So it is done: Atlas and Mantle (Patreon)

“Vacuo has always been an advocate of a commitment to open dialogue on all sides, every state, so stop trying to shove Vacuo into the camp of your opponent! Or one day you might even succeed!” The TV smoothly transmitted the tone of an exasperated short stout man with a noticeable bald patch, appearing on a TV show as a spokesman for one ‘side’.

“Vacuo is a sovereign state and will not give up on dialogue with the ARA, and threats by the Vale government will certainly not make your point to the ordinary people of Vacuo!”

“Dialogue?! That's what you call conducting a joint military exercise with the ARA?!” The man’s opponent, a small elderly woman with the ferocious gaze of an enraged bulldog, barked in response. “Ninety percent of the orders placed by the Vacuo Ministry of Defense are for supplies from Glenn! Vacuo's biggest trading partner is Glenn! And with just one look at the latest 'special economic zones' legislation in Vacuo’s council, and one could only conclude, what's that but direct integration of Vacuo into the ARA economic space!? And despite this, Vacuo has the audacity to talk about its neutral status!”

“Eighty-seven percent of the world's sand exports come from Vacuo, but I see no exclamation that Vacuo has monopolized sand! All other nations are totally dependent on exporting sand from Vacuo, and I will remind you that it is essential for everything from glass to microchips!” The man, whose flushed face dripped with rivulets of sweat, pulled out a small handkerchief to blot his bald head, before continuing to speak, clearly breathless from his own emotions. Either that, or just the heat of the debate combined with his considerable bulk.

“We’re joining Glenn’s economic zone, because Vacuo has a stockpile of sand, in availability, with an established bulk supply, needing a ready transport infrastructure. And likewise, Glenn has products with no counterpart currently available on the world market, either technologically or economically! If you want to outbid Glenn, give us an alternative, and enter the market with your product counterpart! Stop trying to bang your fist on the table and demand that Vacuo give up a better option, to wait for your teleportation gate production to finally get going. How long have you been trying to launch the first prototype of that?! For two and a half years! And all you've been doing is promising to launch it, with still no results!”

At these words the old woman’s face creased with consternation before she started to answer to continue their dialogue, as far as such TV shows could be called a ‘dialogue’ between the two participants in principle. But before he could hear the reply, Roman's ears caught the sound of approaching footsteps. The noise caused him to avert his eyes from the TV in the waiting room and look at the door leading to the office of the person that he was waiting for.

The person that passed through the door was an unremarkable girl of small stature – it was easy to mistake her for a secretary. With her inconspicuous appearance, slightly disheveled hair, and wearing a strict suit with glasses slightly down the nose and a pile of papers in her hands. She looked like the stereotypical secretary, always looming behind or a step back from a boss.

But Roman's attentive eye could catch the fact how deliberately inconspicuous she really was trying to be.

How she kept carefully to the side while making sure no one was behind her, how she would glance around at every possible exit and windows. And more to the point, how she kept her hands at the ready, no matter how light or heavy the documents she was carrying, her hands never swerved, steadily hovering next to her belt line.

Clearly there was a hidden weapon somewhere in the vicinity, or it could be her belt for all Roman knew, weapons technology has been advancing leaps and bounds in the past few years.

‘A RATS agent… A Secretary and a bodyguard, two for the price of one.’ Roman didn't look too closely at the girl, wary of spooking her, no matter how ironic that would sound. But he couldn’t help it really, while he hadn't been a hunter for a long time, but some old habits were hard to eradicate from his soul… Especially those that remained after everything that had happened in his life.

Besides, ever since he'd entered the circle of the powerful and wealthy he'd had to start interacting with bodyguards quite closely and extensively, so he'd picked up a few skills from his new 'professional' environment anyway. It was simply a coincidence that it had so successfully overlapped with the skills of his old one.

