Dawn’s head shot up from her noteputor like a snake and looked at Robert. The last bit of food was a little harder to get down her throat. “Well, they want another five machines. Let’s see how I can skin this cat?”
Dawn rocked back in her chair, with her arms stretched out and the hands going flat on the table. She was looking at Robert, but she was also watching Lora out of the corner of her eye. She knows, “he must have noticed her reading the messages and guessed what they might be about.” She had to fight to keep her work face on.
Dawn went back to her computer and looked up the sale slips for each of the five machines, that he had asked about. She was not going to be caught flat footed, like what had happened with the Rock Otter. Very quickly she did the math, in her head. She did all of this in under a minute. She was not just a pretty face with long legs. After all the Magistracy of Canopus was a female dominated society since 2530.
“Robert, the list price for all five machines would be around ten point one million C-Bills. I know that you do not want to pay that much, for all of them. So why don’t you tell me what you think you can get them for, and I will see if “we” agree.”
While she was talking to Robert, she sent two messages out to all of her supervisors in the building. In as few as words as possible. She told them that the deals were still not done tonight, and that another lance might be in the works. She was thinking that those messages should get them bouncing against and off of the Show Room’s walls, again. She had to fight a smile down, at the images of what her short messages were going to cause in the building behind her. They would be trying to figure out what was going to move next. Dawn could have sent them a message about what they were looking at, but she did not do this on purpose.
Robert was taking the lead on this one, just as he and Lora had worked out. “Well, Dawn. How about we look at the down sides first, so we can take that ten million number right off the table. The four 30ton Carbines are old, dirty, and according to your own books. You have been renting them out for all most a full decade, and they have been on the side markets for longer than that without any buyer coming forward. I’m not going to pay one point four million for each of them. The Dig King is over a hundred years old, if the data plate is correct. I think your company has been trying to sell it for, I think longer than you have been alive. Lora tracked down some information, on the net. And she found that MMM has raised and lowered the asking price, so many times it’s not funny. I would bet that every time someone new takes over the Sales Department. The first thing they do, is mess with its price. Just trying to get that much red ink, off the books. It such a specialized machine. That no one on this planet has rented it from you, in how long. Am I right, Dawn? The area under the foot pads has deformed, because it has not moved in so long. Mike and I don’t think your people have been parking it in exactly the same place, after each use.” Robert had a twinkle in his eyes. He knew that he had a lot of high cards on this one. He had not thought that he would be able to get the mining mech or the last two Carbines. They have saved so much money so far, that now they were in play. He really did have a maximum he wanted to spend to night.
Dawn was blinking fast as she double checked the information on her own machine. In her mind she was working out what to do. Sometimes she hates it, when someone does their homework. “Looks like the good Captain is playing for keeps on this one.” The really bad part? It was that when she checked her notes, everything he said was true. The only thing that she had working for her, was that it was obvious that he wanted them. He wanted them badly. But what she did not know was, would he walk away from them if the price was not right?
“Now how do I play this,” Dawn thought to herself? “Captain it’s getting late. I think we need to agree on the Carbines first, then we can worry about the big boy later. I can go as low as one point two for each of the construction machines. For what we are renting them for, over the last year? Any lower, and it would be better just to keep them. We can just keep renting them out as someone needs them, and we can make more money. In the long run, of say a year to twenty-four months and they will be paid off. After that? It will be almost all profit generation, after paying for maintenance.”
Robert was drumming his fingers on the thick plastic covered table. He was letting the pressure build, as he stayed quiet for long minutes. That was a little better price than he hoped for the workmechs, but he did not want to let her know it. He would have paid no more than one point two five, for each of the mechs. You never wanted to pay the retail price. Not when you had to sell it to someone else, and still make a profit. If you did that? You would not stay in business for long. But these machines were hard to find without going in deeper to the inner sphere, or at a capital system, or be on some other major world. On the other hand? They were used machines, and you do not pay new car prices for a used machine no matter where you were. Robert had to keep with his cover story, and that took the retail price right off the table. It was just a good thing that high command was not that worried about making a profit. It was more worried about getting the needed items.
“Dawn, I don’t know if that is that great of an offer on those mechs or not. Then again, I will agree to that price and take all four.” Robert did a “slight of hand” to distract her with an off-topic question. “So, Dawn. What do you get for selling the number of machines equal to a full-strength company? I know that they might not be a combat company. I think a fully equipped engineer company, is a nice bit of merchandise to move in only one day?”
