What's this? I'm actually updating on time for once?!
Check out chapter 7, cus I've edited the first speech (or will be doing so in the near future). Think it's a little better now.
Anyway, on with the show.
Chapter 9
The old saying ‘I’ll get by with a little help from my friends’ would not be applicable for the industrial world in general (for example, sligs and glukkons wouldn’t depend on anybody, vykkers wouldn’t depend on sligs or glukkons), it did occasionally find relevance among vykkers. Vykkers who knew each other well and shared interests would occasionally turn to each other for help.
However, Krik did not expect 14 million moolah to drop out of thin air and land at his feet. He remembered Zimbago’s instructions and had brought his research to an end and destroyed all official records that it had ever existed (except of course, for the bucket-loads of cash he still owed) but he couldn’t shake off his own nature completely and made several copies of his research and hid them where he didn’t expect them to be found. He didn’t tell any of his team about this,
He didn’t want to be around when the various glukkons and vykkers he owed money to found out that they wouldn’t be seeing any of it for a while, but he decided he had to tell his friend, Emlech, in person.
In the end he told him over the fone.
Their conversation was brief; Emlech was mostly silent, having quietly been expecting trouble of this sort since he had heard about the mudokon Queen’s capture. After he put down the fone he locked himself in his office for a few hours while he revaluated his plans.
Emlech did not get where he was today for accepting things as they came. When he wanted something he would get it, and Queen Margaret and the whole of the Vykker’s Council could throw themselves off a bridge if they wanted to stop him. He had a small number of facilities that would not be found to exist in any official records and was well experienced in the arts of breaking the law.
Emlech was one of the cleverest vykkers around, and unlike most, he kept it a secret. He could do his own work better if the Magog Cartel weren’t chasing him round trying to get him to join their ranks. He predicted that the Vykker’s Council would eventually dissolve into the Magog Cartel several years before the Council did. While Krik had spent years worrying that mudokon labour would never become reality, Emlech had sat self in the knowledge that it was only a matter of time before there wasn’t a factory on Oddworld that wouldn’t have at least a handful of slaves. He also predicted that sooner or later the mudokons would fight back.
He had liked Krik, but he had also liked his idea. Free slaves for however long the fake queen lived for, and hopefully that would be a long time (it would have to be for Krik to make any profit). With the expected boom in labour, he had planned to make a lot of money from the younger vykker’s work.
He had laid out his plans carefully. If he bought mudokons to use in his secret facilities, it was possible people would notice that he was purchasing a lot of labour that he didn’t seem to be using anywhere (for of course, no one would know about those labs). If he had had his own source of labour eggs, as well as selling them on, he could also use the slaves in the places he was keeping secrets.
And when he received his message from Krik, he decided immediately that the Cartel was not going to ruin his plans.
He arranged a meeting with his young friend. Krik was initially reluctant to agree, expecting some form of retribution from the vykker whom he owed so much non-existent money, but his peculiar form of morality got the better of him and they arranged the meeting.
A pair of interns greeted Krik silently (which was not surprising) when he got off of the train at one of Emlech’s laboratories. They led him through the building, up two flights of stairs and to the head vykker’s office. They knocked, the door opened and Emlech emerged and greeted Krik warmly, shaking him by the hand. “Krik, my friend! Good to see you; how are you faring?”
Despite the warm welcome, Krik was still suspected trouble, so didn’t reply. Emlech grinned deviously and ushered him into the office. “Good to see you haven’t lost any of your caution. Come in, come in.” Krik sauntered into the office. “Take a seat,” Emlech gestured.
Krik glared suspiciously at the chair.
His friend sighed, “Would it make you happier if I sit in the chair for a while first, to prove there are no poisonous spikes sticking up out of it?”
Krik considered, “Yes, it would.”
Emlech, smiling, sat in the chair, leaned back and looked up at the other vykker, A few seconds later he stood up and slid into the larger chair behind his desk. Krik, looking unhappy about the arrangement, sat down.
Emlech leaned forwards, “Let’s get this out of the way now. I’m not going to offer you food or drink (unless you ask for it), I’m not going to make you stand by the window, walk out of any doors before me or use any other creative method of assassinating you. You being dead won’t get me my money.”
There was a long silence. Krik broke it. “What’s this about then?”
