019. Steady up, squad.
Lying down on the hospital bed, Huu had only one thought on his mind.
"Of fucking course."
As had happened in his first life, something had now happened in his second life.
Getting violently ill and missing a big chunk of his life.
Why had he thought that going to Furillo was a good idea again? Oh right, it was a light mech factory, the most useless mechs in the Lyran Commonwealth. The best way to lose money was to invest it in failing enterprises!
At least this time he didn't have a blinding 24/7 migraine that made him want to end it all.
And, just like last time, spending months of his life sick and in hospital had resulted in the world changing around him.
The cycle had ended and he had lost.
Well, not really, since this wasn't exactly his fault... and it was entirely the system's fault... there were no penalties.
++ Host was not lucid during cycle. System derived no enjoyment from unconscious suffering. Conscious, lucid suffering is the most enjoyable suffering. ++
And, well, fuck you too system.
++ System must reiterate, System is not human. Bestiality is illegal. ++
He wasn't sure if that was a mock against himself or against the System and didn't want to find out.
Anyway!
The cycle had been extended.
3 more months starting from the time he had woken up.
3 more months to lose money because holy, shit on a stick, there were profits.
3 months sick, 2 months unconscious.
5 months for profits to creep up on him.
A new year had passed.
The illness had actually, like his first time being sick, saved him.
Unbelievable, truly.
The first time it had gotten him out of a degree in Engineering, he would have absolutely hated. Given him time to think about his life and then had chosen to do Architecture. It had given him time to think about his life, it didn't mean he made good decisions.
This time he had been saved from making profits. 3 months on a dropship would have prevented him from actually doing much to mitigate the damage as the money continued to flow in.
He was earning billions.
Billions.
Were you fucking joking, he wanted to say.
Eggers Construction, without his input, had made incredible profits.
Instead of building more Cradles as he had been planning, they had instead expanded out and begun to sell the Fortress Hexes to the rest of the Commonwealth. With the situation in the Rasalhague Kingdom (what?), there had been an immense demand for Fortress Hexes and the Archon had stepped in. Threat of intellectual property theft be damned, they needed the Hexes on the front line and on every strategically important world.
So, a patent was issued for the process... and the moulds were being sold as fast as they were produced. For every Fortress Hex built with the mould, there was a 10% royalty payment made from the total cost.
5 million Kroner per Fortress Hex had ended up at 500,000 Kroner or C-Bills in Eggers Construction's account.
500,000 Kroner!
With them being built across the contested Rasalhague Kingdom...
He shuddered at the sheer number of profits that were coming at him.
Then came Eggers Armaments, which had been opening factories all over the Lyran Commonwealth.
One was even here on Furillo, selling up-teched Primitive weapons.
What was going on, Erwin? Why is this even happening? Weren't you meant to stay on Blackjack!?
Why was this happening to him? What god had he pissed off that this was driving a stake through his heart?
Why wasn't anyone telling him anything? It was like they thought he knew about everything already or something!
Then came Eggers Defence, which had received hundreds of millions of C-Bills worth of salvage from a battle fought on Romulus. The traitors had cost him the last cycle, and now they were trying to cost him this one as well!
The salvage was waiting for him to decide what to do with it and Huu had agonised over it, so many decisions to make!
What Defence Force? With all the money they were making, they might as well be called the Eggers Killing Force.
Of the four original companies, he was most happy with Eggers Media. They had released Pacific Rim as planned, and then immediately spent all the Kroner they earned on distributions, spin-offs and TV series. There were so many production sites, on so many different worlds that all the money had been spent, and he would need to get Chisao a medal for her hard work.
Then came Eggers Agriculture, which he had established before leaving on holiday.
Eggers Agriculture... that was in the Rasalhague Kingdom.
What!?
He wanted to grow farms on Blackjack! Where there were deserts, and it was arid and there were big storms that destroyed the crops. Why were they over there, he has asked himself. That is, until he read the reports and saw how much money they were losing.
Further, digging into the reports, and he saw that many of the worlds were agriculturally dead. The Combine farmed them to extinction, exhausting the topsoil and then simply leaving the entire planet as a dead world.
Or just burned them to ash to prevent the Commonwealth claiming them in previous campaigns.
And Eggers Agriculture was setting up on these worlds? He would need to give them a medal as well for trying to lose as much money as possible. All those failing farms on dead soil?