Dawn looked around the table, and then looked back to Robert. Then she shrugged her shoulders. “To tell you the truth, I have no idea. This is so far out of the normal for me, and anyone else in the building. I have never even talked about something like this at the water cooler, it’s not even funny. I just hope my bosses don’t try to rip me off later. As far as I know, it is that we only have a lance and two lance sales bonuses. The only reason I know about the two-lance bump, is that I looked it up before we had dinner.”
She looked back down at the screen of her hand-held system. Her system had all the information that Lora’s had, but it also had the additional information of what was the lowest price a certain machine could be sold for. It also had the proprietary information of MMM. If someone sold a machine for more than that number? They would get an extra cut of the profits on the sale, as their commission. That was true of every machine in the Show Room, and it was true of a lot of their machines on the back lot. The bad part was the Dig King, it did not have that information on her system. She had gone to all of the “Normal” places, but they all were missing some key information.
It had everything you could think of about the ancient machine, and its known history. It had its current list price of four point five million C-Bills. It also had the price history going back decades, on the rise and fall of that list price. She picked a price, that was it the middle of the graph of highs and lows. It would be the safest bet, and it was one that she could defend if her boss called her on the carpet about the sale price being too low. With all of the sales she had done tonight. She did not think that it would be that big of a deal, even if it was too low by a large margin.
“I think three point five million is a fair price for a machine, that massive. I bet you have some ideas about changing up its current working tools, for something else more aggressive. Like say, a heavy wrecking ball of some kind?“ Dawn folded her hands on top of her sales computer.
Robert gave a loud laugh, that carried over to the still waiting vender cart. “If I knew, that they had more of these Dig Kings where we are going? I would pay that, but there is no way to be sure. It’s not like I can go into all the mines, in all the systems, and do a head count or inventory on what is on those properties. I also have no idea what the end user will end up outfitting it with. So, I’m not paying that price ether. How is MMM set for spare parts to support it? Because that is what is holding me back from buying it, now. That is, how am I going to support it, when we leave this planet.”
That was true, for the most part. He knew that New Circe did not have any of this class of mech, but he thought it would be a great help in the war effort. The problem was supporting a one-off machine, with limited support supplied on planet. That is what was supplied by the small industrial base that could be directed at it, once they get home. They could support a lance of war machines or a one of a kind industrial machine. It that was the case? That one machine had better be very good at its job. If it was not… Well, there was always room in the junkyard with the rest of the Rusties. It would not be the first time that something was brought back from a mission, and that later proved to not be useful enough to developed long term support. The clan would use it until it was no longer effective at its given job or mission. That might not be likely, now that the only line that usually produced replacement parts for all of the workmechs/agromechs on the planet was not doing so. It was now making parts for the ground force mechs and some key components for aerospace fighters.
“If you have enough spare parts, and attachments to last for a few years. For let’s say for five years or so. Then I will pay three million to you for it, tonight.” Robert folded his arms across his chest. He would walk away from this machine tonight. He could always come back another day, or just forget about it.
Dawn did not know what to say, so she just sat there thinking. There was no way for her to know what spare parts were available or on hand for that thing. If it had been a Wasp or Locust? She had an idea, even with the Atlas. She knew that they had years’ worth of spare parts stored in the main warehouse for that Assault mech, but she did not know if it was five years’ worth of parts. She had seen them once on a tour of the main production facility. From what she had heard. They were trying to have enough parts on hand to fix up a second 100ton machine in a year or so, just from the extra parts that they had found. Soon all they would need was another Foundation Type 10x chassis in decent enough shape, and those were not found at the corner drug store.
“Robert, I do not have access to that information. Let me go see if I can find it. This one, I’m going to have to kick up to someone higher in my food chain.” The Sales Rep stood up from the table and walked back into the building with quick steps. She hated not having the answer, and she was also not liking that she was going to have to deal with one of her bosses to find out the information she was lacking. It was getting late, but she was wired on adrenaline. She was going to need it to deal with her boss, in the next few minutes. That was a bit of a buzz kill.
Dawn did not know it, but two of her bosses had been watching the whole time via the security cameras mounted on the outside of the building. They even had ordered that the few cameras mounted on the access gate looking towards the back part of the yard, to be shifted so that they were looking their way. They could not hear what was going on, but they could see them working. Then magically they would see the funds transfer to the sales account. So, they knew that she was still making them money, and lots of it tonight. It was remarked and noted, that neither Dawn nor the group made any odd gestures when a sale was complete. They had expected a flurry of handshakes or touched glasses to close deals on this magnitude.
