ic Business, Grant

[Tiffany Korta]

"As long as we understand that this is as much about the truth as the story, you might have to give Ms Grant the benefit of the doubt."

 

She put back on her glasses and adjusted the jacket he'd given her, along with her whole posture, as if by magic the fastidious reporter was back in the room.

"And don't worry about me this isn't my first rodeo!” she paused as if listening to something “The elevators making its way up so I figure we have about a minute if you want to suggest where to meet after all this behaviour is over, and I can't miss an opportunity like this to file the story. Anything you want to be on the record?"

[TheAbsurdist]

He snorted at her assertion.  "I've heard that many times.  In many variations."

 

He sighed a little and looked at the tear on the seam on his sleeve for the shirt as well.  "Crap.  I liked this suit."  Glancing to her, "Simple, just come to my building.  I am likely going to be doing many business things, and such.  Calls.  Emails.  Contacts to rake over the coals."

Amir looked at her carefully, scrutinizing her look.  "Could use some more dust, especially in your hair.  Apart from that, I really have nothing to add, officially, I was skeptical, and then robots.  That makes a pretty good copy.  And you can use that as an excuse to follow up with me in a couple days.  Story wasn't finished."

[Tiffany Korta]

 

GM Post

 

Almost exactly on schedule, the doors of the elevator pinged open and a chaotic stream of security and police streamed into the room. The two were gently escorted away to be checked out and interviewed as needed, being carefully kept away from the press that had quickly gathered outside.

 

In fact, the only paper that seemed to have any of the real details was of cause the Ledger, who reporter had happened to be on the scene. Dancia had given Asad a glowing, yet accurate, credit for his actions and left out any involvement in the action whatsoever.

[Tiffany Korta]

 

The next morning, bright and early, Dancia walked into the Summit Transnational building. Despite what she'd claimed yesterday she'd had another suit as good as yesterday, though obviously not as fancy as many working in the building. Walking over to the reception desk she smiled at the receptionist.

 

"Hello there I'm Dancia Devons, I'm here to see Mr Misri. I'm here to return this to him." she gestured to a hanger over one of her shoulder covered in a dry clean cover.

 

Saying you were a reporter tended to make people in places like this nervous, even if right now she wasn’t after a story. She was more concerned with her other job.

[TheAbsurdist]

 

Most places.  Summit was different.  The reception was surrounded by the glass walls that faced the massive lobby/foyer/entrance.  Beyond those walls were the various floors of where people worked, deal spinning.  Various boards showing the world market's moving in real time.  It was not unusual, except for the amount of light ster  The security guard smiled easily.  "Ah, yes, Mr. al-Misri said you'd be in."  And then he leaned over and picked up a badge for her.  "Go ahead and wave this at the elevator over there.  It will take you to his floor."

 

The man smiled at her when she took it.  The elevator in question looked no different than the others, matching the open design with it being a glass elevator that went up and past the business floor, and then up through the ceiling, and into a section that was decidedly smaller in terms of ceilings, but opulent.  The elevator did not stop on it's way up, not allowed her to stop it  The door opened, and with a chime, it opened, facing with someone who looked more like a receptionist.  "Hello Ms. Devons, Amir is waiting for you."  She gestured down the short hall, towards the double doors, to what one would assume was his office suite.

 

In there was more a drawing room, cluttered with a wall of monitors viewing various business news programs, and the feeds she had seen elsewhere, as long as electronic post its, and other things.  Amir was standing, looking at one of the monitors, wearing slacks, and a dress shirt, though the collar was unbuttoned, and the sleeves rolled up over forearms that seemed to be cut from granite, even if they weren't massive.  "Hm."

[Tiffany Korta]

 

Dancia wasn't one to be easily intimidated, but she was quite impressed by the layout of the place and Amir always seemed to cut an impressive figure. Maybe he just always looked like he was about to appear on a magazine cover.

 

"Thank you for the jacket, I appreciate the loan." she held out the hanger with the protected jacket "I had it dry cleaned and repaired in this little place in Emerald City." she didn't feel the need to boast it was more matter of fact

 

"I assume you have some conditions you want to lay down for how this all works. I'll save you the first one I'm more concerned with the truth than the story, I won't report anything unless you want me too."

