His name is Max Falsch, born natively in Milium, also the owner of a business in Roze called Mirrors Palace. It's just one among many stores in the night market, legal and registered. Yet there is a hidden story behind the scene, it's only a front for his real business. Slavery and human trafficking.
His preference became the mold for how he conduct his business. He prefer products that has a longer shelf life and easy to transport. One which doesn't take much space, easy to handle, requires fewer amount of guards, and in-demand. Naturally Max's focused toward procuring, maintaining, training, and selling as much Heis people as he can.
Buying, selling, and owning slaves has been formally banned in Milium. But the lack of enforcement and proper regulation is the perfect climate for a thriving black market. There are no accountability, transparency, regulation, and zero tax. To stay below the radar, a slaver such as Max recurrently send 10% of his gross profit to The Bureau of Human Rights. Everything is under the table, including a deal of renting the government hundreds of his finest products. They are then rounded up and taken to the nearest factory to work on the war preparation.
As a way to make his operation more legitimate, the government gave Max a position at Hope Zone. He has been working in a factory for more than three years, maintaining his subjects while hitting production rate targets. Officially, he is working as Head of Production & Supply department. Lately the government ordered them to package and ensure the quality of mana containers, particularly one used by the military.
Max doesn't possess enough qualification to run a factory department. Someone else near his side is the one that does his day-to-day work instead. She is a female Heis, owned by him, bought straight from the market. He named her Caroline, which in one interpretation could mean "Free Woman". A sick joke of his, which Caroline herself doesn't realize.
She is standing at 140 centimeters, weighs 40.5 kilogram, and usually described by Max to be as flat as a board. Her black hair, long enough to touch her T8 thoracic section, is kept neat by a black rubber she spun around into a ponytail. She dressed neatly at work, wearing a grey blazer, dark short skirt, and black see-through stockings covering all of her legs.
Caroline are officially Max's first secretary, with her friend the second secretary conveniently missing as they are nearing the government's target deadline. Her hand is writing, flipping, and stamping all of Max's paperwork while he gaze from his second floor office, towards the production line's worker below. She knew for sure the cold war is nearing its boiling point, just by looking at the number of mana containers ordered.
She stood up from Max's desk, which is used by her more than Max. She is holding an executive summary for a 100 page monthly report some poor soul have made overnight. Caroline taps Max's back, he reacted by ever so slightly jolting, his non-existence concentration is now broken. His face, still looking down on his subjects, wrinkled with worry and somber, as if he's about to announce the death of a relative. Caroline took notice of it and put a smiling, reassuring, and warm face, trying to entertain him. He is known to have a soft spot for her, something that he doesn't afraid to show in his demeanor. Max turned around and clearly relaxes his face once Caroline is within his peripheral vision.
"You've got something for me, Carry?" He has a nickname for every one, even though Caroline's name is only a single word long.
"I do, Sir. It's about our current production rate, procurement statuses, and notes from the logistic team. Please read it." Her hand extends slightly upwards, handing him the document as politely as possible. Max shook his head with a condescending smile.
"No, thank you. I'm an auditory learner, just say what you see on the paper." He replied while gently pushing the document back to her. She raised her eyebrow with a little smile following immediately. Caroline already knew this will happen, but she always tried to do it properly anyway.
"Just to recap, our production rate is still aligned with the current target. So as long as we kept things constant, we will reach it by the end of the week. Beside that, procurement for BP001 is still lagging behind in quantity. If we don't address it soon, it will impact the schedule for our next batch of mana containers. Also the foreign logistic team notes one missing truck going back to The Republic. They noted it as retiring soon, so we should have a replacement right after next week. This has minimal impact to our throughput, so you shouldn't worry about it."
"One late truck you said?" A switch clicked, his brain turned on. Max thought of the presence of The Agency, it must be them. An idea sprung up from the depths, he could search the database for the missing truck's manifest, which would reveal The Agency's cover. Yet doing that would risk getting caught. It's simply not the time to get involved.
"Yes sir, one late truck. I could push them, maybe for a discount or compensation for lost time." Caroline, she is oblivious to the importance of the missing truck, besides the potential for profit. Proud of her work, her observation, her conclusion. Like a slave, her only concern is her job, yet not the real motivation behind her job.
"Scratch that, never touch this issue again. Heard?" His face turned sour, she is taken aback by the sudden change in mood. Caroline played safe by bowing down, taking a step backwards, and gave him an affirmative nod as a reply.
"Heard." Caroline accidentally stepped on a landmine and could only muster a small voice to her reply.