A Visitor to the Future - 37 - Crux Corporate
"This is all very impressive," said Tungsten, "Can you tell us more about Crux?"
"Of course," said Alexandra, walking over to the photographs on the wall. I now saw that she was in many of them - older-looking in some of them, but it was definitely her. She looked at the photographs with a somewhat nostalgic expression on her face. "Crux was an aeronautics corporation, primarily focused on Earth operations but with other interests around the system. I was the CEO of Crux for forty years, immediately before the major expansion of the Consortium. I'd like to think we were one of the nicer Multispheres of the time, but we did our share of questionable things to survive at times. Blaise was one of our brightest designers, and eventually he would head up our research and development department."
She pointed towards the chunk of metal that took up a corner of the room, a twisted mess of metal that looked partially melted, battered, and bruised.
"That is from one of the early prototypes of the Crux Axiom, which was where we made a great deal of our income. I kept this around because even though the test of the new engines failed, and the craft crashed, the pilot survived - a testament to our ejector seat designs. We sold the Axiom to both corporations and countries alike. The rest of our income came from our civilian designs, such as the Crux Cravat Airship. Crux was the biggest name in aeronautics at the time, but we were still but a drop in the ocean compared to the larger Multispheres. I constantly had to juggle attempted hostile takeovers, corporate espionage, and keeping the shareholders happy - all while trying to pay our employees a decent wage. I didn't always succeed. I freely admit these days that it was extremely stressful - had I kept on with it for another few years I might have just collapsed from the pressure. In the end, I'm glad I outlasted Crux."
"And you moved on from CEO to Auditor?" I said, "It must have taken some adjustment."
"Yes, but a necessary one to make. Ultimately I felt I couldn't ignore the voice of doubt in the back of my head - some part of me just didn't accept that the Consortium was as effective as its designers said it was. I was constantly looking for the catch, after working in the dog-eat-dog corporate world for so many years. But with every test I subjected the Consortium to, I began to realise that there wasn't one. After that, I took a break. That's when I met Sasha and we settled down into old age together," she said, a smile now on her face, "We started auditing again about thirty years later, post Biodev Breakthrough."
"Why return to auditing, after such a long break?" I asked.
She thought for a moment before responding. "I suppose it was a combination of two things. First, getting de-aged was a massive boost to my energy levels - the lethargy of age vanished for both me and Sasha. We spent a decade or two sailing and sight-seeing, but we both wanted to do something useful, I think. The second main thing was the Dauntless Navigator shuttle disaster."
"I've heard that name before," I said, recalling Sarkona's mention of the disaster as the cause of their great-grandfather's death.
Alexandra nodded grimly. "It was a tragic event which showed that the Consortium still was far from perfect - there were still flaws to be found even if they weren't put there intentionally. So Sasha and I decided to start auditing together. We bumped into Blaise by chance and he joined us. We haven't stopped since. I find it very rewarding."
Tungsten was silent but nodded gently, seemingly lost in his own thoughts. I thought of another question.
"What are some of the most interesting places you've audited?" I asked.
Alexandra looked off into the distance, tapping her knuckles together as she thought. "Eru Ilúvatar was very interesting from an auditing point of view," said Alexandra, "And Ceres too. But I've spent most of my years auditing places on and around Earth. The Consortium cores, manufactories and long-term data storage facilities are places we frequently return to. I've audited some of the no-gravity habitats too, which are interesting but not somewhere I'd spend much time at on a regular basis - I'm far too fond of gravity."
"Did you ever find anything wrong in those places?"
"Yes. In our career as Auditors we have between us found seventeen critical issues and thousands of minor ones. Mostly systems operating with less redundancy than would be wise, or miscalibrations that might lead to larger issues in the future, that sort of thing. We're one of the few Auditor teams that ever found an actual vulnerability too - the sort of thing that allows citizens to manipulate the Consortium itself. We reported it and it was fixed within two hours. We haven't found another critical vulnerability for nearly two hundred years now."
"To me, two hundred years just seems like such a long time," I said, "How do you stay interested, having done this for so long?"
"Find interesting things to audit," explained Alexandra, "And take frequent vacations. I go sailing with Sasha every few months, and we travel a lot in our spare time. That is one thing that has definitely changed in me over the years. I was known in CEO circles for never taking time off, but these days I'm a regular holidaymaker."
She yawned suddenly, covering her mouth as she did so. "Do you mind if we take this conversation into my office? I think I need some coffee."