[TheAbsurdist]

Amir seemed to subconsciously pose for the camera, or as a heroically.  Depending.  He didn't look at her yet, his eyes watching the feed from the Euro-markets.  "You seem to imagine that after years of dealing with the press I trust them, or their editorial, especially since the revenue of your organization is down 12% this quarter.  Projections for the remainder of your fiscal year doesn't look good either."

He moved to take up his jacket and he looked at it, and then her.  "Hm."   He moved from her, and carefully set it down on his messy desk, covering a half-dozen newspapers and tablets.  "So I am not going to bother with rules, or demand that you owe me a favor.  I tend to take getting shot at a personal matter."  

[Tiffany Korta]

 

"That's very graceful of you Mr Misri, though I can understand your principle behind your thought process." she paused before adding in a slighter more humour tone "And I think you'll find Internet-related profits are up ever so slightly, which is mostly the domain I operate within."

 

She held up a hand before he could possibly respond.

 

"I'm sure that we could debate this for hours, and that your superior business acumen would eventually reign supreme, so let's just cut to find out who was shooting at us. I have excellent sources that tell me that it wasn't apparently any major supercriminal organisation or individual..."

 

She'd called in a few favours with those at the League that were relatively friendly to her, plus those allies she'd made among the wider superhero community. And she was as sure as she could that it wasn't supervillain related.

 

"...So it looks like its someone related to the business side of things, shadowy or otherwise. Who do you wish to start with?"

[TheAbsurdist]

"A debate would, by it's nature, imply that one side is not objectively wrong."  He smiled to himself, before he moved to start pouring a mug of coffee from a carafe.  "Would you like some?"  Moving to pour a second mug for her, some other things on a tray next to the carafe, sugar, cream, all that.

 

Amir al-Misri was contentious in the way someone who had something to prove might be.  He looked to the screens, and he sipped at his coffee.  "Likely.  I don't have enough time to scrub through every single possible person, if just for Grant's legacy.  So likely it's either her father.  Or Marstech.  Most of the senior Grant's enemies will wait to see what happens on the end of the stability, but since this isn't the UK with it's libel laws, the amount of people that man has pissed off, attacked, or endangered is enough that half the populace of the Atlantic seaboard has a grievance."

[Tiffany Korta]

 

Ignoring his comment with just an eye roll, she focused instead on helping herself to what was of cause excellent coffee. She sat beside him and looked at the screens, even though she could easily hear the information from across the room, or maybe even orbit if she concentrated enough.

 

"We can't count out Grant himself, his sudden retirement smells of something very devious. No love is lost between him and his daughter and I could see him trying such a stun."

 

She'd never crossed path with the senior Grant but she'd heard rumours through the superhero grapevine.

[TheAbsurdist]

"He is the number one suspect.  If anyone would actually do a false flag, for reasons, it'd be him.  I mean, I've seen a bait and switch tactic to be 'ousted', show a new leader, and then when your replacement is perceived as unable to hack it, then you can just swoop in to return to power via mandate.  With the shareholders, or equity partners, maybe even throwing a parade for you because of it.  Y'know the evils of the world what can't be punched away."

He sipped at his coffee, as he stared at the wall.  "Grant is a jerk.  But I avoided him, because I didn't want to have to blast him through that same window.  His daughter is naive, and in way over her head.  And she is surrounded by his enemies, a lot of whom might not care about the specific Grant in power that they remove.  Blood is in the water."

Amir sighed a little bit as he set the cup down, and tugged his sleeves back in place on his forearms, then he folded his arms across his chest.  "But this is just retreading.  Not like I could steal away one of the robots to the Asad-Tower, or anything."

[Tiffany Korta]

Triakosia

Dancia was quiet for a few moments as she considered what she could do, she had options as to who and what she could contact in a situation like this. If she drew on her Triakosia background it would be obvious for someone as intelligent as Asad, but then again she had been ready to do so before so it wasn't a big deal.

 

"I know someone who might be able to get access to where the bots would be stored. For this we'd probably have to be a little on the lowdown, we don't want certain people finding out where stuff like this is stored. Enough mad scientist running around as if without adding one more!" Dancia gave a little smile as she spoke.