The Mech Touch novel Chapter 153

Chapter 153: Publicist

"When you told me you mastered ninety-nine percent of my design, you weren't lying. You did an adequate job." Ves nodded with satisfaction. "I expect you to focus on the remaining one percent. You've taken the wrong approach at some turns that has led you into a dead end. Even I can't resolve this issue without spending a lot of effort."

A tired looking Carlos pleaded at him. "Can you show me how to fix this first? It's been nagging me for weeks."

With his superior skills, Ves deftly threaded the needle. He emplaced the right components through a fairly congested portion of the half-built silver label mech. Carlos did a decent job with his first real attempt at fabricating the Mark II, but he made a few strange decisions during the assembly process that tightened the noose once he finalized the internals.

"It should pass certification." He judged. He should know, since he supervised the entire session, all seven days of it. "Don't worry about the speed. Perfect your techniques. Any flaws you pass on might prove catastrophic."

At its current scale, the nascent Living Mech Corporation couldn't afford to fail a single product. Not only would a failure throw his balance sheet into disarray, it also affected his reputation. The MTA kept track of every mech designer's performance. Customers paid a lot of attention to the ratio between failed certifications and total mech sold.

After overseeing the handover of the freshly fabricated mech, he turned back to his own work. The new year prompted him to catch up on his paperwork. The LMC's recent incorporation forced him to expand his administrative scope. He couldn't work in a slapdash manner like he used to. Nowadays, he had to track every material that came in and out of his premises.

Fortunately, a relatively small company like his who employed only a handful of people didn't require much overhead. For now, Ves could take it easy and implement some simple off-the-shelf systems.

He also had to segregate his finances into a number of different accounts. The majority of his money rested in the LMC's balance sheet. Ves wasn't allowed to draw on this massive pile of cash without a justifiable reason.

Not that it mattered, because he only answered to his shareholders. Currently, Ves was his own majority shareholder. After spending a fair amount of money getting the Barracuda to work, he also had to cough up about a million credits to cover his running costs and pay some miscellaneous taxes. The LMC only had about 50 million credits left in savings.

The 250 million credits he received from selling some of his shares technically belonged to him rather than the company. At this stage, it the distinction hardly mattered. He was the company, and the company was him. For now, Ves reserved the money for a future license purchase.

"I should hire a clerk." He thought as he installed a commercial tracking program onto his bots. With their new programming, the bots gained the new task of tallying up his inventory. "At least I've already hired a publicist."

Calsie found an interesting student at her university. When Ves first met Gavin Neumann, he thought he met an assertive nerd. Ves had read the senior student's CV and became impressed by his excellent grades and extracurricular activities. Since Ves wanted to find someone flexible, talented and independent, Gavin looked to be an excellent prospect.

He should have been studying at a much more prestigious university, to be honest.

Gavin started his job interview with a very surprising declaration. "I hate mechs."

"Excuse me?"

"I just thought I should let you know. I hate mechs."

"...Okay. Why are you applying to be my publicist if you don't think much of mechs?"

"Would you rather have someone working for you who's slavishly brainwashed into worshipping mechs? Love and obsession often clouds your judgement. I can guarantee you that as long as I'm in charge, I won't be fooled by the hype. As a marketer, it's my job to be the trendsetter, not the follower."

Once Ves understood Gavin's point, he had to admit it made sense. Still, letting someone who hated mechs take charge of his public relations could also backfire on him. Gavin might not fully understand the nuances the in-crowd took for granted. Also, his motivations also drew suspicion. Why work for the LMC if it didn't match his interests?

"That's because your company is at a stage of rapid growth. I've done my research. Despite the incredible risks, there's a lot of money to be made with mechs. I don't care if I have to sell mechs, dung or female sanitary products, as long as it has potential, it's worth my time.

"So basically, you want to work for me because there's lots of promise in my sector. Why not apply for a job at the Raleigh Consortium or something?"

"Pff, where else am I going to work? My talents will be going to waste if I apply for a job at the farming consortiums! Every year, they harvest the exact same crops and sell them to the exact same wholesalers from Bentheim. They're so stodgy and conservative that even a single change of color on their packaging requires an entire conference!"

Tragically, Cloudy Curtain didn't offer much in commerce. Even a high performer like Gavin couldn't compete against graduates from Bentheim and Rittersberg.

Ves eventually decided to hire Gavin. The assertive student might lack experience, but he had an abundance of enthusiasm. Gavin looked forward to be an integral part of the LMC's rise.

A mere week after he went to work, Gavin proved his worth by successfully getting the gaming centers to adopt the Young Blood as a promotional mech. The usage rate of his training mech had skyrocketed. Once Gavin and Calsie finished designing a publicity campaign, Ves looked forward to twisting public opinion against his political opponents.

"That will take some time, however." He sighed and looked back to the half-assembled Dortmund. When Ves hadn't been supervising Carlos, he had already started to reconstruct the frame of the massive industrial printer.

Ves made decent progress in the early stages of his reconstruction project. The blueprint and the repair manual he obtained from the Clifford Society proved its utility by allowing him to assemble the salvaged and reprinted components in the correct order.

Even if he didn't grasp each component's purpose, the printer should work as long as he handled them appropriately.

In fact, he assembled the printer a lot faster than he originally thought. Despite its immense size, the Dortmund's complexity lay mostly in its irreplaceable components. Starting from an inventory of salvaged parts allowed Ves to skip the most difficult phase and put together the Dortmund with relative ease.

Another week went by as Ves immersed himself with the reconstruction. It started to look more and more like one of those shiny new machines he saw back when he went on a school trip to a major mech manufacturer.

The good times ended when Ves hit a snag at ninety-eight percent completion. Most of its advanced components had already taken their places, but if Ves didn't do something about its processors, the massive block of machinery might as well be scrap.