Entry 3:
Another few months have gone by since the last entry. I need to start writing down the dates, cause I don't remember when I last wrote in here. Well, it's the end of the first year, so that's good. Makes remembering the timeline easier. Anyway, as you would expect, much has happened since the last time, so let's fill you in.
Starting with the criminal exterminatus.
Since we did a good job in Chryse City, Tekkaden and Kingston Securities secured contracts in neighbouring cities and towns in the region and even a few outside it. With all this work, money, assets and land were falling into my lap. I didn't even need to share these with Pete since he only operated in Chryse City.
I was so flush with assets that I needed to stop accepting any more contracts for the time being, else I wouldn't be able to consolidate my gains properly.
Going to my main project, Logistic Kings. I've already established the company as a monopoly within Chryse City and the surrounding regions. Thanks to Mr Bernstein and Makanai, obtaining exclusive tender rights in the region was only a phone call away.
These rights have also been extended to Kingston Security and the newly established Redstone Mines Partnership. While Kudelia was opposed to using Daddy's influence, I was not, so I made sure to meet Mr Bernstein more than a few times during these months. After acquiring two or three more mines, it didn't take long for work to begin, and the endless paperwork to be circumvented with said help.
All of these companies use Logistic Kings, by the way, including a few others I haven't mentioned yet. Even Teiwaz have begun switching from the local logistic firms they used on Mars to Logistic Kings. They've even bought a thirty per cent share in the business, while Mr Bernstein bought ten per cent.
It really is just who you know.
While I'm on this business trip, ArMars has already built two facilities. One on Earth near Edmonton and one near Chryse City. With everybody having come to an agreement, building the facilities was a simple process, and we've already begun the R&D phase.
When it comes to the casinos and gambling dens, I've decided to hand control to operators I've decided to prop up, and they are all now working independently. I would still keep the majority shareholding, but these were just for a quick buck and to launder money.
Not that I would ever do that.
Oh, it also served as a decent info hub on public sentiment and knowledge. These places are bugged, so now I can stay up to date on what the locals are gossiping about.
I did the same with the bars. I was going to include the drugstores on that list, but I had different plans for that. It would be given to my foundation called Kingston Gifts. I decided to rebrand the drugstores and sell medicine for dirt cheap. Still enough to make a profit, so I could fund public programmes I had planned for it.
My writing was halted by the sound of knocking at my door. "Uh, Darius, your next meeting is in ten minutes."
"Damn it. " I muttered before standing and stretching, then quickly typing in a short 'fill in the rest later' at the bottom.
*******
Entry 4:
Turns out, I did not, in fact, fill it out later. I thought I did, but it must have been in my mind. Makes sense, I guess. Sleep hasn't been a constant companion of mine since I started dreaming higher than my station.
Well, six months have passed, and not much has changed from what I've written in entry three, besides more consolidation and the fact that I've taken on a lot more criminal exterminatus gigs. I've been running out of money, and I had a new project ongoing that required a vast amount of funds. The one thing Mars doesn't lack is criminals, whether homegrown or from around the solar system.
Chryse City and a majority of the Chryse region logistics industry were under Kings Logistics. It's scary how fast one can take control of an industry when no regulation and oversight is there to stop you. Rather, said authorities who would make such regulations help in the monopolisation efforts. The stick-and-carrot method sorted out any issues.
Being a regional power doesn't hurt either.
Something similar was taking place with Redstone Mines but at a slower rate. We acquired two mines over this time, and I'm aiming for two more by the end of the year.
With Tekkaden's popularity and prestige, I decided to leverage that and my role as a leader to endorse Kingston Security, particularly to the nobility and rich of Mars. Be protected by a security group controlled by the same man who defeated Gjallahorn. If he can beat the biggest Military power known to humanity, then he can surely offer solar system-class protection.
As one might guess by the fact that I hadn't just decided to live a happy, comfortable life with the adequate money I had, I also set out to take over another undervalued but highly powerful and profitable industry.
Water and sanitation.
Mars is a land that lacks a lot, but one thing it lacks the most is water. Many water merchants have made a fortune drilling for, treating and/or importing water. It costs a lot, but it earns much, much more since it's quite easy to overprice such an essential part of people's lives.
It was with my newly acquired funds from the exterminatus that I planned to purchase the treatment plant operating in the Chryse region. Unfortunately, the owner, Mr. Willis, rejected my offers no matter how lucrative.
The old fat man was overcharging Mr Bernstein and the residents of the city, while the Mayor could do nothing about it. The fat water merchant had an elite permanent force with a mobile suit within its ranks.
While the demand for Mobile suits had increased and the likelihood of the war machines becoming normalised on battlefields was imminent, we were still at a point where they were rare. So I still had the advantage of owning multiple and needed to make use of it while I could.
So, being the generous man I am, I offered to take over the plant and lower the prices if Mr Bernstein allowed me to acquire it by any means necessary. When he agreed, it only took half a month of planning to eliminate the guard and have Willis peacefully allow me to buy his plant at dirt-cheap prices. The time was mainly to make sure he wasn't the type to destroy the plant as petty revenge before handing it over.
Sadly, he decided to shoot himself in his villa a few days later to repent for the sins he confessed to in his final letter. He also sadly killed his family to ensure they all went downstairs together, since they were all implicated in many crimes.
Did you know he donated all his assets to nonprofits all over the region, which so happens to include my own? Very selfless of him.
With that out of the way, I made a big deal of gaining ownership of the facility, making a grand announcement and everything. I took a look at the costs, and my god, was he charging an arm and a leg. The profit margins here were over 200%!!
So when I announced a forty per cent reduction in price, my decent popularity skyrocketed in an instant. It shot to earth and back when I further announced that Kingston Gifts would work with the newly dubbed Aqua Cleansers to bring clean water into the more rural areas of the region.
