Free Rich Man's War by Elliott Kay

didn’t you?”
    She stepped on her nerves, forcing herself not to gasp or shudder when the real-time message window appeared. Passing messages was nothing new for the assistants on hand. Sarah glanced up across the table toward Greg, another executive assistant seated behind his boss just as Sarah was, and saw him wink knowingly.
    In this case, Sarah felt grateful that Greg had been the one to initiate contact between their personal holocoms. He’d never have suspected anything had she been the one to open the point of contact, but just the same, she took this as a chance to get on with her real task.
    Sarah’s fingers traced over a small icon in one corner of her holo display, input a confirmation code that no observer would think strange, and then did her best to look natural as the icon disappeared. In her head, she prayed she would remain unnoticed.
    Her boss went on speaking. “We can reliably project how much revenue would have come from the current graduating c lass in Archangel if they took the Test. In the grand scheme of NorthStar’s educational arm and our corporate profits as a whole, the losses naturally aren’t crippling, but it’s still a significant number. Those losses are put into better context when one considers the division’s low operating costs.” Garber didn’t need to rub it in; of all of NorthStar’s major divisions, from consumer goods to finance, education had always demonstrated one of the largest profit margins. Every young person in the Union had to go to school, after all, and NorthStar held great sway with the people who set the standards for success—which translated into the financial profits from a given student’s failure. Other corporations such as Lai Wa offered competition, but ultimately they relied on the same business model and reached for the same outcomes. The system always seemed secure until the events of the last year.
    “After a good deal of lobbying and consultations, I can report that a full fifty-five percent of public universities across the Union have decided not to accept diplomas and transfer credits from students graduating from Archangel this year. The report also includes a cost-benefit breakdown of—“
    “Fifty-five percent?” broke in an already fuming Jon Weir. The Chief Administrative Officer sat several places up the table from Garber. “That means forty-five percent of them are accepting students from Archangel? That’s almost half!”
    Sarah quietly sent Greg a private note: “Does your boss ever actually read the reports before these meetings?”
    “Again, we’re only talking about public universities,” Garber explained. “They aren’t afraid of us pulling our financial support, and while admittedly they make up a large share of the most prestigious universities, they’re still a distinct minority overall. They feel like Archangel’s schools are doing much the same job as they did under our management. The rest—”
    “Of course those schools are doing the same job,” snorted Weir. “It’s all still the same staff teaching in the same schools that we built . What was the last figure you cited? Ninety-one percent of our people stayed on the job through the takeover?”
    Greg’s response arrived before Weir finished speaking: “He has people for that, obviously.”
    “As I said back in November and December, Jon,” Garber continued patiently, “the only way to hang onto most of those people would have been to offer new positions elsewhere along with relocation assistance. “
    Weir waved off that argument, as he had months ago. “Gimme a break. If they’d wanted that kind of special treatment, they wouldn’t have gone to work as glorified babysitters.” He glanced around the table, looking for nods of agreement, and found more than a few. “I’d just expect a little bit of corporate loyalty given all we’d already done for them.”
    “We must not show resentment,” counseled the steely voice of Anton Brekhov. The