The office was clean as he could do it. Various assistants passed; sometimes walking forward that desk, sometimes just putting documents on that desk and sometimes both. Behind that, there was the same man, always with those glasses he would continue to wear even when there’s no sun. Many anonymous men existed and they could do a greater job than this professor who moved his activities more frequently in the office instead in ships. At the closing hours, when everyone was shutting down the lights and abandoning the facility, the man was one of the last who had the intention to follow his colleagues, when suddenly, his door was knocked three times.
Go on!
The door opens. A man with humble clothes and dirty skin shows up, gently closing the door now behind him. Then, without words, he takes a seat.
Greetings. Do we know each other?
The man refuses to present himself but the man behind the desk already thought what kind of man was forward him. His peculiar apparel was composed also by a nameplate who proudly draw out and showed at him. It said “Nobody”.
You don’t know me, but I know you. They said you would like to contribute towards certain authorities that looks like they’re too busy to warm a chair to get dirty as you should do.
The man behind the desk sighs. He tries to maintain a positive humor; many other similar people presented at him with offers to contribute at a specific war effort.
Sorry, but maybe you got the wrong person. This being is not a soldier, nor a freedom fighter; and he wouldn’t like to waste meat in useless fights that won’t resolve any problem…
I don’t want militia men, I want investors.
Sorry?
The man puts his hand through his shirt and draws up a folded paper. He opens it and places on the desk, inviting the professor to read it. It had drawings, words, phrases and a “reference letter” consisted in a signed mail to the CONCORD.
Aaaand… what makes you think he’s the right person? There are other organizations with more assets and liquidity than a single entrepreneur.
Nobody cares about you, “being”! You’re just like many others, serving a cause, but not yearning for something more powerful than a simple Capsuleer life. So you won’t have any difficulty to just put a sign in this sheet, knowing you will do the right thing. Others you’d call “organizations” are busied even like the authorities and they have no interests about what happens over there.
Do you know how many currencies you need to start a similar madness?
500 trilion ISK, 1 milion PLEX and 1 trilion Evermarks. And do you know how many you need to invest the necessary to gain all this?
…
1 billion ISK.
He was confused; that guy was too much confident about what he was proposing and showing. The professor wanted to transform this conversation to an interrogation; he needed as more answers as possible.
Assuming that the investment will be succesfull, do you think to have enough consensus to make all this work?
Are 2 billions of individuals not enough for you?
A single response to satisfy the goal of the man behind the desk. He knew those “2 bilions”; he knew what he was talking to, now. There were always less news about what was happening in those systems, continously ravaged by the wars. Nowadays everyone are obsessed with the clones, having the ambition to base armies with another unknown Jovian technology and finding a way to reverse-engineer that with further difficulties, further sacrifices and further ethical issues. Nobody cared about “Nobody”, the person who died 6 months ago after sent a message that nobody responded.
Repeating… this being is not a soldier. Just a scientist, a businessman and a philosopher…
Indeed, a philosopher. That’s what we need.
The professor looks like interrupting the man’s discourse. From a surprised face, he returned serious.
No, you need a terrorist. Everyone is fit for this role, even a Deathless sympatizer. You should know the Capsuleers. What makes you think a similar investor can be reliable?
You ARE a terrorist too and you just answered to yourself. Every Capsuleer initiative has been made in the name of the profit. I thought your CEO was taught you about that.
He’s confused, but not too surprised this time. Some “colleague” already noted that fact in rare occasions. His CEO taught him many things; the most importantly has been: “ISK is power. The rest is trash”. That’s why he collected so much and he invested in nothing, because if the only thing you can do is invest in the economy of war, even in this case, for a “good cause”, you already know you will kill peopole, innocent ones too. Because power reveals and corrupts at the same time.
So you already know your good intentions will be used, consumed and trashed like every single economical initiative to make place for the next one.
I don’t care. I just want to send a message.
The challenge has been launched. The opportunity is ready to be taken. The man behind the desk had collected all the informations he needed and now he was ready to go in loss for the first time. Despite all what he learnt with his life in the space, there was something human that was remained in him; and this wasn’t good for the affaris, but it was good for something else a Capsuleer wouldn’t understand. That’s why after agreed at this pact, he would have proceeded for himself, without saying anything to anyone; not because it could be a secret, but because they wouln’t ever understood.
…if you insist…
He never put his glasses off but it’s like they costantly look at each other’ eyes, like agreeing on another pact it wasn’t written or spoken: that baseliner had just signed a pact with the devil and even if he was “one of the good”, he would have returned to claim what’s due to him.
The outcome of this meet had no importance. I will die in 24 hours.