Running a business like his required a type of thinking few others would ever aspire to acquire. On one hand, he had to juggle the management requirements of an ever expanding mutlinational company, on the other he had to contend with the fact that he was flying in the face of the law. Several different laws actually, different countries usually expressed different forms of control. Some had almost no enforcement in the fields he had penetrated, others were draconic in their actions against his operation. Marco in his handful of years running the operation at this level had so far managed to outwit the authorities and outplay the competition though it had come at a severe cost to his personal life. Jenna his secretary was the closest he was to having a friend, everyone else was someone to be managed or bought over.
And it wasn't like he had a well developed pool of people from which to draw his resources. Most of the recruits to his operation were those who either had no better prospects in life or worse, those who actually enjoyed this line of work. Marco had no illusions about his game, he was in it for the money and he planned to retire the illegalities as soon as he had enough to bribe enough people and turn legit. In the meantime, his services were highly sought after from clients all over the globe, he had even performed runs for several small countries, though they were primarily interested in the transportation of weaponry.
Was he really as bad as they newspapers made him out to be? Dealing with so many people, he gained a valuable insight into life. It wasn't his personal ideals that were "good" or "bad". He had just been working on the wrong side of the fence from the outset, some of the people he had encountered had personalities that would wilt a flower in bloom if they came near it, yet these were the college educated, master of their own personal universe types that were playing on the side of the law, the flaw in the system, that from his point of view would never be overcome.
Such thoughts occupied his mind largely before his business meetings with these men and women, in this case, the trading house known to the world as the Millenarian Corporation. These people were representing a legit multinational that was having trouble turning a profit in a few South-East Asian countries due to several difficult officals that taxed them mercilessly when they tried to import their product through conventional channels.
In this case however, he would not be dealing with the legal side of their operations, the sale of Chinese woven textiles and electronic products. He would be assisting them with a side business that was very lucrative in the Asian region, the smuggling of prostitutes and maids to meet the high demand of markets in Singapore, Indonesia and Australia. In his favour, he knew that these countries had lesser awareness of the scale of his operation, the trick he was using with the matter converters had yet to be detected. While that would surely be found out given time, he was going to milk the opportunity for all it was worth.
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He already had an operation going in China, after the failure of the first transport run, his R&D team had managed to work over the flaws in their designs. The second run proceeded without problems, save for a missing pod which was recovered later. Apparently it was stuck somewhere in the lower region of the middle aged woman that was carrying, but thanks to the new tracking and monitoring system his lab rats had installed, it was easy to solve that problem. A few cups of coffee and a slipped laxative later and the run was complete.
With that, his new business took off, he was transporting several types of human product, namely people who wanted to move unnoticed from country to country, refugees and illegal immigrants who usually paid less but were willing to endure these journeys in cramped confines which offset the costs and finally, less voluntary labour, usually transported at the behest of other syndicates he had dealings with.
After awhile, he had come to realise that unlike the drugs and arms trade, the transportation of humans required certain comforts. One of these was that most people would rather be transported by a woman than a man. He was not one to argue with clients, hence a new recruiting campaign was underway to gain manpower, or rather, womanpower to run the journeys. His agents started targeting stewardesses first, an elementary tactic in the smuggling game. Then, to meet the rising demand, he came up with the idea of giving free holidays to bored housewives and impoverished college students within the various countries he was operating in. He had more than enough means to supply his product.
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Jenna brought him some hot Chinese tea before handing him a sheet of documents he would have to go over before the meeting. The tall blonde was one of his first hirees and she had done her share of field work before he had graduated from the minor leagues and into the majors. It was about the same time as her graduation too, though she was graduating from the University of California. He was there to attend, she had paid her way through law school doing smuggling runs for him and working discreetly as a dealer in soft drugs around the dorms in UCal. It helped that she had the good looks that came with being a born and bred California girl, sun kissed skin and a smile that could make any man melt, any woman jealous. Either way, most customs officials were to busy focusing on her to focus on anything else, Jenna was the living, breathing embodiment of magicians sleight of hand.
During their 5 year working relationship however, Marco had not even tried to lay a hand on her, though the thought did occasionally cross his mind. Still, he looked at her to stabilise his life, besides being an indispensable assistant, she was also the legal mind that he turned to whenever he needed counsel. He knew that without her, the business would not have reached its heights. But he also knew that without him, she'd just be another blonde, beautiful office fixture, being hit on by every other greaseball she would necessarily have to work. All while earning a low paying associate's salary. They were in this for life.
"Be careful with these people Marc, the terms of the contract they set down are really tight, they know what they're doing and if we dont deliver they'll," Jenna said.
"They'll what? Sue us in court? You know better than that Jen, their contracts are merely a formality. If they do come after us, it will be with guns and money, but they dont realise I'm supplying the guns and I already own all the Chinese officials they're paying too, from the magistrates to the party man in Shenzhen," Marco cut in.
"Still Marco, I'm getting a feeling that they're not letting on everything here," Jenna continued, "there's something wrong if Millenarian need you to move their merchandise, they seem desperate."
"Hmm, thats a valid argument, but for now just send down the order to Ming Xiao to collect the product for conversion," Marco said turning over the file in his hand.
"We'll deal with any problems as they come up, there's no reason to worry needlessly beforehand," he said finally.
Giantess World
Author's Chapter Notes:
Just some story build up. Nothing here, but I hope it will set the stage for something interesting...