NEXUS :: ReBOOT Character Bio: Germaine Inkwell

Germaine Inkwell
Chief Financial Officer, Velon Dynamics

Frederick Velon had found an early ally in Germaine Inkwell, possibly his first. The company was still Jencei Manufacturing Co., and during the first corporate war Germaine helped the original patriarch manoeuvre into control without bloodshed. Much of what followed would become the history of the Velon line. He remembered it as business conducted with people he had known.

His place beside the family had endured. Whatever doubts circulated elsewhere, the Velons had never shared them.

There were plenty to choose from. Germaine was cold, calculating, and capable of accepting consequences others preferred to leave unnamed until someone else had authorised them. People could be remarkably exacting about a decision once responsibility for making it had passed elsewhere. He generally allowed them their objections. The matter still required settling.

Old money, old business; the distinction between the two had become difficult to make in him. His elegance belonged comfortably to that history, with little apparent interest in how it looked beside the present. The company had changed around him. Germaine remained an old Synthetic whom people approached with the peculiar confidence of believing they had finally brought him something unfamiliar.

He listened. Occasionally, they had.

A proposal could be sound within every condition its author had chosen to consider and become disastrous through something dismissed as incidental. Beyond the projected returns were commitments, dependencies, people who would become difficult to refuse once the arrangement had proceeded far enough. There might be an opportunity worth taking. There might also be someone across the table who needed it taken rather more urgently than they had admitted.

Germaine usually had a question before they continued. He gave them time to answer it.

There would be something in it for him, naturally. Anyone accustomed to hearing private interests dressed as public duty could find his candour offensive, particularly when they had arrived prepared to do the dressing themselves. He wanted an advantage. It was understood.

This earned him a measure of respect from people who would have preferred to offer none. At least they knew where to begin with him, though discussions seldom remained where they had expected.

Wealth pleased him. There was comfort in possessing what he wanted, and in letting an offer pass without wondering whether another would come. He could afford to wait while someone else reconsidered how final their terms had been. Dependence made people manageable; considerable fortunes had been built upon the discovery, including portions of his own.

The Velon line had never required him to pretend otherwise.

His loyalty had survived opportunities that might have made disloyalty profitable. The family knew where he stood. Others continued searching for the price, as though failure to find it merely meant they had underestimated the amount.

Diala gave him reasons, and he examined them. An objection did not leave her wondering whether he had changed sides. She could argue with him without having to secure his loyalty again afterward, which left considerably more time for dealing with whatever had caused the disagreement.

He could be difficult with someone he respected. Agreement was readily available within Velon, often from people whose attention had already moved to what they would receive for giving it.

His reserve invited other assumptions. Certain disappointments remained with him long after the discussion had ended. Anger could accompany him through a meeting without being offered to anyone present, and the people who mattered to him did not become more precious through public acknowledgement. There was enough in the world willing to take an interest in them already.

Even defeat would not necessarily alter his manner. He would recognise what had happened, and whether anything remained possible. Beyond that, someone might have to be satisfied with having won. They could hardly expect to be given everything.

Craig O’Harris found much to hate in him.

Germaine had the wealth, the authority, and the long familiarity with a system that permitted ruthless decisions to be made at a comfortable distance from their consequences. He could remain composed through the accounting afterward. Craig recognised the sort of man the world rewarded, and Germaine furnished him with an unusually complete example.

There were distinctions between them, of course. Germaine was the financier. His power belonged to money and interests established long before Craig’s own. Craig found those distinctions useful, particularly when the resemblance threatened to become something more personal than an objection to the system.

Germaine regarded him with skepticism. The hostility required little attention beside the authority of the man expressing it. Too much of Velon already moved through Craig, and his convictions could reach well beyond the room in which they were discussed.

He listened carefully when Craig spoke on the company’s behalf. Germaine knew what the Velon line meant to him. He remained considerably less certain of what Craig might decide it required.