Editing HEAVY OBJECT:Volume18 Chapter 1 (section)

===Between the Lines 1===

Seven massive companies controlled the Capitalist Corporations home country that covered the western half of North America.

Those companies were known as 7th Core.

They held great influence over every last part of that world power and they were deeply involved in this space elevator as well. The Federation of Elevator Industries was a space development agency jointly funded by those seven companies.

They were an incarnation of capitalism.

All things, from war to philanthropy, were judged by whether or not they would bring profit to the company.

“Then I will sell three company-owned buildings in Seattle, Cascade District. Is that okay?”

“Yes.”

“But one of those is an exceedingly high-level IT research facility.”

“As long as it will bring us even greater profit.”

That elderly man would not bat an eye at a mere 100 million dollars.

He sounded annoyed with his young and beautiful secretary for seeking confirmation about every little thing.

“For example, we could buy out a rival company. In fact, get started on that after inflating the funds with some arbitrary market deals. …AI research is such nonsense. Get rid of that pesky rival and we’re freed from wasting so much money on that pointless development race. Then we can focus on what really matters. What I want right now is steel and sturdy cars.”

“Then I will do that.”

For them, everything was about money. That meant they had a monetary reason for constructing the space elevator in Africa’s Turkana District. And not the immediate benefit of spreading the reach of online shopping to cover the entire planet.

They were focused on much greater profit.

“What do you think?” asked the elderly man while calmly progressing a plan that would ruin the lives of hundreds of his own employees and more than ten times as many of the rival company’s employees.

“It seems like a reasonable distribution.”

They were in Los Angeles in the Central Valley District of western America.

That was the capital of the Capitalist Corporations’ home country. This conversation took place in the top floor of a smart building sticking up even higher than all the other towering skyscrapers.

The elderly man seated in the president’s office that took up an entire building floor was named Raphael Goldenclipper.

The much younger secretary in a suit was named Serenade Blackrose.

“Short-term-stay villas have been constructed on the moon, but they are reliant on the transportation of goods from earth,” said the secretary. “No one can move their indefinitely. Mars and Jupiter also seem unlikely at this stage, so relying on any existing planet will likely never be realistic. That is why I consider ''her'' suggestion to be useful.”

“This planet will eventually run dry.”

“Our advertising agency’s simulator determined that a plan to reduce the human population would cost too much.”

“So the final problem is the humans, huh?”

“Yes,” calmly confirmed the secretary. “But if personnel expenses and service charges were eliminated, it would reduce the accepted prices for the products. If the factories were fully automated, we would have no choice but to sell the products for the cost of the original materials. To efficiently make money, inefficient humans must be made a part of the production system somewhere.”

“Hm.”

“Humans increase the price of the product and humans buy the product at that increased price. But they must have stable lives to do so. That is where Objects come in. If we recruited soldiers from the general populace, it would only allow former soldiers to bring along firearms when they riot. And the damage will be greater the more advanced and unique the technology. Hence, it is best for only a limited few to hold all the power to fight.”

The rulers of capital never actually touched paper money.

Money was a status symbol, but what you really needed was a useful position in a company. In that case, the money need not exist in a non-digital form. Paper money might as well have been a silly toy to them.

“What are the other six companies saying?”

“They are mostly in agreement. Some do not trust the Federation of Elevator Industries, but no alternatives have been suggested. If they truly intended to break away, they would instead say nothing at all.”

The elderly man did not even attend the secret meetings held over the internet. Some people were safer when they remained ignorant of what was going on around them. All the dirty work was left to his secretary.

It was that special arrangement that had allowed such a young woman to push past a veritable harem of beautiful secretaries to become the strategic secretary who stood alongside the CEO.

“Then you’ll be continuing as before?”

“Yes, I will continue to monitor the situation.”

<noinclude>{{HEAVYOBJECT Nav|prev=HEAVY OBJECT:Volume18 Prologue|next=HEAVY OBJECT:Volume18 Chapter 2}}</noinclude>