Louisiana, the French colony, was purchased in 1803 for, adjusted for modern values, the price of 251 million USD. The acquisition of the area doubled the USA’s size and still made up around a fourth of its total land mass to this day. It had been an extraordinarily cheap acquisition, even if the land was scarcely populated and had next to no infrastructure.

It was basically no surprise that he would have to grab a couple of billions in order to make an effective purchase of Amacat happen. They had a developed society and numerous wealth-producing companies. Even for an Abyssal area, their population was low, however. Something that surprised John to some degree. Apparently, people weren’t too motivated to live in an area that was basically the same as the normal USA (minus democracy but plus magic). Made some degree of sense, why live in a world of danger and opportunity only to stay where those things had been figured out already?

Combining that with the fact that wealthy areas tended to have lower birth rates and the smaller population worked quite well. The point, however, was that the area John wanted to purchase, while effectively smaller, was more valuable. Regardless, John couldn’t imagine it was either out of his financing or dealership range.

“Get out of my seat.”

The words unkindly started the conference, a certain redhead staring down at the man of progressed age currently sitting on number seven of the council. That Scarlett was there wasn’t surprising to anybody, they had arranged this meeting with her having made her attendance clear. That announcement had been made a day ago, it was Wednesday now, so the memo had to have reached everyone. That she was claiming a seat one above her placement as analysed a few days ago, however, was beyond the expected chain of events.

“Do you need your ears cleaned?” Scarlett asked, taking her hat off and placing it in front of the man, already preparing to take her seat there. “Thanks to Fusion’s financing, my net worth beats out yours. According to the rules you keep, that makes this my seat. Now stand the fuck up, I don’t have all day.”

The man’s expression was purely confused. No irritation, no degradation, not even a bit of anger. Shown proof of this by Scarlett, annoyedly clicking her tongue before pulling out her smartphone, having to navigate it by hand, the man just rose and everyone below her rank in the order sat down one further as Scarlett inserted herself into the power structure.

Visually alone she stuck out from the suits violently. Between the elderly men, wearing plain colours, her bright red hair and clothing theme flashed like a warning sign. That she was gorgeous in her androgynous way, with smooth, pale skin amongst all the wrinkles and age spots, and sat there with a clear attitude while everyone else just remained in their seating like rocks, only added to the difference.

“Ehem,” Berden, sitting comfortably at the head of the entire thing, cleared his throat and turned to John, who had silently watched the entire ordeal. “Let us begin by apologizing for the journalistic harassment you have gone through the past few days, mister President.”

“Not your fault, no need to apologize,” the Gamer waved off, counter to his true thoughts on the matter. “Water under the bridge, as they say.”

“Most gracious off you, President Newman.” The old investor lowered his head and raised it again with a quickness that clearly indicated he just wanted to move on from the topic already. Infuriating Aclysia in the process.

‘The motion is too quick for proper submission,’ her thoughts echoed into John’s head. ‘With his crimes, he should be crawling on the floor begging for Master’s forgiveness.’

Gently prodding her, he made Aclysia realize that she was thinking a bit too loudly. Glancing over his shoulder, the two maids behind him kept their calm expressions. ‘Go easy on him, at his age his bones wouldn’t like crawling around too much,’ John joked as he turned back to Berden, who continued to talk.

“We would like to talk about a few different investments Fusion might be interested in, starting with-“

Scarlett tapped on the table with the edge of her metal lighter. The motion grabbed people’s attention. Before she even opened her mouth, John was pretty sure everybody knew what she was going to say. “Instead of boring all of us with a list of things you want foreign capital for, how about we talk about a proper way to make everyone wealthier?” she asked, taking a pause to light herself a cigarette. Nobody stopped her. John because it wasn’t his place, and everyone else because they didn’t know how to handle this. “Let’s just join Fusion proper, then you can stop asking for the member rates on interest and just take the loans.”

There was uncomfortable shifting on the table. Even ambitionless as they were, the prospect of just joining a bigger power came with some natural hesitation. Hesitation that John needed to dismantle. However, it didn’t seem to be his place to speak up on this topic unless addressed. Even if everybody understood that Scarlett was in his harem, he had to at least keep the appearance that he didn’t want to meddle in their convictions.

Thankfully, Scarlett could hold her own in an argument. Taking a deep huff, she tapped the ash off and sent it tumbling to the ground, before breathing out a long pillar of smoke. “What are you people so silent about?” she challenged. “You know it would be to your advantage.”

