Chapter One Hundred and Seventy-Four: Interview Debriefs (Patreon)

“Another meeting?” I groaned.

“It’s what you get for being a celebrity,” Gideon replied mercilessly. “We all advised you against going on the TV interview.”

“That worked out perfectly!”

“Thanks to your girlfriend intervening. Otherwise, we’d probably be dealing with a bigger PR disaster. So, you’re going to attend the meeting with Moira Sanghwan and her team. And this time, you’re actually going to listen to what DCW says and do it, instead of running roughshod over her recommendations.”

“I wasn’t that bad.”

“The only reason I didn’t stop you the first time was because I thought you might actually be good at interviews. Now I’m convinced you’re not. So, we do this DCW’s way.”

“Fine, but I’m not setting up a public information office. That’s too corporate.”

“In case it’s escaped your notice, we are a corporation. And please don’t do any field tests while she’s here. My ears still haven’t recovered from the last one.”

The DCW Partners team had come prepared for our meeting this time. With a one-hundred-and-thirty slide presentation and fifteen pages of handouts.

After four hours of PowerPoint 2075, I was sorely tempted to test out some plasma grenades…

“... so as you can see, the best way to strengthen our corporate brand equity for the US market is through continuing engagement with key influencers,” the DCW executive finished.

“Thank you for that, Ms. Watts.” Gideon nodded politely at the presenter, who blushed and sat down. “What next?”

“Could I get a summary of the whole thing?” I asked. “I got lost somewhere between the section on segmenting markets and marketing segments.”

“Those are the first and the last sections of the presentation,” Dr. Palmer commented dryly.

“Yeah, somewhere between those.”

“The five-minute version, Mr. Belessar,” Moira Sanghwan put in smoothly, “is that we need to put money into lobbying with the Americans.”

“We need to pay lobbyists?”

“Yes. Defence spending in the U.S. - especially at this scale - needs approval from Capitol Hill. We can’t get a seat at that table without significant lobbying.”

“But the American military wants the Boar Armour. And the HEPARs. And the nanofibre weave.”

“We know, but the U.S. Committee on Appropriations doesn’t look at any new technology unless it’s been individually pitched to each of the senators and representatives individually. Something this significant would put Raytheon and Lockheed Martin into receivership, if we got it.”

“Okay…”

“And those two have a lot more - and better - lobbyists than BAE. So we need to muscle up.”

“Can’t we use our good PR to get in there? Or a good word from the Stratospheric Guard?”

“It’s more complicated than that. We know the U.S. military wants your tech - they’ve seen enough proof of concept at London and Singapore. We also know they’ve been shot down by their government.”

“Why?”

“Raytheon and Lockheed-Martin are paying their lobbyists to push back - they want a slice of the BAE-Dragonfly tech as a precondition. And then there’s Atlas-Grunnig.”

“Atlas-Grunnig? What have they got to do with this?”

“It seems you have personally offended Alex Grunnig. He’s been paying fortunes to his lobbyists to disregard anything that comes from BAE-Dragonfly.”

“That makes no sense…” A memory came back to me. “Supreme’s backers are Atlas-Grunnig?”

“Yes. The public reveal of Supremacy was supposed to send their stock price soaring. Instead, it plummeted. And their investments in trademarked toys, merchandising, and pre-booked influencer campaigns were wiped out. Thanks to a certain highly respected ultra suggesting that they should look for a new name.”

Gideon chuckled. “I have to admit, it was fun watching the Grunnigs lose that much money.”

“You know them?”

“Met them once at a defence expo. The father’s a flaming racist, and the son’s a snivelling twerp.”

“Wow, Gideon,” Sarah grinned, “I haven’t heard you that impassioned about anything.”

“I have a slight bias against entitled idiots pretending to be corporate professionals.”

Moira Sanghwan smiled gently. “We understand, Mr. Troy. To sum up, Belessar, we have two powerful special interests pushing back against our getting into the U.S. market - one driven by profit, one driven by ego. Trusting in the good to win out won’t work. We need to invest in a counter-strategy.”

“Okay, so what do we have to do?”

“Four main things, which are on page 3 of your handout.”

Pemberley was waiting in my office after the meeting.

“Your request for surveillance got expedited,” she said, handing me a folder. “Papers only, we’re not putting this on anything electronic.”

“Isn’t that being a little paranoid?”

“Considering we might be penetrated by alien shapeshifters six ways to Sunday? Paranoia is the in thing right now.”

“How’s the RAF handling it?”

“General Windsor had a long meeting with Air Chief Marshal Soames yesterday at High Wycombe. There was spirited debate about the best way to address the problem.”

“Did Windsor actually yell at Soames?”

“They’re both too professional for that. It was a frosty meeting, though. Both Soames and the MI6 head wanted more evidence.”

“The videos?”

“Not as convincing as one would hope. Although the video of you communing with Sarvenimazarus helped.”

“Are you convinced?”

“Strangely, yes. It explains how the aliens knew where to hit us in London. The Roar of the Carnotaur, the attack at the Tower … Most people have chalked up the aliens’ ability to anticipate us to good old precognition. Spies amidst us are a solvable problem. Difficult, but solvable.”

I flicked through the papers. “These are… Aldiss’ personal records?”

“And Jenny Tseng-Li’s. Detailed histories, everything about their past, their friends, family, college buddies and dorm mates.”

“What do I do with this?”

“Shapeshifters - at least here on Earth - can mimic a person’s physical form but not copy their memories. If Aldiss has been replaced by a shapeshifter, the alien would have some conditioning and training about his past, but it isn’t going to be perfect.”

“So there’s things the alien wouldn’t know about him.”

“We want you to set up an incident. Something that can prove that Aldiss isn’t who he says he is. Bring him face-to-face with someone he should know, or something to which he should react in a particular way, and record his non-reaction.”

“This is a test, isn’t it?”

“More than that. Get the data, and we can show the Americans that Aldiss is an imposter. Then they can haul him in.”

“But you can’t do it yourselves.”

“The last time we tried arresting Americans for treason didn’t turn out so well.”

“And Jenny Tseng-Li?”

“We’ll be putting a team of agents to track her.”

“What if she spots them?”

“It’ll be an interesting test of human versus alien tradecraft. They have orders to vanish into the woodwork if they’re made. Let her think she’s just being paranoid.”

NEW QUEST ALERT: I SPY.

FIND EVIDENCE OF THE EXISTENCE OF THE ALIEN SHAPESHIFTERS WHICH WILL CONVINCE THE INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES OF THE WORLD TO ACT.

REWARD: IMPROVED RELATIONSHIPS WITH ALL ALLIED INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES, +2 WISDOM, +1 CHARISMA.

“I’ll get right on it.”

“Just like that?”

“We’re in this together, right?” And I could use the sweet, sweet attribute boosts….

“Okay, let me know when you have something.”