Reka's Point of View
"Mama, up!" Kat said insistently, holding out her little arms.
Her daughter was being so good! How could she resist? "Of course, dear," Reka said, picking up the princess from the factory daycare.
The first shipment of chips from the orbital foundries had recently arrived and the Queen was here to commemorate their incorporation into a new kind of phone. This same factory that used to produce Chinese Tianhua models was now making their domestic brand: the kiralyno mikro. How Beijing was howling about it!
Camera clicks from numerous journalists were audible as she held her little princess, her little princess who knew not to fly in public.
Katalin was fifteen months old now, walking, talking, and devilishly smart. After a big talk about magic and why she shouldn't use it around people she doesn't know, Reka felt more and more comfortable bringing her daughter out in public.
"Your Majesty!" a reporter yelled over the crowd, "are these specs accurate? And what about the price point?"
She smiled as Kat waved enthusiastically at all the new people. "I believe you'll find that the mikro is more powerful, and cheaper, than any other global brand. It's our orbital semiconductor advantage! You can't beat crystals grown in microgravity. There are also many innovative features that I believe people the world over will enjoy."
Features that Galiban programmed himself, Reka remembered. Everything from the OS kernel to the suite of apps was brand new. American social media companies wouldn't know what hit them. Their global market share was about to take a nosedive.
Phones were only one product among many. Her omnifactories were true "generalized manufacturing capacity" and could make just about anything, and they were hungry, gobbling up all the raw materials the developing world wasn't selling to America or China anymore. Electric vehicles, heavy machinery, chemicals, the list went on and on. They would take it all.
I have a family to protect now, Reka thought fiercely. The time for gradualism and half-measures was past. This was her planet; it was time to make it official!
"Mama, belly," Kat said, pointing to Reka's stomach as she carried her baby out of the factory.
"That's right, my sweet. Your little brother is in mama's belly right now. In eight or nine months you'll get to meet him."
Kat smiled and nodded eagerly.
Her daughter's power was shocking at times. She could magically sense her newly-conceived sibling already.
Brad had been hesitant about making another child so soon, considering the state of the world, but Reka could tell that deep down he really wanted to. Two children, a girl and a boy, would prove a reasonable stopping point, for now. Once Katalin and her brother grew up and had families of their own she might discuss having more with her husband to brighten up the palace.
The royal motorcade was waiting outside and Reka leaned over to put Kat in her car seat. "Mama, where's daddy?" she asked.
"Maneuvers in the Adriatic, dear. The Adriatic is a sea. Daddy is a sailor on the big blue ocean. How is that going, Galiban?" Her butler was driving. Reka usually preferred to drive herself but official motorcades were slow and tedious.
"The Yamato is performing well, Your Majesty," Galiban informed her.
Whyever did she consent to Brad naming their battleship that? She shook her head fondly, her husband and his stories...
The Yamato was a BBEN, or direct energy nuclear-powered battleship. It had multiple reactors, electric armor, Dragonlance plasma cannons, and the Mjolnir, a rail gun that could launch huge shells with a plasma explosive over one thousand kilometers, all but invincible.
Brad was terrified about vulnerability to submarine attack, but she had supplied a magical detector that could instantly pinpoint anything mechanical or artificial that came within fifty kilometers, above the water or below. There was also a hidden feature that would wrap him in a force field and fly him back to her in the event of real danger. She couldn't be expected to let her husband actually risk his life, could she?
In practice, this battleship had two intended purposes: use up surplus high-grade steel, and bully western Europe. From what she heard, the Italians were very close to breaking with NATO and joining RECA. Serbia, Bosnia, Albania, and Macedonia had already done so, little as they got along with each other. Greece and Turkey were wavering too. Soon enough, the Mediterranean would be a RECA lake.
"Mama, what's funny?" Kat asked.
Was she smiling? Reka didn't notice. "Oh, nothing, darling. Mama is just thinking about securing your birthright."
"The world!" the princess said happily.
Every knee will bend; it won't be long now.
"The Chinese are unhappy, Your Majesty," Galiban said as he merged them into traffic.
"Let them be unhappy," Reka said dismissively. "Keep stalling them with talk of the greater American threat. I'm sure they wouldn't want American drones to end up in the hands of Taiwan or Vietnam, if they aren't already. This was always going to happen; it was just a question of who would stab the other in the back first."
