By Right: Shadow Puppet
By TerraMGP
Siv Thanethrall. She was a rather unassuming woman. Prim, professional and unremarkable. A lapine with average height and a build just pushing into ‘buxom’. Blue-black headfur normally kept in a professional bun with bangs combed over one eye. Nothing more than a suit-clad shadow at her Mistress’ side.
That was by design, naturally. Apart from a thin collar around her neck to denote her status as a slave, Siv’s carefully chosen business suits and immaculate grooming meant that none would ever imagine her to be more than a faceless drone amid the massive entity which was Yggdrasil. Indeed, there was some truth to that. It was ultimately how she saw herself after all. She was simply fortunate enough to be a cog in an important location.
Today the suits were eschewed. Replaced instead by a simple white sundress and matching wide-brimmed hat in her hand. The other held a cup of tea on a saucer. Normally bringing it would be a job for a lesser slave. But the young woman knew none of them could do it just right. Besides, it was still early and she wished to be alone.
Siv paced down the firm hard wood floors of her Mistress’ estate. She passed by doors to rooms that likely hadn’t seen use in ages. Small troves of curios from those who had called these halls home in the past. It was still early enough that the carefully hidden lighting fixtures flickered with a preset simulated torchlight. Touches meant to give the place some semblance of an ancient Viking aesthetic. Siv did her best to ignore this as she instead made her way to one of the rooms at the far end of the long hallway which housed many of the servant staff rooms.
She opened the door to her destination. It was like a portal. Cool crisp air with a soft breeze. A long meadow of carefully cared for wildflowers. Blue sky and warm sunshine beating down perfectly on a simple wooden porch which extended itself out from the door.
It was all a trick. An old one, though far more refined in this day and age. The flowers were cared for by small automated drones. The trees, save one, all a careful holographic simulation. Indeed the room itself was a cute mot much bigger than the porch façade. Though with the door closed the whole thing simply looked like some old painting of a house on a prairie.
The bunny girl reveled in this. So many times in her childhood she’d drag her Mistress in here to play. Runa had a fondness for the station. Or rather, the wolfess was someone who could flourish anywhere. Siv had tried to make herself that as a proper compliment to her Mistress. But the sunny bunny still couldn’t’ deny her love for this peaceful heaven. The pure simplicity of bright broad-spectrum light on her fur and a perfectly cool wind. Everything just right.
Siv placed herself down into one of the wooden rocking chairs sat at the end of the porch and set her tea on a matching end table beside it.
She could stay like this all day. Some days she did. Usually when ordered to. Not today. Today, as most days, Siv pulled herself free of the natural chemical bliss and instead waved her paw over her head in a lazy half-circle. Instantly a dozen displays popped to life in front of her. Stock reports. Inter-corporate news from dozens of sources, resource projections, the political and social state of various independent worlds and systems. All of the data that the young woman swam in every waking moment streaking past with the most important tidbits algorithmically selected and brought to the fore.
Her eyes darted for a moment to the small chibi animatic of Rati, one of the company mascots. The impossibly cute squirrel character’s even more impossibly cute chibi form going though a two cell animation of flipping though data on a tablet and looking worried or overworked. Siv smirked to herself as she realized how ‘unprofessional’ most would likely see her choice of UI flourish. As if she hadn’t been doing this since she was young enough to make the children’s Mascot age appropriate.
It took two minutes and thirty six seconds exactly for the first bits of data to filter in. There was the mention of the Queen Grace. A small fluff trivia piece which only really concerned Siv in that she needed to keep an eye on the mostly well-hidden Princess Bran currently taking a cruise on it for the sake of a diplomatic mission. Runa didn’t need to know about that, though. No sense stressing her with more of ‘Princess Katie’ than was needed.
Then there were reports from Oversight. Nothing looking particularly out of place. The usual tolerable bandwidth of Class 1 citizen corruption and easily quashed workers rights protests. The latter actually seeming to have gone down after the last round of union busting measures and strategic pay bumps.
