Snippet #1340665

Incompetence! I am completely surrounded by incompetence! And incompetents, for that matter! Why must everything be done thrice before it is done correctly? Prometheus noted that his blood pressure was probably spiking, which the strange doctor with the mask had told him probably wasn’t a good thing. Or something. It was largely irrelevant anyway. What mattered was that there was absolutely no accountability in science anymore! When he’d entered the field, the requirements were exacting, strict! None of this ‘do what you can’ business. You were an expert in everything you were asked or you were summarily dismissed.

Take Giacomo, one of the younger generation that actually knew the right end of a flask. His most obvious mistake was an ostentatious blemish! He’d never forget to be careful with Mana again, why couldn’t all errors produce something like that. Reminder! They all needed reminders, or they would forget… something. Something important. Boundaries, possibilities, something.

“Fine,” he snapped, though the frustration in it was aimed elsewhere. “Send my assistant a memorandum listing the two you want to keep. If you think any of the rest of them are at all competent, we might move them to palace maintenance!” His voice drifted from mere sharpness to a shrill crack in the space of those sentences, but Prometheus did not notice, nor would he care if he had. It was not as though he could not allow for mistakes, it was the matter of where and how they had occurred. How was it that someone who professed to be educated in the workings of steam technology could fail to check a simple piston error?

The comments about suppliers and other such details, he did not address. They would arrive when those lazy fools who controlled the mechanics trade decided they would, and not a moment before. This, even he had learned to deal with, though his resignation was tinged with bitterness. The world bowed to business like it never would to reason.

“Do whatever you have to, Giacomo, and have the invoice sent to my office. Just do it quickly. I’ll not have any dead nobles from an equipment malfunction.” Shaking his head ruefully, the temporary mania already leaving him, Prometheus turned on his heel and took his leave. It was back to the lab now, to warn his poor assistant of the onslaught that was to come. Oh, and he needed to check on the Mana valve system. If the energy began to corrupt at the tertiary stage again…

-=-

Loki parted with her mother once the entourage had arrived back at the palace proper. She noted that the lift was still down, apparently not operational in the slightest, and frowned. Perhaps the problem was worse than she had thought. As if to confirm this, the Marchfield Director himself, Doctor Vanderbilt, brushed past her without even seeming to notice her existence, and Loki frowned. Someone as important as that, here to oversee something so small as maintenance? No… that didn’t seem right at all.

There were, however, other pressing matters to be addressed, and she returned to her office with her singular bodyguard shortly thereafter. Carlisle was a good sort, closemouthed and discreet. There was the small fact that he reported to Amon directly, but then neither man needed to know that she was aware of this. It was a complicated game, the one she played with her mentor, and one with many more layers to it than anyone else would expect. Should she be asked to explain the relationship, she would have to first choose the level upon which to answer. In any case, it was of benefit to the both of them, and that was reason enough to allow it to continue in the same fashion.

Selecting another sheaf of parchment from her desk, Loki tapped her fountain pen against her chin for a moment, contemplating how best to approach the situation. Now that she knew Gilgamesh’s angle, she was going to need all the help she could get to make sure he didn’t have his way. The problem was, she could not do anything directly. She had no voice in Parliament, and she did not wish to make herself a public face of any particular opinion just yet. Goldwater, on the other hand, had already done so, and she knew it was to him that she would have to turn.

Something nagged at the back of her mind about that, though. The Marquis was doubtless a decent person (insofar as anyone who danced in this little play of theirs could be called decent) but she had serious doubts about his knowledge of what he was fighting for. She possessed that knowledge, but it would not be the wisest thing to lay those particular cards on the table just yet. No, Goldwater had the power and the opinion, but what he lacked was the experience, the knowledge of what he really needed to do. He could very well end up fighting and conceding in all the wrong places. She would not, but as she had learned that day, she was not alone in this.

With that in mind, Loki penned a quick missive to Goldwater requesting a morning meeting the next day, if he would be so kind. He knew a little more than most people about where the Princess was angled in terms of the Delta question, so he probably would not dismiss it as an idle fancy of a silly girl. How the other recipient of her request would take it, however, remained to be seen.

To the Esteemed Lord Taylor,

Salutations and the blessings of Elisia to you.

I apologize if this missive appears to have come from a most unusual place; please understand that if matters were not so immediate I would be employing all the requisite formality. As it is, however, I am afraid I have not the luxury.

The matter of the upcoming Constitutional review is important to the both of us. I imagine it is quite obvious to you by now that the majority of opinions in Parliament do not currently favor your own position. Tomorrow morning, I intend to meet with Marquis Adam Goldwater to hear his thoughts on the subject, and I believe yours would be most enlightening as well. I would, therefore, humbly request your presence as well in my salon by the ninth hour of day, if it is convenient to you.

-Loki Blackwood, Crown Princess of Revelation

She scanned over the paper. The first bit was the standard court salutation. The rest was… well, quite a bit more direct than nobles usually sent each other, but there was nothing too incriminating in it. Should the thing be discovered, it would give away nothing more than the idle curiosity of an aristocratic lady. She was planning on Taylor being able to understand that it was more than that. Folding the paper twice and affixing it with her seal, she passed the document to Carlisle, who accepted it with a bow, disappearing after she informed him that he was to deliver it to the lord immediately. It was not as though she were incapable of attending herself for a while, after all.