Absolutely perfect.
In short, Eggers Agriculture was losing him money, but not enough money! As a service based company, they were just leasing the equipment out and coordinating the farmers. The risk was removed! The farmers took on all the risk, their farms, their land, their livelihoods. If they collapsed, the farmers would lose everything, but Eggers Agriculture would be perfectly fine.
They needed more risk, and he was going to send messages just for that.
EA was going to be the most ethical company he could imagine!
Finally, Eggers Education. This was losing money just as planned, and he was happy indeed.
More professors, more technicians, more everyone who had some kind of qualification. The more teachers he had, the bigger the campus, the bigger the costs! 10 million already in losses, if he expanded 10 times wouldn't that be 100 million? 1 billion? 1 trillion? He could imagine it now!
Losses losses losses!
In any case, he had orders to give.
Everything for losses! His body being in the hospital bed was fine, there was nobody else in the room, and he could lie on his back all day. There was a television, and nobody was bugging him to lose weight. He had lost plenty while unconscious... even if the potbelly was still there. Just as big a part of him as his inability to grow passable facial hair.
That said... why was there a smooth patch of skin there. It felt like a surgical scar... did they cut something out of him? It better not be his danglies, it had nearly happened the last time, they better still be there!
Right, body parts were still attached.
Good.
Ouch, it was like he had done 50 planks without warm up. Ouch.
Good.
Well, everything was great, just lying here and enjoying life.
He had 3 months to lose money, he could just relax for a bit, right?
He did have ass pimples though from lying on his back all day. That was something he could do without.
He turned to call Glory over.
The first time he had done so after waking up had been rather awkward.
"Glory. I need you to send some mess- ack - water..."
Glory, who looked terrible by the way, sat up in shock. On the other side of the room, she looked bewildered for some reason.
Hadn't she washed her hair or anything? Huu was a little shocked, what was going on?
"You're awake!"
"Y- ack - water."
And so, it went on for quite some time.
She was crying, he was trying not to cry because crying people always made him cry. Some people yawned when others yawned, he yawned when others yawned, but he also cried when other people cried.
Anyway, that was embarrassing, and he had his water, let's forget it ever happened.
A little honey... from.
Wait a moment.
Where did this honey come from? Every planet had different bees and different flowers, and there were some that used animals as honey storage and others turned maggots inside out to form their honey combs.
Hmmmm.
Let's not think about it.
He was a little scatterbrained right now. Maybe it was the drugs, painkillers to make him forget the parts of him he didn't know existed, that wanted to make their presence known.
Like electorates in an election.
Sipping the honeyed water, feeling his throat seal slightly, Huu nodded in satisfaction. A little lemongrass, lime leaf, turmeric, and galangal, and he would be right back at home.
Glory had brought the reports over and tidied herself up or something, now they were sitting here waiting for him to go through them. Or rather, due to his current inability to sit up, she had been flicking through them for him.
Everyone talks about leg day, no-one talks about core day! Or something, he wouldn't know, not exactly being a paragon of exercise and diligence.
"Right. I need you to send out a few orders, Glory." She looked like she always had, and Huu was relieved. Still, he wondered what why she looked so terrible the first time.
Oh, right.
He was sick.
She probably felt really bad about that.
"Don't worry, Glory, me being sick wasn't your fault, you don't need to feel bad about it." He decided to clear the air before it got any more awkward.
"Sir?" She looked a little shocked before straightening her hair and facial expression.
"Apologies, I let you see something disgraceful."
"No no, nothing to be sad about. All my fault, and all that. Right, so. I need you to tell Eggers Construction to begin building Cradles around the existing Cradle. One point six kilometres away from the first one. If that finishes, keep building Cradles and expanding them, okay? Anything that is important needs a Cradle!" Sure, each would count as an asset, but if he built more than he had in assets, he could continuously run losses.
He just needed to hope.
He had an entire planet to fill with them if he needed!
And if that failed... he would try at building the Castle Brians because he had nothing else to lose at that point.
Glory was writing on her hand pad. He really needed to look at better computer interfaces, even if this seemed better than the typing by finger he had experienced with his phone.
"Eggers Armaments needs to start looking a little more high-tech. Invest their profits into newer technologies. I'm thinking that we've looked as much as we can into World War 2 technology, maybe start a little newer? Just a little bit you know." Thinking that some of the more expensive things like jumpships would be good... maybe? That was 2200 or something, right? A little later.