After that were some worrying reports about Thundercloud automotive. One of Yggdrasil’s bigger branches that had been shaking rather heavily of late. It’s current acting CEO, Mrs. Kimi Three-feathers, had already made it very clear that she opposed Runa’s future claim to the leadership role in great tree. The big problem was that so many subsidiary companies for Thundercloud produced parts and components used elsewhere. It seemed that Lady Ase, Runa’s mother, had either missed or ignored the attempted power play.
“Mistress will need to learn politics some day.” Siv sighed. She shut her violet eyes tight and let the sun hat slump over her face while rolling the realities though her head. They’d need allies. Good ones. Real ones, too. Ones who would lose public face if they turned against Runa. Not simply people bought off in the back rooms.
Spartan Security. It took dozens of search refinements and almost a whole cup of tea before Siv finally settled on them. The Karbon family weren’t exactly the biggest of power players. But it was a PMC. They always tended to look favorably on Runa. Plus they seemed to be getting a decent reputation of late. Enough so that some strategic media play might actually help win Runa some other allies as well simply by showing her having a down-to-earth interaction wit them.
Not that she knew the first thing about them, or indeed most of the countless companies under the tree. All of this was informed by profile sand statistics. Carefully crafted filters that were to this point the core of the bunny girl’s life work. They were still being refined, naturally. Always being refined. In the end it was the only way any one fur could keep up on.
Such trivial matters made up most of the day for Siv. Her weary mind pushing though the drudgery of corporate intrigue from people who’d rather see another member of her Mistress’ extended family on the proverbial throne. Often times someone they felt they could better control. The profoundly stupid ones even looked to back Lady Ilka. Then again, those could simply be masochists.
Eventually one bit of news did pop into her feed that made her smile. Some unimportant blurb in one of the many cheap low class ’zene’s. This one tracking gang activity in some unimportant segment of the home station. The article talked about a gang hit. Six dead. Gunned down with small arms while meeting up at a local Zhengyalov stand.
It wasn’t likely anyone really cared. Well, nobody beyond a few family members of the gangers and the odd class 3 kid who grew up dreaming about becoming one of them. Five were pure collateral. One was not. Tony ’Two-tone’ Tonoyan. Lifelong gang member. Hothead. Heavily augmented. Considered stupid, even by his compatriots.
He was also part of a team. A team that had been hired to attack Lady Runa’s ship on one of the days Siv had let slip that they might be leaving. Not that it really was. But then she also didn’t imagine the people who hired him thought that either.
It was one of countless such operations. A much more brash and direct one than most, but still the kind of thing Corpsec usually took care of. Whoever had hired them, though, had wanted to send a message. So Siv sent one right back.
The files were forwarded to her automatically. Another little trick of her program. She looked over the team an found their lynchpin. Then she made sure he had the worst week he could. Brother picked up by Corpsec. His usual illicit income streams cut off. Just enough annoyance to lower his guard and make sure his already chrome-driven agitation would be at its peak. Then it was a simple matter of ensuring a rival ganger just ’happened’ to catch the same public transport that Mr. Tonoyan normally took. Someone who could signal for backup. Someone who’d have an opening to take the man out.
His team may still try to pull something. They were never going to win to begin with. But still this sent a message. It let whoever was playing this game know that she knew, which was really what had to be expected at this point. In the end, that’s why you hired people like Mr. Tonoyan.
Branchrunners. It was probably one of the sillier names for them. Different corps, worlds and cultures all had different terms. Things like Knaves, Clay Soldiers, Associates, Ballast. It was all the same thing in the end. Disposable assets. People with the skills to be useful but without the loyalty or investment to worry about risking them.
A few of them got out of the life. Lord Sean’s newest pet came to mind. But most didn’t. For most it ended just as it had for the man on Siv’s readout. Some chromed up burnout who was going to die no matter what, all to send a message. He just ended up cheated out of a few days by one who was frankly far above him. Simply because the gold furred bunny wished to send a message back.
The future CEO was not going to be bothered by some no name thug for a few million Kroner. If Runa’s opponents wished to see her dead, they’d have to treat her with the same fear and respect they did her Mother.