“Amacat is…” one of the businessmen hesitatingly opened, looking around for somebody to take over the entire time, “…quite successful as an independent entity. Has been for over a hundred years.”

“It also agreed to join the larger US guild In Lincoln’s days,” Scarlett held against. “Because the people back then understood just as you should now that there is more money to be made in a borderless America.”

‘Precedent is such a nice thing,’ John thought as everyone was silenced by that argument. The almost unification of the Abyss in the area of the USA by Abraham Lincoln could have been the second greatest thing the man ever did, with a large gap between it and the abolishment of slavery of course. Unlike his greatest achievement, the Abyssal structure he worked on putting into place fell apart when a bullet went through his brain. Well, the Little Maryland tried to hold on, but what happened to it over the course of history currently ended with John’s name.

“That might be true…” Berden eventually spoke up, “…but that was then, and now is…”

“Now it’s more important than ever to be inside a stronger network,” Scarlett spoke up. It wasn’t much of an interruption, with how hesitantly the old investor spoke in the first place. Her tone was calm and factual, as she elaborated, “North America isn’t less threatened by outside forces than it was back then. Do I have to bring up the fucking Nazis sitting one hemisphere down? Maybe the post-colonization powers stabilizing in the Old World, interested in spreading their influence to some of the last lands to get together a proper central army in the world? We can join an American federation now or be taken over by someone else in a dozen years or two.”

Once more, her statements were followed by utter silence. It persisted for more than a minute. The little creaking of chairs as people shifted their weights was the dominant layer of sound. The councilmen were each trying to gauge the opinion of their peers, not wanting to step out of line with what they said next. Next to that was Scarlett’s continued smoking, the bloodstained Technomancer lounging in her own armchair in a relaxed fashion.

She glanced at John over the table, the Gamer the sole person sitting on the west side of the room. The challenge was clear, they had arrived at a standstill, it was his job to break it. “Fusion…” he rose his voice, breaking his non-involvement stance, “…would happily offer the complete forgiveness of all loans currently handed out to members of the Amacat. As a baseline of negotiations.”

Saying this hurt John’s wallet. It hurt to the tune of 7,3 billion dollars. Was Fusion wealthy? Yes. Was it that wealthy? Also, yes, but barely. The loans were already handed out, John practically didn’t have that money anymore, but it would have trickled back in over the coming years. Completely letting go off it was…

…Well, Fusion’s budget could be counted in the millions again thanks to John’s liberal spending lately, combined with his inability to generate money out of barriers right now. They weren’t running on a deficit, thanks to loans made much earlier paying their interest and the raised tax rates, but Fusion’s government had nowhere near the financial breathing room it should have. Luckily, John’s budget didn’t reflect on the state of the economy as a whole, which continued to roar along in its upwards trajectory, a good percentage of growth each month.

What John really needed was to just halt all major expenses for a while and let several billions stack up. Eventually his economy should reach a state currently comparable to Rex Germaniae. Lydia had trillions at her disposal, that much was no secret whatsoever. Given ten or twenty years of development, Fusion should be able to do that much. Although that was theorizing with the extra power of Amacat in mind.

“R-really?” Berden was baffled, the highest member of the council had re-financed all of his loans onto Fusion recently and this forgiveness meant that he would be essentially debt free. A pretty good thing to be as a company, because that meant new loans could be taken with a clear conscience almost immediately, spurring more growth.

“Yes,” John confirmed, ignoring the pain in his wallet. “The second thing I would offer you is a political and justice system. You would lose your current governmental status, but in return my forces would protect you from any future outraged mob that might arise.” He meant Fusion’s police force by that, but the silent thing didn’t pass them. Any threat that the police force couldn’t handle, the Gamer surely could.

John was himself one of the best arguments John could bring up as to why backing him was a good idea. Being under the leadership of one of the potentially most powerful people not only of the now but of human history was quite the assurance. ‘Not to toot my own horn too much,’ he thought, as he watched these things churn through the council members’ heads, ‘but siding with the guy who made it where I am in less than a year is just generally enticing. Can’t imagine Alexander the Great continued to have the same resistance everywhere as he just continued to roll over battlefields.’

“This is all rather gracious,” one of the lower members of the order spoke up. “But I have barely taken any loans from you by comparison, so why would I agree?”