250 years was a little later, that's fine, he didn't want to restrict them too much.
It wasn't like there was anything useful or interesting after World War 2 when it came to technology. Mankind puttered around for a bit, developed nuclear weapons and like, had a pissing contest with itself for a while. The next useful thing was... um... ah, right, jumpships. Those were really expensive to build!
All he could remember as a child was Kelly's Heroes and Band of Brothers and The Pacific, and all those World War 2 movies. Then... um... that one with the bomb disposal guys that everyone said was unrealistic, and the other ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. Clearly nothing interesting happened in between if there weren't any movies about it except that one submarine one... and the James Bond ones.
Anyway, Glory was writing that in.
Next was... Defence.
What was the cheapest kind of contract?
The... right... the teaching garrison one.
"Have the Defence Force spread out with teaching contracts. They've done a good job so far, they need some time to rest. A teaching contract for 6 months should be good for them."
Right, that was them out of the way. But... the salvage.
Fuuuuuck.
Um.
What do.
"And get all that salvage working, we might as well use it for the EDF. Um. Find a Mechwarrior (they were rare, right?) to get it all working, and they can join the EDF on their training assignment when they're done. Actually, I'll leave it to them what they want to do, just get the salvage working first."
Having all the stuff working was going to cost him money to maintain it. Perfect for losing money in other words. There were so few Mechwarriors that the stuff would remain ready... sitting there waiting for pilots.
Costing him maintenance fees!
It being useful for contracts was something he would contend with later.
Eggers Media... um.
It could keep doing whatever it wanted?
"Eggers Media can keep doing what they're doing. If they need more money, they can withdraw directly from Eggers General Utility's accounts."
Every company sent 40% of their profits to Eggers General Utility, it was, in fact, the largest chunk of money he was trying to lose. Billions upon billions were inside, and he had no idea how to lose it.
"Education needs to expand. At least... 10 times! 10 times in the next three months, then ten times that ten times after that. I want... education city! Also, I want it to be surrounded with Cradles. A Cradle, then a school, then another Cradle. Or maybe just have the schools inside the Cradles! It will be the most protected school ever!" And also the most expensive, he thought to himself.
Ha!
"Agriculture needs to stop with the whole service thing. That's not taking risks! That's leaving the farmers with all the risks. We need to step in and do it ourselves, take on the risk so that we know the price of failure! Work with the farmers as partners, bring them in, and we'll help them directly, not just renting them tools and stuff. We have to show that we care!" And lose all our money when the farms fail!
"They can take money out of Eggers General Utility if they need to, but we need to do better! Take on the risks ourselves like real businessmen!"
Glory looked shocked, her face smoothing out soon after.
Leaving Huu a little self-conscious.
Was it something he said?
Anyway, that was the loss making started, he was going to need to rely on himself to do the rest. He clearly couldn't trust anyone except Media, Agriculture, and Education... wait, that was half of them. That wasn't so bad.
Things were looking up!
Huu nodded to himself.
Perfect.
Everything was going to be losing as much money as it could, and he was going to be trying to find a way to lose all the company money while on Furillo. He was going to put off that return trip for as long as he could.
Glory nodded, gave what looked like an attempt at a salute, before stopping herself and nodding.
"I'll get it done, Boss!"
Huu let himself drop onto the bed.
He was exhausted.
But.
Anything for a loss, he needed to get this started now, the early bird catches the worm, the worm being losses!
+_+
The doctor came in and had a name he couldn't pronounce. Mainly because he wasn't wearing his glasses. Everything was a blur.
Glory was out passing the messages along, his loss making lifeline.
Glasses, glasses.
Anyway, the man looked friendly enough, he could see the white of his teeth... that was smiling right?
Anyway, glasses on and woah.
What the fuck?
With the door open, he could see into the corridor... and all the nurses and doctors had the same haircut. The one he liked of course, the sharp look that started at the top of the nape and ended slightly past the chin, looking like a blade or a sharp helmet.
Which was nice.
But all of them had it. What the fuck was going on?
Was he in some cult building or something?
Or... wait. Didn't Mako in Pacific Rim have the same style of hair?
Right, right, that made much more sense. They were following the big cultural trend and weren't in a cult, and he wasn't trapped in a building with them.
Huu let out a sigh of relief.
