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"NO! I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO BRING THAT WOMAN INTO OUR CLAN, ESPECIALLY NOT A MEMBER OF THE CLIVE CONSORTIUM!"

Ves tried his best to convince his wife of the merits of recruiting Jocasta Clive. He truly believed that she was sincere enough towards starting anew in his clan, but Gloriana continued to remain stubborn about this issue.

"I am not the only mech designer who is skeptical about recruiting Jocasta Clive, Ves!" Gloriana hissed as she vented her anger to an extent. "Juliet has informed all our fellow Journeymen about your ideas. Do you know how they responded to your notion?"

"Uhhh…"

"Ketis said \'no way\'. The Voiken siblings shook their heads. The Power Pair said that our clan shouldn\'t host anyone named Clive. Miles Tovar thinks that it is a better idea to recruit a mediocre Journeyman. Merrill O\'Brian suggests that we should take our time and wait for less problematic candidates. The only lead designer among us who hasn\'t expressed disapproval towards Jocasta Clive is Cormaunt Hempkamp, but that is because he thinks he is too new to our clan to add his voice to this discussion."

"So?"

"NO ONE WANTS TO WORK WITH JOCASTA CLIVE!"

"How can you all say that when you aren\'t even prepared to give her a chance?!"

"SHE\'S A CLIVE!"

Ves tried his best to maintain his composure and stand his ground. "I know what she is, thank you very much. I may have met her only once, but I can read her pretty well. Regardless of what she has said, I can truly feel that she shared our passion for mechs. She is much more of a mech designer than a servant of the Clive Consortium. So long as she manages to pass Goldie\'s test, I don\'t think we should have any concerns about her lingering attachment to where she came from. The Larkinsons will become her new family from that point onwards and that can never be changed."

"NO! I HAVE TOLERATED YOUR HAREBRAINED DECISIONS FAR TOO MUCH, BUT I WILL NOT ALLOW YOU TO BRING A POISONOUS WOMAN IN OUR CLAN! NO OTHER JOURNEYMAN WANTS TO WORK WITH HER, SO CEASE YOUR STUPID THOUGHTS AND FIND MORE HONEST MECH DESIGNERS!"

That pretty much ended the discussion. Faced with the near-unanimous disapproval of every Journeyman in his clan, Ves had to reject any further action towards Jocasta Clive.

For one reason or another, Gloriana refused to allow him to meet with Jocasta in person, so he could only arrange his subordinates to figure out a way to gently suspend any actions towards recruiting her into the clan.

Though Ves was unable to recruit Jocasta Clive, he still had hopes of reeling in Beatrice Hendrix.

He was afraid that Gloriana would find fault with her for whatever reason, so he tried his best to evade any mention of Madame Hendrix.

Ves first waited a few days to see whether Beatrice Hendrix would take the initiative to contact the Larkinson Clan.

When that did not happen, he tried to send her a message and invite her to another talk.

The response he received was less than solid.

"Let me be plain with you, Patriarch Larkinson." Beatrice Hendrix\'s projection spoke to him. "I am still ambivalent towards your offer. I will not lie to you and say that I have no interest in the rich conditions that you have offered, but your demands are too excessive in my opinion. I cannot embrace the idea of joining your clan on a permanent basis and surrendering many of the rights that ordinary partners are entitled to when they work together with their peers. You and your clan retain too much control than I am comfortable with. If a dispute ever happens between you and I, how will that be resolved? Will you impose your authority on me and force me to work on projects against my will?"

"That will never happen!" Ves protested. "We expect all Larkinsons to do their duty, but how exactly they go about it is not as important. The lead designers of our Design Department enjoy a wide degree of autonomy. While I do admit to imposing additional controls when it is prudent such as in the case of our neural interface specialist, I have no desire to boss you all around too much."

Beatrice did not look convinced. "Those are empty words, Patriarch Larkinson. It is unquestionable that you are both the founder of the Larkinson Clan, the patriarch of the Larkinson Clan and the head designer of the Design Department of the Living Mech Corporation. These identities bestow you with an unparalleled amount of authority, allowing you to do virtually anything you want. The soft power you hold among the people you have recruited and brought up is also great. This makes it so that it is too difficult to oppose or object to your decisions."

Ves looked exasperated. Why did Beatrice Hendrix obsess over this issue so much? Couldn\'t she trust him to do what was right for his clan and his people? He never treated his clansmen particularly badly! He had always been generous towards them as far as he knew.