"Be that as it may, Your Majesty, you're cutting them out of African development. They are asking for us to use more Chinese workers on infrastructure projects at least."
"Oh, very well," she said in exasperation, shifting her focus to waving a toy about to amuse Katalin. Then Reka had an idea, a wonderful, awful idea.
"Mama is laughing again!" Kat giggled.
"Yes, yes," Reka lamented, "we've been terribly selfish, undercutting Chinese manufactures and buying up key minerals before they can even place a bid. Chinese workers are really quite important. Our mind pills would give them quite the boost, don't you think, Galiban?"
Her butler narrowed his eyes. "Just the workers?"
Reka was positively vibrating with mirth. "I think not! We shall offer our mind pills on the open market for anyone to try. I'm sure they'll come around to my way of thinking in the fullness of time."
Galiban chuckled. "Playing dirty, Your Majesty?"
"Why, Galiban, I'm scandalized! It's for their benefit, not mine, never mine!"
Kat squealed in delight. "Mama is so funny!"
You don't know the half of it, my child.
"Anyway," Reka segued, "how are things with Julie?"
Her butler looked uncomfortable and Reka loved it! "We are well, Your Majesty. If I may be so bold, I believe I can confidently say that she understands me now. In the early days she feared that the existence of other instances of Galiban meant this Galiban was not fully committed to her. She now accepts the paradox of my being: while divided, I am whole."
"Quite," Reka agreed. "Programming distributed systems is passing tedious, you know."
"All too well, Your Majesty," Galiban laughed. "Do you have any guidance for our pricing strategy going forward? The omnifactories will soon be producing many lines of products, both mundane and exotic."
"Keep prices as low as possible," Reka instructed. "Energy and labor costs already approach zero. Raw materials will fall as well once our asteroid mining infrastructure is in place. Strictly speaking, profit doesn't matter. We want to squeeze our competitors out of existence, especially anything American. This goes double for software! Cheap or free, and no ads. American apps are a pain to use. Make our stuff fast and slick and don't worry overmuch about monetization. Ah, and games!"
"Games!" Kat repeated.
"That's right, little one. You've watched Daddy play games before, right?"
"I like the racing!" her daughter said enthusiastically.
If there was anything Katalin liked as much as music it was playing with her father. Yes, this was an excellent idea. Galiban could code up a game himself in half a day. "Games in every genre, Galiban, again, cheap or free, high quality, not designed to waste the player's time or money. You might put in some subtle propaganda as well: the average guy gets to marry the beautiful queen, that sort of thing."
Reka was nothing if not self-aware.
"Easily done, Your Majesty," he said. "With these new chips, I could also design entirely new game consoles and GPUs, even a new operating system to compete with Windowsoft."
"Good notion, Galiban!" Her butler was faithful indeed. "I hadn't even considered going after Windowsoft! Oh, and television! Find some actors who speak English or teach them rapidly with mind pills and start producing movies. Hollywood is our enemy too. Perhaps remake that romantic drama that depicted my college days with Brad. I want a soft power dominance campaign in every field. "
"Finding work for humans would be a good idea," Galiban pointed out. "That has actually become a bit of a problem, Your Majesty. Our native workers in Africa and the Middle East are working a little too well. There is already a saturation of fusion plants. We're running out of things to pay them to do."
That would indeed be a problem. Those jobs were essentially bribes to keep them from trading with America. Reka found herself at a bit of a loss.
"They're too smart," Katalin said calmly.
What? She looked at her daughter curiously. Confusion gradually gave way to elation. Reka kissed her baby. "You're definitely Brad's daughter, Kat!"
Her love always had a knack for simple solutions to complex problems. "Weaken the magical active ingredient in the mind-acceleration pills, Galiban," she commanded. "As I said, it's not about profit. Any efficiency losses will be more than offset by maintaining our relationship with these countries and their people. If it takes them a little longer to build a road or an irrigation project then so be it."
"And the, er, compulsion element?" Galiban questioned.
"Weaken that as well," Reka said. "But let it gradually accumulate over time. Weaker pills, more frequently taken, will prove a better Trojan horse in any case. People will think nothing of a simple, temporary, cognitive boost. In this way, my new subjects will learn the proper order of things. By the time anyone realizes ought is amiss, they will already belong to me."