Normally it took weeks if not months, to set up sells that were not equal to half of what Dawn had pulled off this afternoon and evening alone. They had no idea if it all had been luck, or if it had been Dawn’s selling skills. They had no idea. That they just happened to have, what Captain Copeland had been ordered to buy for the good of his Clan. They had just been lucky that Dawn had asked the right questions and had been willing to listen, and maybe take the low-end sale. That listening had turned into a massive amount of money for their department to night.
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Dawn was a little startled, when her supervisors were waiting for her as she re-entered the building. Since Captain Copeland and his group were still setting outside. They knew something must have come up, and they wanted to know what it was. They hope the money faucet was not closed for the night. They had gotten used to the numbers in their account climbing at a steady rate. It was a very novel experience for them, and they liked it.
Dawn’s first line supervisor was missing, but her second line was the first of the two women to talk to her. She had sweat visibly beading up on her forehead. She seemed to have already gotten over losing the number one single day sales of total mechs of all times title. Granted she was still getting a cut of what her salesperson was making tonight. That had to take the sting out of losing the title, somewhat.
“You’re doing a great job, Dawn. They are still outside in the dark. Is something wrong?” She was fidgeting left and right, and she was rubbing her hands together as she was talking to Dawn. She had just finished her second pot of coffee on an empty stomach, and it was showing.
Dawn had a flash of a few things she would like to have said, but she decided that she would keep it civil instead. “I’m glad you’re still here. They want five more machines. They want the four Carbines and that old Dig King. They have agreed to part of the deal. They will pay four point eight million for the four Carbines. The problem is the Dig King.”
She passed her noteputor with the image of the mech in question displayed on the screen, with all the information on it. “I don’t know how low I can go. They have done their homework, so they know we have been trying to sell that thing for almost forever. The kicker is they want enough spare parts to keep it running for five years of standard wear and tear. I have no idea if we have that kind of stock, for that hunk of junk. If I agree to that, and we don’t have it? Well you know he could take us to court, and he would win for breach of contract. Right now, the Carbine deal is on hold. He offered three million for the King, but only if we have the amount of spare parts he wants.”
The last part was a lie, and she knew it. But it was her job to make the deal, and if that little push was what was needed to get the deal closed? She would do it and do it again twice on Sunday. She would take the sale and commission with a smile on her face, and not say a word edge wise to anyone in her company for as long as she could.
Shelley was the supervisor for the whole Show Room department, and she also was Dawn’s boss’s boss. She was not known for expressions of emotions, of any kind. She took the title of “Ice Queen” as a badge of honor. That meant when the older lady shrieked and started jumping up and down. Much less when she started dancing around in a circle, both of her subordinates were speechless. When the normally reserved supervisor stopped the movements, that many would never believe she would undertake. She had a huge smile on her face.
“Dawn take the deal!! We have almost enough parts to make a second machine, and they can have all of them. The savings on our taxes at the end of this year alone, will make it worth it. If they had not made an offer already? I would say give it to them, and all the parts we have on hand, as a comp for the amount of money they have spent here already.”
Shelley stopped talking for a second and she went from a sack of joy, and back to her normal stone face. “Damn it!! I don’t know if that is enough to meet their requirements. I want you to make a counteroffer of two million C-Bills and tell them that we will give them every spare part, that we can find for it. Take their money dear and close the deal. Do you know if there is anything else, they might be looking at?” The last was so fast and in an odd accent, that no one understood what she had said for a few long seconds.
Dawn looked at the two other people near her with some confusion evident on her face. She went with addressing the last question first. “No. This Lora Noone and Captain Copeland play their cards very close to their chests. Do you want me to comp them the Dig King and parts?” This was a new area. She was never allowed to offer comps on anything but free food, drinks, maybe a few ammunition reloads, threat software updates, or some spare armor plates before. She was testing the waters, but she was unsure of the depth.
Shelly looked at Dawn and her quick mind came up with an idea for later. “No, Dawn. You should never leave money on the table. They made a good faith offer, with conditions. We will meet them at least on most of those conditions, so they should meet their end of the good faith offer. It is not your fault, that they did not ask for a comp of any kind before making that offer. You never know? These people are strangers, that have never been here before. A comp might be an insult to them. As soon as they transfer the funds and we get all the paperwork done, when they are done? We all can go home with dreams of large commission checks in our future. It will be an early morning for some of us, just so we can make sure we get these things off our property. Now I will be able to put a notice with the main office and try to get some better equipment, to replace that stuff you have been able to move.” She had almost said junk but had stopped at the last moment. It was not nice, to call something junk. That you had just sold and was paying you a massive part of your whole years pay. All in a single night.