"Our clan may be young, but it can still grow and evolve. If you join our clan and work towards increasing your authority, you will have the power to change how we work over time. I may be in charge of everything, but that doesn\'t mean I have time to micromanage all of my subordinates. I respect mech designers such as you and fully expect that you will be able to take care of yourselves. If you do not believe my words, then I can offer you the contact information of my fellow Journeyman Mech Designers. They should be able to provide you with a much better idea on their actual work conditions."

A short pause ensued as Beatrice Hendrix thought deeply on his offer.

This was an important moment in their talks.

If Beatrice rejected this opportunity to collect more information about what it was like to work in the Design Department, then that meant that her interest in working for the Larkinson Clan was almost zero.

If Beatrice accepted the contact information, then she either intended to drag her feet or sincerely look into whether it was the right decision for her to join the clan.

It took ten more seconds before she issued her reply.

"You can do that. I may be interested in asking them questions. Please notify them beforehand so that they are open to satisfying my curiosity."

"Great! I will transfer the data over to you now. You can rest assured that they will open you with open arms. Our Design Department is able to work on many projects on a concurrent basis, but out of all of our lead designers, only one of them is a defensive specialist. There is little reason for us to reject an excellent Journeyman Mech Designer who can design fantastic adaptive modular armor systems such as you. I can promise you that you will be able to experiment and implement your own ideas in many different mech design projects, whether they are solo or collaborative ones."

They chatted a bit more before Beatrice Hendrix decided to end the call.

Ves did not feel certain enough about whether he had managed to bring Beatrice any closer or further towards inducting her into his clan.

He decided he needed a second opinion on this matter and decided to call Calabast. Her ability to read people was even better than his own as she was a professional in this regard.

Once he established a connection with his spymaster, he summarized this matter and transferred a recording of the comm call.

"Hm, I see what is going on." Calabast spoke after she quickly processed the data. "She is too similar to you, have you realized that, Ves?"

"What do you mean?"

"She is a talented and ambitious mech designer who detests the idea of answering to others. She desires to start her own company and build up her own empire so that she can fully make her own decisions. She is greedy for resources and other valuable aids that can help her progress her design philosophy and help her become a better mech designer. I believe that should sound familiar."

"Oh. I guess you\'re right."

If Ves thought of Beatrice Hendrix as a mirror to himself, then he understood her reluctance to join the Larkinson Clan much better.

If he was faced with the same situation, then he probably would have been inclined to say no! There was no way he would want to tie his fate to another person, especially someone who was known to be a serial risk taker and a volatile leader!

Still, Beatrice Hendrix probably hadn\'t been betrayed or exposed to as many crises as Ves. Her record did not contain anything that sounded tragic or serious enough to merit enough paranoia.

As such, her objections towards answering to others should not be too great. So long as he took a page out of Yenames Clive\'s book and worked towards overwhelming Beatrice with bribes, he might have a chance of winning her over!

"That is unlikely to work." Calabast shook his head as she read his intentions from his changing expressions. "Material benefits are attractive to her, but she does not want to sell her soul to you if that is what you ask. You need to put more effort into assuaging her concerns. You also need to work more towards increasing the attraction of the Larkinson Clan. Explain to her what your clan stands for. Tell her the ideals that motivate us all. Make it clear to Beatrice Hendrix that the clan is not your personal kingdom, but rather a collection of like-minded dreamers who are working towards a better future for themselves and their descendants."

"Hmmm…" Ves looked thoughtful. "That sounds like something President Yenames Clive would do. I don\'t know if I can pitch that stuff to her. I would much rather rely on a straightforward exchange of interests to reel her into our clan."

"I already told you that you will fail if you turn this into a pure transaction. What you need to do is build up trust. The more benefits you offer to her, the more she becomes suspicious of your actual intentions. You cannot simply promise her the right to rule over an entire planet and expect her to believe you have her best interests at heart. She will instead be preoccupied with figuring out what ulterior motives you have. This is why I highly recommend you to change your recruitment strategy."

"Then what do I need to do, Calabast?"

"Let me give you a handful of suggestions…"

She gave him a number of tips that enlightened him a lot. There were much better ways to win over a skeptical Journeyman Mech Designer.

"Did you get all of that, Ves?"

"I think I do." Ves nodded. "I think you are right that I probably won\'t be able to persuade Beatrice unless I can demonstrate to her that our clan is special compared to all of the other possible organizations that she can join. Hopefully, she\'ll contact me and agree to meet with me in person after she has contacted our other Journeymen. If we can\'t recruit her, it is unlikely for us to obtain the services of a good defensive specialist."