“It’s about a mutually beneficial business arrangement between friends.”
There was one thing in particular that Krik liked about Emlech. Emlech was the boss of a massive company. He had hundreds of inhabitants working for him (willingly or not), in fact he could simply have sat back in his office and let the whole thing run itself. But Emlech got involved in the every-day goings on of his company. He still took part in the experiments and research. Krik liked that.
“This is about the money I owe you.” Krik didn’t like how his friend always took his time getting to the point in a conversation. It made him feel like a fly caught in a web watching a spider sit about for hours.
Emlech smiled, “How much do you owe me, Krik?”
“You tell me.”
The older vykker chuckled, “Alright, You owe me two and a half million moolah.”
Krik sat up in his chair, looking affronted, “It’s two million!”
The two vykkers stared wilfully at each other for several seconds. Eventually Krik sank back in his chair with a shrug. “It was worth a try.”
Emlech laughed, “Shrewd as ever! Two and a half million… And what is your total debt, Krik?”
“Now
that is none of your business!”
“Oh come on! What would I possibly do to hurt you with that information?”
Krik muttered, “I can think of a few things.”
His friend rolled his eyes. “I’m trying to help you, Krik.”
The other vykker looked suspicious but eventually replied reluctantly, “14 million, including the money I owe you.”
Emlech mused, “That’s 11 and a half then-”
Krik looked surprised, “What, you’re letting me off the money I owe you?”
“Oh, don’t be a fool,” Emlech replied, “Like anyone on Mudos would give away that much moolah!”
“Well what then? If you called me all this way to talk in riddles and ask pointless questions then I’ll go. I’m very busy, I have a lot of money to make out of thin air and I’d like to be getting on with it.” He got up and went for the door.
Emlech stayed quiet throughout Krik’s outburst, but as his hand closed around the door handle he spoke up, “There’s a sniper waiting outside this office.”
Krik froze and turned slowly.
Emlech laughed raucously, “The look on your face!” Krik growled and slumped back into his chair. Emlech sat up, looking alert and said quietly, “I need to order some more DNAse. I’ve almost run out.”
Krik looked surprised, “Already?”
Emlech shrugged, “I run a big business.”
“I don’t suppose you’d be willing to pay 14 million moolah for your next shipment?”
“It wasn’t what I had in mind.”
Krik sighed, “I thought not.”
“Seven years was it, that you were working on this mock-queen thing?”
“Nine,” Krik answered gruffly.
Emlech nodded. “I like to think I know you well, Krik, and not just by your reputation.” Krik looked up, wondering where this was leading. “And I know without a doubt that a vykker who could create something like DNAse would never destroy nine years work just because some glukkon told him to.”
Krik looked suspicious, “I destroyed the records of my work.”
“But I’d bet everything you own you made copies?” He gave Krik a penetrating look, “More than one?”
“Don’t judge me, Emlech. You’re no law-abiding citizen yourself.”
“I never claimed I was. I always liked the idea of having my own source of mudokons. And I’ll tell you now that I have more than one laboratory that isn’t on any official Cartel records where I could do with some extra slaves. If I keep buying slaves but not using them in any of the facilities the Cartel knows about I may arouse suspicion.”
Krik leant forwards, “You’re offering to buy my research?”
Emlech gave him a scheming look. “I would ask to buy a copy of your research, if only you hadn’t destroyed them all.”
Krik grinned for the first time in weeks, “It’s a shame. If only there was some copy lying around somewhere which you happened to find, purely by coincidence of course.”
“Yes, and you know, and you know I wouldn’t expect to find it at all, unless I’d been in your laboratory for some reason, for example helping you out, since we’re friends, by paying you, say… 15 million moolah?”
Krik narrowed his eyes, “18 million.”
“Seventeen.”
“Deal!”
Krik stood up. “Well I had better leave. Places to see, people to go. I should let you round my lab sometime. Shall we say, in two days?”
“Midday, the day after tomorrow, I’ll be there with a little money to help you out of your nasty situation.”
“And I’ll make sure all copies of my work are properly destroyed. I wouldn’t want you to accidentally find one on your way out.”
They shook hands and Krik turned to the door. He grasped the handle and then paused before letting it go. “I think I’ll let you leave the room first, just in case there is someone waiting outside.”
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Bit rushed so formatting might be incorrect in places.
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