“This exercise worked out quite well, I would say. From now on, you’ll get a copy of the proposals I get, to read through and formulate a response and also the responses I ultimately send back, with my reasoning for that particular response. The idea is that you can see how the Guild in general and I in particular judge where and how we intervene outside of emergencies.” Andrea explained, after we had talked about a few of the examples she had sent me the day before.

Contrary to my expectation, it was not the corruption that got most of them rejected. The vast majority was rejected simply out of procedural reasons, the Guild being the wrong agency to address them. If someone wanted extra for a bridge for example, the Guild would only grant such a request in very exceptional circumstances, otherwise it was supposed to go through local levels of governance, before getting kicked up the chain. But as the Guild was global and somewhat involved in a lot of communities and educational efforts, some wily politicians thought that they might be able to get extra funding from our resources and, if they were truly creative, they were able to word their requests in such a way that they would have to be kicked up to the council’s office, which mostly meant Technica.

While I had yet to look at the processes involved, I had a feeling that they were a relic of the past, inefficient and not well designed, not if there were that many requests that landed on her desk at the same time. When I asked about it, I was told that the odd position of the Guild meant that a good part of its bureaucracy was shared with several United Nations agencies, creating a convoluted and complicated mess in dire need of reorganisation. The need persisted because different agencies were of the opinion that their needs had to be taken specifically into account, creating a deadlock in which the old system simply plodded on. Just hearing the explanation gave me a psychosomatic headache and made me want to simply design an automated system, set it up on a server and be done with it.

“Anyway, there is something else you need to experience, the diplomatic part of my job.” Andrea told me, a smile on her face that sent a shiver down my spine.

“Fortunately, there will be an excellent opportunity to do some on-the-job learning in a couple of weeks.” she added, her smile now bordering somewhere between gleeful and malicious making me think that whatever was coming, it was a task she would consider annoying and troublesome. My expectation was confirmed only moments later, when she continued.

“Every year, near the end of May, there is a sort-of conference in New York, about the cooperation of various national Heroes’ Associations and the Guild. Generally, a council-member or two will be in attendance and this year one of them will be myself. You will join me, to network and get to know the various leaders and managers.” she explained and my earlier headache went up by an order of magnitude.

“That sounds troublesome.” I admitted, just the idea of a conference filled with Powered seemed to scream for something to go wrong. The average Powered was not smarter than the average Mundane, even if they generally had better self-control, especially if they had physical Powers. But despite that better control, if you brought enough powerful people together, each with their own ego, something was bound to happen.

“It often is. So I’m quite happy that I’ll have you and Mordred with me. If Anath wants to join as well, I’d be happy to have her.” she explained, her smile unbroken, maybe even a little wider than before. It gave me a feeling that it would be as annoying and problematic as I was imagining it to be. But if I wanted to use the Guild to shield myself, the status being Technica’s apprentice conferred, I would have to do the work required for it.

“I will talk with Anath. Can you give me the details, please?” I asked in response, already starting to make lists and gather information with Galatea. If there was one perk I was incredibly glad to have, it was access to information. Having direct access to the Guild’s extensive databases, holding information on every topic from the mundane, like crime-statistics, to the extraordinary, like that one stolen report on human experimentation to generate more Powered, was invaluable to me.

One of the first things I had done, once I had access to the required equipment, was create a dedicated stand-alone server that should last for a decade or two, thanks to a combination of a small fusion-reactor and a batch of nanites with the appropriate feedstock. Once it was done, I had hidden the server off-shore, some twenty kilometers away from any bit of land, with a dedicated table spliced into one of the large submarine data-cables. Managing that, without causing a disturbance that might bring attention to my doings, had been quite the challenge but luckily, I had been able to convince Technica that a quinary server, away from any Guild-installation, was a good idea. Her help had been quite valuable, especially given that she had equipment suited for a submarine work-environment.

What I had failed to tell Technica was how easily it would be to expand on the current equipment, or that the equipment already there could do quite a bit, if given the right instructions. That was one of the massive advantages of the nanites, with a source of energy, constant supervision and enough feedstock they could create almost anything.

I was even experimenting with a different sort of nanites that was able to recycle materials from their surroundings, cutting down on the need for feedstock. The need for energy and instruction remained but getting rid of the feedstock would be huge.

“Certainly.” Andrea’s answer pulled me from last year’s reports on the convention and I focused back on her.

“The convention is a week long, from Monday to Sunday, with Friday and Saturday being open to the press and public. Overall, things remain mostly peaceful but there’s always a hot-head or two who have too much ego and not enough common-sense. Bidziil is responsible for organizing the convention and works closely with the US Heroes’ Association to make sure everything runs smoothly.” she continued, my mind needing a second to realise that Bidziil was one of the other councillors, the one from North America. I knew little of him, mainly that his speciality was direct, physical combat, his power the Hermes-set or some variant of it. He could fly and was extraordinarily strong and tough, if there was anything else I had not been told.

“Generally, there will be presentations and discussions about the relations between the national Heroes' Groups, the Guild and the public. Most of the time a few groups are pushing some sort of agenda, especially if they send some of their high-profile people but generally the idea is to present as a mature and serious community.” Andrea paused, for a moment before continuing.

“The public needs to be able to trust Powered and our organisations, they need to see that there is more to things than some flying brick in spandex. Otherwise conspiracy theorists and pundits will fill that void in the public’s perception with whatever nonsense they want, like that theory that the Guild is controlled by Space Lizards. On the other hand, we need to operate with quite a bit of mystery and subterfuge or those outside the public eye, the underbelly of society, would never trust us. It is a balancing act.” she finished, causing me to nod.

“What image do you want to present? Martial, ready to fight, or business-mature, ready to sit down and make deals and contracts?” I asked, trying to gauge what was expected of me.

“I think the best would be if you could go in a less martial get-up and Anath, if she joins us, presenting the other side, with that sword of hers. It helps to differentiate between the two of us, to give you your own presence, so to speak. Otherwise people will get the two of us switched up.” she explained with a grin. I could see where she was coming from, our armours had started out looking similar and a few months of working together to incorporate some of the others advances into our respective gear had made them virtually identical, at least optically.

“I will have to see what I can do.” I promised, before our discussion changed to a more interesting topic, a recent paper on quantum-tunneling and what it might tell us about our universe.