A moment later a well-looking elderly man with a heavy stare, balding hair and sagging bulldog cheeks appeared on the doorstep following the girl. The man maintained a decent, good-natured smile that was desperately out of sync with the rest of the man's face.

“I'm sorry for the delay, the meeting has been a little longer than usual.” The well off-looking man took a few steps out of the corridor before moving closer to Roman and extending his hand for a handshake. “Kaiser Quartz.”

“Roman Torchwick.” Roman responded to the firm handshake with his own, then turned around, noting how the silent secretary cut in professionally, silently, without making her actions apparent, seeming to cut Roman away from Kaiser. All the while not allowing him to hide his actions by the position of his arms and body.

The bodyguard is quite well-trained, it seems.

“And this would be Miss…” Roman smiled the disarming smile that always worked without fail on the fairer sex, one that still made his wife twitch her eyes involuntarily, and turned his gaze to the secretary.

“Pine.” The girl tersely replied, clearly trying to maintain a carefree and slightly distracted tone, as if her thoughts were somewhere in the clouds or rather in unfinished reports. But the very fact that she had not reacted to Roman's actions spoke volumes.

She was deeply aware of where Roman’s hands are, and he would imagine any sudden move on his part would cause a barrel of a gun to suddenly appear pointed straight into his brows. And as much as that would sound, Roman would be keeping any jokes on his part a minimum.

‘So not an actress, must be a secretary indeed.’ Roman took the girl's hand for a handshake and let it go after a second, as he watched it return to its previous position without a change, before shifting his gaze to Kaiser. Pushing the buttons of a RATS again would be put aside for another day. "It's nice to meet you in person for the first time.”

“Likewise.” Kaiser stepped forward, inviting Roman to follow him into his office. “I’ll have to be honest with you Roman, when I first saw the information about your company, I couldn't have imagined that its head would be someone your age. Not that I mean anything rude by it, of course, in fact, I was quite delighted to see such ambition.”

“Not at all, I was just lucky enough to make some profitable investments and find excellent employees who exceeded my own expectations.” Having made the short walk to the decently furnished office, Roman settled down on the chair in front of the equally well-furnished desk, letting Kaiser sit at the head of the table.

“On the contrary, I am more delighted that my humble company has captured the attention of the Governor of Atlas and Mantle.”

At this simple compliment, Kaiser merely shifted his gaze and shook his head slightly, either truly feeling the emotion or displaying his talent as an excellent actor. Seeing that the man in front of Roman was a politician, he would bet money on the latter, or both even. "Young man, with all due respect to you, please refrain from mentioning this ridiculous title. I know what people call me, but at the end of the day, I am just the Acting Chief of Staff of the Glenn Peacekeeping Area of Responsibility and a trustee of the Glenn Peacekeeping Force and Administration. Atlas & Mantle’s administration is a separate matter from mine… And there is no governor beside, only a sitting parliament and its head.”

“Of course, my apologies, a habit from Vacuo, we simply don't like long titles, you see," Roman smiled, but inwardly he certainly felt no remorse for his words. What other way could he feel if the words he spoke were true? Sure, technically, Kaiser Quartz was a man of vague powers and an unspoken position, not someone that possessed so much power that  a title like Governor would bestow.

On the other hand, he was the highest authority of the land. All its undivided branches of Atlas and Mantle, has him as the head, allowing him to rule both without any scruples. It was his power to make or repeal any law that pleased him, or rather his direct superior, Jonathan Goodman.

Still, unless censured directly by the King, Kaiser could issue orders, remove and appoint people, give and remove special powers, use the army as he pleased. In other words, he represented himself not just as a governor, but as the governor-general of Atlas and Mantle.

Of course, he might not be the ultimate authority, as he was acting at the behest of Jonathan Goodman, someone that had pulled Roman and his entire team out of the biggest asshole fate could have driven them into. Twice. So Roman held no reservation that Kaiser would do a good job ruling Atlas and Mantle.

