of my militarised sleep inducers and test them in combat. I was giving this initial fifty units to him at a steep discount, but in exchange, I would be able to use him in marketing material.
Hopefully, they didn't get sent into some death trap and get annihilated, as that wouldn't make good ad copy.
It had only been a couple of weeks since I had Kiwi bug the apartment of the pushy Dynacorp guy, and while I had heard a lot of disparagement of myself in our surveillance, I hadn't yet heard him plotting my imminent demise as I had expected. He had tried to contact Dr Hasumi again yesterday, and I just declined his call, though, so I felt that he was going to have to do something soon or just accept he lost.
I increased the security at my small factory. I bought several airport-quality security scanners, the kind of security pylons that I had walked through numerous times at the Trauma Team's headquarters and the kind I had just walked through this morning.
I did this mainly to prevent any kind of build-up of employees at shift change times, as they all had to pass through security themselves both when entering and leaving. When they entered, it was to catch weapons and contraband, which I forced them to leave in a locker, and when leaving, it was to prevent theft.
But it occurred to me that this was becoming an attack surface and, moreover, a soft target. With my previous security procedures, not only was I relying a bit too much on the fastidiousness of the security personnel doing the checks, but it backed up, causing a fifteen or twenty-minute delay at shift change times.
The employees didn't like this because they weren't being paid for this time, and I didn't like it because someone wanting to attack my enterprise could spray the lobby down with automatic fire or RPGs and kill most of the people building my products, so it was a sensible, if expensive, purchase. Now they just walked through the scanners and were held up only if the scanners caught something.