Those were my good deeds for those months. Time to cash it in.
The Sycthe.
Beginning with top brass. One of the guys tried to bail. Unfortunately, he was also found dead with his family. A similar method to Mr Willis's. Sad, very sad. Why do they keep doing this?
Anyway, this had the very unexpected effect of bringing everyone together. Eh, not really. While I know every member of the top brass, they don't know each other, and I plan to keep it that way. Can't have them teaming up against me, so we always wore masks when we met and had aliases.
Continuing with this paranoia, I decided to add another council member. A shadow seat whose goal was to ensure not a single member was trying to use my own budding organisation against me.
It needed to be someone I could trust with the skills to go over all the admin and books, preferably with a small trusted team. What I need in this role, above all, is loyalty. After a deep moment of contemplation, I decided I needed to get Richy for the job.
When I told him of the entire thing, he suggested someone else for the role. Someone under him. With my schedule and workload increasing, Richy's job as my secretary also increased in workload. So, he got two people under him.
Toji and Mizo. Two boys who stayed on Mars with Dexter while I, Orga and the rest were on the Earth mission. They tutored under the accountant and continued to help with the admin work when Tekkaden grew until Richy made an announcement looking for assistants.
"Toji is the best for this. He has a nose for sniffing out suspicious records and the like." Richy said with a confident nod. "And I shall still help. Once I get a replacement for Toji, I could review his work as well."
"Are you sure? Aren't you busy enough?" I asked with some confusion.
"Yes and no. With assistants, all the tedious work is easily handled so I only get important stuff. Plus, the work has been decreasing somewhat now that we are a little established."
When I interviewed the boy to assess his loyalty, I felt silly for worrying. With how starstruck he was seeing me, it was obvious that I wouldn't need to worry. Despite being in his teens, the boy had real skill in administration and accounting too.
Thankfully, Richy would be watching over him, and where I could, I would help too, just until I could trust he was properly set up.
With the shadow seat, the boy didn't need to attend meetings or the like. No one needed to know he even existed, so it should be fine. For extra measure, I would be paying for him to get extensive lessons for the next few months or so while Richy would be the temporary shadow seat, slowly bringing him into the system.
Going back to the council, each seat was responsible for a specific department. As one would guess with a secret organisation, it couldn't be huge, so it needed to be elite and specialised. So, this organisation has three major departments.
Starting with:
The Ghosts department: long-game deep cover infiltration, intelligence gathering, and human asset development. Operative embedment in structures and organisations such as companies, the growing new armies of all the Earth blocs and in Gjallahorn for months or years.
The Blades department: Precision, direct action such as assassination, extraction, sabotage, and targeted disruption. Deployed for combat operations, extraction or and any situation that requires combat or fieldwork.
The Scribes department: Intelligence analysis, document forgery, technical support, and communications security. Rarely field-deployed. The organisation's cognitive infrastructure.
Of course, there are sub-departments within these that deal with admin, medical wings and the like. If things go well, I could create entirely new departments. For now though, no need to use all the dough for the first batch of cookies.
Going back to the incident, I simply stated that the traitor was ratted out by one of them and stated how said person was generously rewarded. These guys were not exactly the trusting type in the first place, so it only solidified their distrust for each other. Even with this, they all seemed to find a silver lining within this little family.
They were all balls deep into this already, and they knew getting out was either a death sentence or a prison sentence where they would then meet an untimely fate. So they had to charge in, but these men were no strangers to such a fate. I'd worked with them all, and I know they all have the skill and awareness to see the road ahead.
As such, they also knew how to make the best out of a situation like this. I didn't mind if they used the organisation to take out old enemies and used it to advance in their own unscrupulous ways so long as they didn't take it too far.
I made sure to generously ensure they and their families were all being 'protected' by Kingston Securities just like any other noble or merchant client. Not to mention, I allowed each person to take one of the many acquired villas around Chryse that used to be owned by dread Kingpins. Can't have them thinking this was all bad, else they might work on escaping more than adapting.
Next, instructors. I managed to comb through the filth and find people who met my specifications. Those I accepted signed five-year contracts and would live on site. Anything they needed would be brought to them, and they would have limited access to the outside world for the time period. I was generous with the pay, considering they would either end up dead or part of the organisation once their contract period was over.
With recruits, I couldn't be too picky since I needed a lot and this first cohort would be testing the programme more than anything. Any dregs between the ages of thirteen and twenty and not sickly or disabled. Easy enough to get.
The assessment phase has already begun with them, and while I don't hold any ambitions for the first cohort, I still hope for gems.
Going back to what got me here. Tekkaden is doing well. I've been too busy to really do much, but I've been calling everyone from time to time. I mean, for fuck's sake. When I wasn't doing my own thing, networking or travelling between Earth and Mars, I still needed to ensure the Earth operations were running.
Well, I wasn't alone in the latter. I had someone I personally nominated, Sebastian Filden. He was one of the first guys in the CGS who joined my faction when I arrived, and he's been loyal ever since.
He's also proved to be quite intelligent, being one of the logistics managers in the CGS then the same role in Tekkaden, before I promoted him. Another person helping in leading the Earth branch was Chad, the original guy in the show.
Besides that, Tekkaden has also grown. It expanded its facilities and drastically took in new recruits. Not to blow my own horn, but thanks to me, it's becoming self-sufficient in many ways, from food, thanks to the small farmland seized to ArMars, which, while having yet to produce new tech, its new Martian factory will be producing standard ammunition widely used on Mars soon enough.
"Bossman, you got someone here to see you."
Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath and dropped the datapad I was using into a small safe under my desk and locked it away. Barely have time for anything anymore.
"Coming,"