Dawn nodded her head in agreement and turn for the door. Thinking about when she got her commission check, at the end of the month. She was definitely going to take a few weeks off and relax. As she walked back to the table, she had a smile on her face that was not fake. When she was close to the table, she raised her voice a little. She did not see the need to be quiet.
“Good news. I was told, that there are almost enough spare parts to make a second mech on hand. They don’t know if it will cover all the normal wear and tear items for a five-year period, but it should be close. They will pack every one of the spare parts, that we have on hand and bring them out to the drop port. I was told to counter your offer with two million. That is accepted by my boss already, if you agree to our counteroffer. And so as soon as we have payment? It is yours, Captain.” She saw smiles on the faces around the table. She noted that the Captain made a gesture to Lora. Dawn kept getting closer and soon was standing, so that she could look down on Lora.
Dawn looked over at Lora, who she noticed was finishing the transfer of funds for the five machines. She put on a beaming smile and looked over at Robert. “Well, sir. They are all yours. Would you like to look at what we have at some of our outlying showrooms, or in the main Warehouse? I can have someone pull the inventory list for you. It might take a few days, but we can have them shipped in for your inspection or you can fly out to see them. I’m sure we could have a proper passenger VTOL ready by the afternoon.” Dawn asked hopefully. This group had just purchased every operational work mech that the Show Room had, that were not already being rented out.
Robert laughed slightly, waved off her comment and shook his head side to side. “No, Dawn. I think you have taken enough of our funds, for the time being. We have some other items, that we have people looking at for us. If you have something we can take and look at, when we have some spare time? That would be nice. We will post an updated wish list, on the normal spots’ tomorrow. If you see an item on that list that you can fill? Then by all means, contact us. I look forward to doing business with you again, Dawn. Now, it’s late and I would like to get back to my cabin. I need to get some sleep, before I have to start this kind of work all over again. I know, that I said, I would like the machines on the dropship by noon. I don’t think that will be likely, now. If you can start dropping them off starting at noon? That would be good enough. I must have them all by dark, to include the spare parts you promised for the Dig Lord. My Cargo Master can get them packed down in our cargo bays, as they come in. Please do not wait to the last minute to send them over. If you have a load, just send it over. My people will take care of it.” Robert started to stand up and the others of his group joined him, in rising from the cheap glass covered plastic outdoor table.
Robert looked around the lot with the mechs, tanks and other military equipment spread out around him. Out of the blue, he tried to picture, in his head, what it was going to look like by this time tomorrow. He had to fight down a smile, and he turned around a little to block Dawn from seeing it. He was betting that it was going to take a while to fill the empty slots. “I don’t think you are going to have any parking issues out here, for a while.”
“Well I guess they got what they wanted, out of me. I know that they did not run out of money. They are still looking for more cargos. I just need to find something else, that they want.” Dawn had thought the last deal was the end, but she had to at least try to get one more sale in. Or at least try, to get one more in. That was because, if she did not? She would always second guess herself, that they might have been talked into another sale if she pushed just a little harder. That was the salesperson in her soul telling her that. She looked down at her noteputor and fought down a shout, as her eyes ran across her little screen. She had just been given a surprise by her company.
The company supplied digital pad now had a newly modified screen saver. It now had her name in bold letters and that she had sold over 21 million C-Bills worth or over 81 million MC Dollars’ worth of equipment in a day. It even had little flashing fireworks going off in the area around her name. That new screen saver would be pushed to every computer in her division, at least. It would stay there, minus the little fireworks. Those would stop in a few days, but her name would be there until something else on that scale was completed, by someone else. That was going to be some time down the road, if she was a betting person.
While she was fighting the urge to dance, she saw the book that woman called Jess had been spending all night looking through page by page like it was holy writ of some kind. Jess and Mike had been acting like it was the best book ever written by man. When she thought about it, both leaders of this group had like that book. She made a quick note to have the newest edition gift wrapped and sent with the mechs the next day. She had no idea how long she was distracted, but by the time she came back to the world she saw a problem.
Then she had to catch up with the group walking away from her. They could not leave the building, because all the doors had been locked now that it was after normal work hours. She opened the main door and wave to the group as they entered the sedan, that had dropped them off, and then it had waited till they were done with their shopping spree. She had no idea that it only had been called back while she had been inside the Showroom building, talking to her boss. Dawn just saw it as another example of wealth, that they had a nice car and driver waiting at their beck and call.