Plus, Jonathan had not shown himself a tyrant and generally stayed out of Roman's life in any way. The opposite actually, indirectly, through orders from Mantle and Atlas, contributed to his distinguished life in Vacuo.

In other words, Roman was willing to turn a blind eye to the actions, titles, and specifics of the current situation for the sake of a contract.

“By the way, if you don't mind, Mr. Quartz?” Roman smiled his disarming smile again, "I know that we have agreed to purchase some resources and spare parts, but several of my friends have proven quite interested in the capabilities of the former Schnee chemical concern…  Would you mind if we touched on this topic as we discuss the current contract?”

***

Kaiser watched as Roman, smiling as if he were a cat who had successfully broken into a supply of catnip, put his final signature on his copy of the finalized procurement contract. Roman did not specifically hold such a business, but he could legally represent the company's board of shareholders and was therefore entitled to a provisional contract. The contract was to be ratified later by the remaining shareholders, but neither Kaiser nor Roman had any doubt that this would happen.

It was not only and not even so much a question of the purchase or sale price, but of the near total absence of risk.

Negotiating contracts between companies based in different countries was always a big headache, Grimm, and other logistical problems were more often a stumbling block than anything else. The seller was unwilling to send his goods if they were not paid for, bearing the risk of it being lost to a horde of Grimm, or wasting enormous sums of money on supply convoys which ended up being unnecessary. The buyer in turn was totally unwilling to pay for goods that might not be delivered to him in the end because of the Grimm. Especially since the Grimm did not have to exist for the seller to sometimes shake his head sadly and blame them for the disappearance of an entire convoy of goods, and would sadly offer no refunds.

Glenn's logistical advantage in this case was astounding. Functioning teleportation nodes, or, as Kaiser had found out a little earlier in his conversations with Jonathan, were technically portals, almost completely negating the cost of transportation and the possibility of cargo disappearing along the way, fictional or real. Add to that the ability to instantly transmit any message over any distance and to any location regardless of CCT operations or weather conditions, Glenn possessed an absolute advantage in logistics.

Glenn possessed the only way in Remnant to seamlessly link logistics to any location, allowing almost instant interaction with the market of your choice, and the ability to instantly deliver any cargo volume, almost instantaneously. With the only constriction being the current gateway's load and mode of operation, as often, large freight companies needed to bookmark their few hours of use for weeks prior.

The development of logistics has been so dramatic and rapid that, for the first time in Remnant's history, Glenn, and the states associated with the common ARA market have begun to raise issues and experience problems that were previously the province of only the most optimistic, or the most pessimistic fantasists.

Manufacturing facilities were barely able to cope with the speed of resources being fed into their factories, requiring the construction of new, powerful plants, providing jobs for hundreds and thousands of people. Of course, balanced with the dying old logistics industry slowly collapsing, leading to cascading unemployment.

If you don't need massive convoys, you don't need guards. Causing that labor market or, especially in Vacuo's case, even gangland cliques to die out. And if you don't need convoy vehicles, car manufacturing suffers, and followed by metallurgy, the chemical industry, even Dust mining has declined, as the cost of transport work was one of its major expenditures.

No cars, less need for Dust, less mining.

However, the greatest beneficiaries from such technological development, were undeniably the common people. When a journey to Mistral, Atlas, or even Vacuo becomes a matter not of an entire operation requiring fortified caravans, dozens of hours of travel and great risks, but of a single inexpensive ticket and a dozen minutes of waiting? Then any common person who ever thought of travelling would benefit.

And most people in the world thought of travelling to another country, even just once, all ready to sing praises to the technological wonders of Glenn.

Besides, the nascent and rudimentary travel and resort industry of the past definitely said a big thank you to Glenn's efforts. Menagerie, who never knew what to do with their barren land at the ass end of the inhabited world, absolutely said a big thank you, with the link between the cities allowing a booming tourism industry to form.

Add to that the trade flows into the center of the overall network, Glenn, which always leads to new visitors and growth in trade, economy, and you get a world rapidly changing under the onslaught of technological discovery.