“I said that’s the baseline,” John reminded them all. “I’m more than happy to negotiate on a number of different things that will deal with your personalized situations.”

He said that, hating every word of it, because he knew exactly what they would ask for. “Like a local monopoly assurance?” the obvious question came and John loathed it. These people were endlessly boring in their future prospects, but when it came to hoarding what they already had, they were perfectly capable of great thought, it seemed.

As a gamer, John was already negatively predisposed to the local monopolies that charged abhorrent prices for a lousy internet connection, because they had nobody that competed against them for those customers. Having read up on economics a whole lot more, he understood perfectly well that monopolies were just an all-around negative force on the market place. They had no incentive to innovate but all the reasons to choke out whatever competitor might enter their market corner through the sheer force of their established might.

It was a government’s job to break up these monopolies in the least intrusive way possible. Not to assure their existence. That could only lead to stagnation of systems, in the long term. Regardless, John had to swallow the bitter pill in order to make the future work. “We can strike a deal that outside companies will not be allowed to enter markets here that your company is currently dealing in. For a time anyway.”

There was an awkward silence again, people once more trying to gauge the general idea in the room. Then one of them spoke up. “So would you be fine with…” and absolutely arduous negotiations ensued. Long-winded, boring talk about percentage points and exact dates of expiration. John went through all of it, simply because he had to. Every exchanged word put him closer to the goal that he could clearly achieve now.

Not in one day. The council sitting was eventually called to an end, for people to think about things discussed. John only went to his room for half an hour that evening. Ear against the phone every step he took, he spent his time buttering up those sceptical or making plans to have dinner with them to then butter them up.

He used every bit of his Charisma that he could. Listened to old businessmen talk about their fishing hobby with great interest. The next morning he spent playing mini-golf, hearing that his partners were all so sad their legs weren’t really good enough to run over the big landscapes of proper golf anymore. Regardless, he was there and he continued to look good and smile for the figurative cameras.

More negotiations, in private, in public, with individuals and groups, all of Thursday burned away in a stream of work and talk. Then, finally, on Friday, he had a piece of paper in front of him signed by the majority of the ten members, with the remainder likely to go along after a few more talks. A contract that detailed out Amacat’s joining of Fusion.

He had done it.

It hadn’t been the most difficult expansion ever. Hell, John wouldn’t even have said that it was difficult in any of the usual ways. Like the Louisiana purchase, he had come here expecting progress, maybe buy some small things, and found out that the entire area was suddenly up for sale.

The concessions he had to make were, all in all, acceptable. Temporary, local trade-protection had been granted to basically everyone for five years, meaning that Amacat was going to continue competing internally, while companies from elsewhere in Fusion couldn’t directly set-up shop inside the borders. It would lead to all sorts of work-arounds, but that wasn’t exactly John’s problem. After those five years, things would be lifted one by one, allowing the markets to bleed together over the course of another three years. A few local monopolies would extend even beyond that, but all of them were dated.

All debt towards Fusion would be forgiven, as stated. As for those projects that Fusion helped finance and thusly would have partial ownership of, those parts would be bought off Fusion by the actual owners of the projects.

John argued that he planned to do that anyway once he had gotten a bit of profit out of the projects. In reality, the ownership had been the primary tool of the planned economic takeover, and had now become obsolete. Since he didn’t want something as meddlesome as partially government owned property to stand around everywhere, that seemed like it would become a bureaucratic nightmare to everyone involved, he also didn’t feel bad to back out of that business. Even if it was at a slight loss.

The people sent over to study ship-building in New York would continue to stay there and return to work wherever they pleased once they were done. Fusion would pay for all costs associated with that.

What Fusion got in return for all of these things was the right to immediately install a local government abiding by its principles in the Amacat area and, more importantly in many ways, the official ownership of all land not currently privately owned in the area. Well, the actual places were still owned by the mundane governments of the US and, further north, Canada. It was more about Illusion Barriers erected on those places.

On an almost minor note, the responsibility to clear up the Natural Barrier spawning around the Leyline was transferred to the Fusion military. The remaining body parts had to be sold and processed locally, that fell under the temporary trade protections (and it just made the most sense, since that industry was already working). John was quite happy about that, since it was another source of good combat training in peacetime. It even doubled up as a continuous stream of revenue and potentially rare materials. An all-around win for him.