Warslave

Chapter 2: New and Old Blood

Greyhound

He felt the eyes trying to burn into him. A meeting with the board, or with any of the people from the business side of things, was something Greyhound had never gotten used to, and he was quite sure he never would. Yet for all his discomfort, Vincent Weiss was the man calling the shots.

The CEO of GenTech was not a young man, though compared to Greyhound almost everyone was. There was an aura of power about the man though, that no one could really deny. It made the older Warslave uncomfortable.

It boiled down to the fact that this was the man he had been made to serve, even if his programming was faulty.

Vincent scraped his throat, taking his eyes off the papers and looking up at the Warslave.

"So, while the mission was a success, your pupils made the usual mess. Have we not ordered you to teach them restraint?"

Greyhound shrugged, pushing down the uneasy feeling in the back of his mind.

"You did, but then you gave me no means to do so. I've had plenty of means to teach them to kill, and they have gotten really good at that."

"So you are blaming us?"

"All I am saying is, you wouldn't think twice about exterminating ants either."

Vincent thought about that for a moment.

"You'll have to explain the analogy to me. You compare us to ants, but humans do not take orders from ants."

"I'm saying that the only interaction they have with the outside world is to go out and kill things. Same as you would with ants, you ignore them unless you kill them. You never bothered to have them learn anything beyond that."

"And how do you suggest we fix that? You want us to send them out on shopping trips? Or send them to amusement parks? Or perhaps you want them to start living in human homes?"

"Not really, the humans wouldn't survive that. For starters, why don't you start thinking about the missions you give them? Especially for Wolf and Viper."

"Who?"

"They're not just numbers."

"Who?"

"47 and 48."

"I'll consider it. Would you say guarding VIP's would constitute a better goal?"

"Depends. Sure, keeping someone alive might be productive for their development, but if the VIP's end up getting on their nerves there are decent odds that they'll off the VIP on their own."

"All I am hearing is that my best products might end up causing trouble for me."

"It's either that, or more massacres. I'll do what I can on my part, but both GenTech and Swordpoint will have to cooperate, even if it hurts the bottom line in the short term."

Vincent smiled for a moment, though it was a cold and joyless expression/

"And how am I to sell that to the shareholders? Or our clients?"

"Call it an investment. After the display of power they put on today, everyone is going to want in on this either way."

"And you know this from your wealth of expertise in the field of economics?"

"I know this from my wealth of expertise in the field of fear and power."

"Like I said: we'll take it under consideration."