“It must be nice to have that much money.” Dawn thought as she relocks and then tries to open the heavy glass and steel doors. “Maybe I will be there soon.” This sales commission would put her a lot closer to that level. She was now closer than she had been, when she got out of bed this morning. She thought that she had made over a years’ worth of her average commissions, tonight.
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The ride in the sedan back to the dropship, was not as fast as the ride out. All of the clubs, restaurants, and bars were all open and filled with people spending their money in those types of places. Those establishments were the life blood for the city, outside of the income that the drop port brought in with cargos. It was very common that a city’s main clubbing and entertainment district would be very close to the drop ports, in most of human control space. It also made vehicle traffic hazardous in those areas.
The group in the back of the sedan did not say anything, as they made their way back to their mobile home. The driver took them right to the correct Mule class dropship without needing any direction. There were over a dozen of that class of ship spread out over the space port to night. The driver got out and opened the door, that Captain Copeland was exiting out of the transport with. Robert pulled out a bill from his jumpsuit pocket and handed it over to the driver. The Driver at first was going to refuse the tip. It was against company policy, to take money from a client while on the clock. That was until he saw the tip was a 100 C-Bill note. After picking up his slacked jaw, he just pocketed the money. He just nodded and said a simple “Thank you Sir.” Before helping Jess, who was following Robert out the same opened door.
Lora saw the hand off but waited for the driver to reenter the sedan, and he had pulled away from the grounded Dropship. Robert had already turned and had taken a few steps toward the open personnel ramp of the dropship, when she spoke to him. “Robert, the current exchange rate for C-Bills to MC Dollars is a little over 1 to 4. Four hundred MC dollars is about what a driver like him makes, in a month.” The tone was not mocking, it was just a question. Lora had even made her statement with a raised eyebrow.
Robert stopped, gave a slight shrug, and then gave an odd little toss of his head. “It was worth it to me. Think about how he had to wait, to even go to the bathroom, because we did not tell him how long we were going to be someplace. We sent him away, when we knew, that we were going to be in the showroom for a while. But it was the same driver, that we had been using all day. That alone was worth, what I gave him. That and the knowledge that I used a bank note, that we cannot spend back home. That makes doing the right thing, a lot easier. If it gets some goodwill for us? Then that would just be a bonus, in my book. You never know when we or you, might need some of that goodwill from a stranger or maybe from someone that this driver knows.”
Robert started to walk up the entry way to the ship, then stopped. “Lora? We have a few empty bunks. If you want to stay here, instead of going all the way back to your place?” Robert stopped talking and looked down at his expensive pocket timepiece. “We have a meeting in seven hours, so much for getting back early so I could get some sleep.” He gave a soft chuckle.
“No thank you, Robert. I have a room above the Café, for times like this. Thank you for the offer. Maybe if I had my overnight bag with me. What would Don think? If I showed up in the same clothes, as I had on the day before?” She turned and walked to the pickup point where another sedan, this one with yellow letters on the sides, was waiting for her.
Robert, and the other two continued into the dropship. As soon as the last person’s feet hit the inside of the ship. The ramp and hatch closed and locked behind them with barely a sound. Mike went one way to his four-man cabin, and Jess went another. Maybe to sleep and maybe to work. No one would know for a while what they were going to do, now that they were back to their temporary home. Robert started climbing stairs after sets of stairs, going all the way to the top of the dropship. It was a long climb. There was an elevator, but Robert felt like he needed to work off some of the food he had been eating for the last two days.
Robert stopped by the bridge to check in on the status of his command, both on the ground and far out into space. There was nothing to report, that was out of the ordinary for a JumpShip and drops-ship’s crew during shore leave. After that short briefing. He walked back to his cabin for some much-needed sleep. The sun rose to early, so he could not take advantage of getting as much sleep as he needed.
Robert was sleeping so deeply, that he did not hear the alarms going off an hour after he crawled under the sheets. In fact, he was sleeping so soundly. That he did not wake up for his wakeup alarm, at all. One of the Bridge crew had to come down to his room and use the built-in speaker system on his hatch to successfully disturb his sleep. Robert had not wakened up well, after that blast of noise from his hatch. When he had not checked in? Jules had made the call to send someone down, so that he could make the morning meeting on time. As a longtime friend. He knew how long, down to the minute, it would take his friend to get ready for the meeting.
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Notes
Shopping for workmechs at a major Show room. It would be like looking for a John Deere, at your local Cadillac dealer.
The book on the drink cart? It is like a current All of The Worlds Armor Jane’s book, and you should see what one of the new ones cost to buy these days.
Why did I choose those particular workmechs? I picked the ones that I could find the cost of. It was that simple.