Or magical, but that side of Remnant was anyone's guess.

“It's been a pleasure doing business with you, Mr. Quartz,” Roman held out his hand to Kaiser and shook it, still smiling, half out of habit, and half out of actually him being pleased with the contract. “I’m sorry for my sudden departure, but Moth is pestering her mother and she suddenly requires my assistance. The girl’s tooth has fallen out for the first time in her life, and now my wife can't get her to sleep.”

“Oh, children, you can never really understand just how fast they can grow up.” Kaiser shook his head as if he understood something about child-rearing. More about pleasant idle talk, really, as he had no children.

"In that case, you really should hurry up. Fortunately, it's only a matter of half an hour to get back to Vacuo - it's longer to get to the gate station than it is to get to Vacuo.”

“Indeed, technological progress is unstoppable,” Roman nodded several times at Kaiser's words and stood up from the table to leave. “I wish you good luck in your difficult administrative affairs.”

“All the best to you too, Mr. Torchwick,” Kaiser nodded as he glanced at Roman's receding back, then sank back in his chair and waited a good dozen seconds before glancing at his secretary. She, after thinking for a moment, nodded, confirming that Roman had left the building without much trouble and at the moment there was no one else beside Kaiser and the agent assigned to him. The agent acts as secretary, bodyguard, overseer, and firing squad on demand.

“At least that solves the problem of both excess Dust and lack of food.” Kaiser covered his eyes with the palm of his hand while rubbing them, as if trying to shake off the fatigue. Though he was perfectly capable of controlling any display of emotion and the signs of fatigue in his appearance, it didn't actually mean that he wasn't experiencing one.

But Kaiser wasn't one to complain, it was foolish to complain about his fate when the alternative was the gallows and his experiments with Aura and human body being publicly known. No, it could even be said more than that, that Jonathan had shown mercy, quite possibly undeserved mercy, when he offered Kaiser his life. A mercy dictated by necessity and practical considerations, but a mercy nonetheless.

Kaiser was also not one to shy away from hard work, for it was work that was the stop-gap that kept his life from moving to the time of his execution. Giving Kaiser a glimmer of hope that his end would not come from a public execution, but perhaps within his work office or even in his home and room, of a heart attack or stroke due to overwork.

After all, he may well have known that his function in this world was to work and that the abundance of work in this case was a boon, but his decrepit body was weakly obeying the commands of his mind. Not to mention the fact that his previous actions had put an end to any possibility of regaining his youth or prolonging his life.

Yes, he was not executed, yet, but that does not mean that he would live a day after his usefulness ends. Jonathan would not go to the trouble of prolonging his life, as such actions created dependency, too much at odds with his decision to tolerate Kaiser exactly as long as Remnant would tolerate him and not a day more.

And in the meantime, Kaiser was to live like a condemned criminal, except in his case the state needed his skills and therefore preferred the uncomfortable cold confinement to forced labor according to his profile. And Kaiser had plenty of work to do.

Three years ago, Jonathan had invaded Atlas and Mantle territory, and so the world was divided into three camps. Those who saw it as legitimate, that it was necessary, to ‘save’ Mantle from the tyranny of Atlas, the ones that believe such a thing are mainly people from Glenn and, funnily enough, Mantle itself.

Robyn had made the mistake of touting Glenn's wonders and Jonathan's own outstanding personal qualities during her rise to power, and failed to correct the mistake of planting the seed of admiration for Jonathan on Mantle's part. Sometimes even more so than their own associates, and, through Jonathan's efforts, ‘dropped’ out of power long before she could get the word out to her subordinates.

The second camp was those who condemned Jonathan’s action and saw his action as what it truly was, a swift annexation and conquest of the city-state. The people belonging in this category, primarily included the other cities of Atlas, who refused to consider the loss of their capital and largest city as legitimate. Sadly, their own lack of power before the Atlas and Mantle conflict, that relegated them to bystanders at best there, also persists after, making their own opinions barely a passing noise in the wind.