"You may be pleased to know that we have, due to your rather unique body, managed to identify just what causes Jump Sickness as it is commonly called. Its alternative translation as Transit Disorientation Syndrome may also be known to you."
Huu just nodded, as he did when doctors talked about things he had no idea of.
"As you may know, 9-15% of the human race experiences TDS, and it has been identified in 83% of cases as psychosomatic. Which is to say that it is all mental. There having been no proof that it was caused by anything in the body. Yet. Yet, Duke Eggers, due to your unique physiology, that we are currently trying to unravel the secrets of, the truth has been revealed!" He was getting excited and Huu was trying to lean away.
The doctor held forward what looked like.
Uh.
A purple stack of corn cones with tentacles, lots of bright red shiny eyes... as long as his middle finger?
Wut?
It looked cute, don't get him wrong, but it was... uh... not what he was expecting.
"We have taken to calling these Hyperdimensional Creatures. This is but the first of the no doubt, myriad of creatures that exist in Hyperspace that we have just become aware of! The crossing of realspace and hyperspace, the merging of these beings, invisible to realspace eyes, has caused cases similar to your own in the past. And yet, when returning to real space, we with our real eyes and ears cannot see or hear them! We cannot identify that which ails the many. They live within us perhaps, or perhaps merely use our bodies to transport themselves from one location in Hyperspace to another! We do not know! There is so much that we do not know!"
Huu backed away, realised he had backed away the maximum amount, and was then distracted. The corn cone squid floating through the air and landed on his hand... easing its way into his body as if the skin were there.
Huu must be high on drugs because what the fuck right now bro?
"See! It is visible somehow because it has been in your body. It ignored any obstacles in its path, always seeking you, always finding comfort in your flesh. As if you are its nest and..."
Huu held up both hands in a cross.
"Doctor. I... what are you trying to say exactly? What's so special about my body?"
"Your body, has an unknown capability to make the unreal real, to make that which is only capable of existing in Hyperspace visible in realspace. The Hyperdimensional Creature, upon entering your flesh, has become visible in realspace. You are the anomaly."
"Okay, right. Not touching that right now. You want to do what exactly with this information?"
"Well, we need to do a few experiments-"
"No, thank you." Fucking vivisection or something? Count him out!
"No, no, just a few drops of blood. We aren't asking much and... well, you do need to come back for observations... and we could continue...?"
Huu was struck with the feeling that this wasn't going away.
Fucking... what should he do.
Um.
A few drops of blood, maybe? If they stuck to just blood, it meant they weren't going to try cutting him up?
Maybe?
"Okay. So. A few drops of blood, then."
"Okay, okay, that's perfect. Now then... what if we take some more samples."
"No."
"What about some skin? Dead skin?"
And so it continued.
He wasn't inclined to do this again.
A student doctor, the doctor's apprentice, had been the one to draw blood.
Sixteen, ten six, times he had tried. Leaving the left arm a purple/black mess of bleeding. The nurse had done it in one shot.
Amateurs!
Was this what he could expect in the future?
All for some blood which would be useful for some experiments or something. What if he gave them his pee?
Served them right!
All of which boiled down to Huu being... uh... some kind of space alien magnet, and they wanted bits of him to test those effects.
In fact, the doctors were planning on shooting the first vial of blood through hyperspace via jumpship. Then poke and see if there were any Hyperspace gribblies that came to swim in his... that sounds really fucking creepy, actually.
That wasn't to say Voidy was creepy.
Voidy the Space Squid (the Doctor had reacted violently at the name) was rather playful. Darting in and out of his flesh.
He didn't feel any squeamishness about it.
Fuck.
Did that mean he had been mind controlled like those ants with the fungus?
Just... moving on through life, trying to find the tallest grass he could, so he could then explode in a puff of squid spores?
There was no hint of disgust, which for a man who was terrified of insects and fish and squid and anything alive told you just how unusual this situation was.
But, like with anything else.
Huu was very logical.
He ignored the problem and hoped it went away.
Like Fred the cockroach, which had hung on his wall, staring him in the eyes with its soulless gaze for three days before leaving.
Huu was hoping that whatever came next was going to be... wait a moment.
Hyperspace to Realspace.
System? You're a Hyperspace creature, aren't you!
++ System has no comment. ++
Fucking knew it!
A.N. When I said this was low-fantasy I wasn't kidding! Thanks to those who let me know of Voidy the Squidy in the first few days of this story.