And lastly were those who took a wait-and-see stance, with each party slowly drifting towards one of the two sides under the weight of prevailing sentiment.

To take Vale as an example, Ozpin did not allow his fiefdom to make any drastic moves, all the while maneuvering to be ready to counter Glenn’s actions while simultaneously benefitting from the strengthened Kingdom. A position that allowed them to retain enough connections to benefit from Glenn's services, industries, and technology.

Vacuo was in the same camp, leaning, however, towards supporting Glenn. The memories of the rescue by Jonathan's forces were strong, and Glenn's outstanding capabilities enabled Vacuo itself to overcome some unfortunate realities of their harsh environments. Things like complicated logistics or lack of sufficient fertile land, all solved by their friendship with Glenn, allowed Vacuo to begin to develop its economy for the first time.

Mistral was Mistral. Even without Aifal's influence tilting things into his preferred position, Mistral would clearly have endeavored to stay in the middle. Trying to get the maximum dividends from any situation. Perhaps as expected of the Kingdom that decided to join Mantle in the Great War out of fear of losing profits.

The funniest thing of note to have happened, however, was the fact that Menagerie was also left out of the general celebrations of Glenn and Mantle.

One would logically think that Menagerie, being Glenn’s first ally and staunch enemy of Atlas, should have been first in the cheering ranks of those supporting Jonathan and Glenn. The death of Atlas, the release of Mantle from their influence, all with deep allied ties running through the two allied states all were things to be celebrated, and in a way it was. Many ordinary citizens, the common faunus of Menagerie, had been throwing weeks of celebrations after the news that the rotting bronze colossus of Atlas had been dropped from its pedestal of history, but not much of its highest echelons did.

The aspirations of Menagerie's top political leadership were not so rosy at all, for besides the pleasing fact for all faunus that Atlas had fallen before their eyes, a not so happy event happened before it.

Jonathan Goodman had stepped over the head of his ally, Mantle, to establish his own administration in the state.

Certainly, there were reasons of their own for this decision, but who is to say that there were no reasons for Jonathan to take a similar step towards Menagerie?

However, sadly, Kaiser's relationship with Menagerie were very indirect, so he was not privy to the arcane matters of negotiation and intrigue, concentrating his energies on trying to govern the newly formed Atlas and Mantle. Who knows, maybe the relationship between Jonathan and Menagerie could have been very good far all he knows, and this surface tension was nothing but a trap?

Still, he needed a great deal of strength to continue running Atlas and Mantle, he had no energy left to worry about matters, literally, out of his purview.

After all, Atlas and Mantle required officials, managers, rulers, to settle the ruffled feathers that rose after Glenn's seizure of the city that swept away the old ways like pins. Laws defining the status of foreign soldiers were needed, the integration of Mantle's economic power was needed, and in the end, the problem of the still existing Mantle militia had to be solved. Allied or not, those still represented the new Glenn colony's own armed forces, and Glenn would not want to check whether the Mantle rebels were bluffing by claiming they had enough forces to take over Atlas by their own forces.

Questions needed to be answered, laws to be ratified, and warehouses needed to be filled, and more things that were simply routine. Things that, if it piles up in a single mass, begins to look far less like work and far more like a monster bent on devouring the sloppy official who caught its eye.

Kaiser sometimes even dreams of filling out report after report, having barely sorted out the status of the Schnee Corporation only to see Winter Schnee speak on television about her opposition to the illegal occupation of Atlas. And so, with a sigh, he would return to his desk, trying to figure out where he had to make a blunder this time in order to prevent the largest global corporation falling into the hands of an Ozpin puppet.

First an attempt to appease Mantle's armed formations by juggling a revanchist-filled Atlas army, more than willing to take revenge for its swift defeat on the fateful day. Then an attempt to rewrite the laws of Mantle and Atlas, seeking out suitable deputies, here or in Glenn. An attempt to force the ailing giant's economy to recover from months of downtime and decades of exploitation, social programs mixed with the quiet removal of inconvenient opinion leaders. Two disorganized terrorist attacks, and one staged…

And then he would wake up, and would have to do the same work regardless.

It took the Kaiser a year and a half of continuous work to restore Mantle and Atlas, or rather, to make the system work, so it was no surprise that he would even dream of paperwork. And yet, even with the amount of work he’d put into it, full restoration was still out of the question.

But Jonathan had expressed that wan only willing to only as long as minimally necessary before proceeding with the next steps of his geopolitical move.

The ARA, the All-Remnant Alliance.

A political bloc and at the same time a global economic initiative linking the markets and economies of Glenn, Menagerie and Atlas with Mantle, Kaiser's area of responsibility to be precise. A demonstration of the gravitas of Glenn rapidly becoming one of the world's centers, first in science, then in economy, then military might and eventually social and political.

And also a strong leash around the necks of its vassal states.

The so-called economic initiative was not just economic in its essence, but was clearly created with the aim of much more than uniform tariffs for peanuts and linking train timetables now running between states. No, from the outset, it was the framework for the development of a common… Everything. Armies, economies, laws.

And common in this case meant Glenn.

Kaiser's role in this case was to implement Glenn initiatives to make the ARA goals a reality, starting with Atlas and Mantle. A monumentally difficult task even for someone like him.

Indeed, even the most ardent of Glenn supporters in Mantle would find it difficult to justify implementing colonial laws and rewriting realities according to the vision of His Majesty's ensconced government in Glenn.

However, if these are not Glenn's laws, but those of the general All-Remnant Alliance, whose accession was decided by the Parliament of Free Mantle… Well, that’s a different matter altogether, isn’t it? It’s just a coincidence that most power would rest in Glenn, and coincidentally, Jonathan’s hands.

And so Kaiser worked – a law here, a signature there, day and night, until the technical powers of Mantle, the scientific powers of Atlas, and the dust deposits of Solitas were under Glenn's control. Under keen, careful, well-meaning, but still strict control.

For the past year and a half, Kaiser has done nothing but work for the good of Mantle and Atlas, indeed, as always, also for the good of Glenn. Markets, jobs, a loyal population, Kaiser had provided it all while Jonathan had done things… Of a higher class and importance than trying to determine a tax on fur coats.

“At least the food supply problem is solved now. Along with the trade agreements with Menagerie, that would be enough to tide us over until the first harvest of the underground farms.” Kaiser ran his hands over his face once more before he sighed and opened his eyelids, and a measure of indignation could be seen in them.

“Grimm damned Ozpin and his puppets from Atlas, and damn the rest of Solitas… And especially their willingness to cut off the food supply to Mantle.”

Kaiser never thought he would hate the other cities in Solitas more than he did once he was in charge of Atlas itself.

Kaiser thought about his future workload for a moment, before perking up a little, as he addressed his secretary. "I don't have any more appointments today, do I?”

“No," The agent replied dryly, "Roman was the last one.”

“Well, in that case… I think there won't be any problem if I go to Pietro's workshop, wouldn’t it?” Kaiser asked without mentioning that the agent would go with him, it was already implied. After all, her orders were completely unambiguous, not to let Kaiser out of her sight for even a second… And her shift was to last for a few more hours anyway.

“I think…” the agent said slowly, glancing at something in the periphery, before nodding. "Yes, it's possible…”

Kaiser only grinned a little at the reaction he saw, after all, even though they were calling the place 'Pietro's workshop', the two of them were not setting out to check on the old scientist.

"I'll have to pick up some lollipops for the trip.” Kaiser rose from the table and rubbed his shoulders a little, a bit stiff from the time he spent in the chair.

"Penny may not be able to digest it, but she's been quite taken by the taste of candies lately…"