DAY 29, FACES, FEET and the MAYOR OF LONDON, book 4, building

The next morning at six, Alice talked with Any, the head of THE, via a video call. ‘We’ve doubled security on all your lawyers and their families,’ Any said. ‘Also on your ripples news teams. Wherever they go, my people keep them safe.’ Alice grimaced. ‘How dangerous is it for them?’ ‘We’re uncertain. That’s why we take no risks.’ Alice nodded. ‘How’s the press this morning?’ Any smiled. ‘My favourite headline reads: “London to be littered with stinking feet.”’ ‘Stinking feet?’ ‘The LONGEVITY Campaign offers free photo shoots of faces and feet with local photographers, today, on the streets of London, and in all other participating cities. They print out the best photos and display those along strings throughout London.’ ‘Ah, I remember. They want to fix the strings to lampposts and sculptures.’ ‘That’s the one.’ ‘Ah, I wish, I could go.’ ‘One photo string starts from the Front House, at the Compound.’ ‘Oh, great!’ Alice chuckled. ‘I like that they wrote stinking feet. Imagine we would add smells to the feet photos.’ Any chuckled. ‘Anything else from the press?’ Alice asked. Any shrugged. ‘Nothing you need to know. Your fact check website has more traffic every day. I’d say that means more and more people are curious about the project and are prepared to form their own opinions.’ At six forty-three, Alice had her face and feet photographed for the LONGEVITY Campaign. Today’s campaign theme was: Playful, strong, together — having fun and doing the unexpected. One of the team told Alice that they had already found an expert on feet smells. Just after seven, Alice went to conference room 1 on the third floor of the Central Building and joined a meeting with the Business Expansion Team. This team’s tasks were: Recruit to expand the businesses. Expand the workshop networks for each business. Establish more businesses at Hub Stations. Plan headquarters for the various businesses. Extend the supply networks and make use of synergy effects between the different companies. If possible find and nurture symbioses within all networks and across all networks. Use ripples news to document the expansion and to bundle discussions. Work closely with the Alert Team, with the future town’s Business Team, and with the Hub, in particular with the Hub Stations and the Hub’s online shopping mall. Also, for the future town: involvement in the adjustments of the Yards, the Roof Gardens complex, and production and storage facilities, in- and outside of town. Plus: inventions for the town. A big question was: Which businesses and products will be needed for the building phase and later in town? At the start of this meeting, Seth (business liaison for all transition teams) announced: ‘We’ll limit our expansion efforts to seventy-seven project companies, not including our supplies networks in this count. We’re getting a lot of headwind and need to make it clear that we don’t come to conquer but to inspire and empower, to unearth creativity and to restore our planet. We’re prepared to share our knowledge, so long as it isn’t used for exploitation, oppression or mere profiteering. We stand for balance not for competition.’ Lakeshia from dot. nodded and said: ‘I think we need to get this message out there and more clearly. We create to restore, empower and serve. Too many still think our project is just another remake of the old power plays, corruptions and greed.’ Devery from the Hub agreed. ‘We should keep repeating what we stand for and add all our day-to-day-business stories to our communications to illustrate and substantiate what we do.’ Ef from toys around the world nodded. ‘It might even be necessary to publicly compare our businesses with other players in the same industry and show what our businesses do for customers, for the community near our stations, for creatives, and what effects other businesses have locally and globally.’ Alice nodded. ‘Raiden did a simulation to compare dot.’s effects to those of other fashion companies. We can adjust this simulations for each of our businesses. We can also be different in the way we present ourselves. We don’t have anything to hide. We don’t need to make flashy presentations. We can simply be ourselves. Be honest and transparent.’ Lakeshia from dot. smiled. ‘A customer said to me, yesterday, that he loves how enthusiastic we are about everyone involved in our company. I think that’s a great point in our favour, too. We seem to have created a business model where it’s possible to love what we do and with whom we do it.’ Several people chuckled, and, chuckling herself, Lakeshia added: ‘It sounds a bit cheesy. But this ease, this inclusiveness, this fun, people notice it.’ Not long before ten, Alice reached the town museum and opened the second press conference. She began with remarks about the project’s business expansions, repeating several of the positive thoughts from the team meeting. But when she noticed some dismissive looking journalists, her mood flipped, and before she could stop herself, she lashed out about the disturbing practice of producing heaps of so-called fashion only to dump heaps of it in landfills. ‘Can you plant a single tree on fabrics?’ Alice challenged. ‘I doubt you can. And fashion is only one example of the business world’s obsession with flooding the markets with goods which aren’t even good enough for the dumpster. Every single one of our companies only sells what has been ordered, what the customer wants and needs, and what has been produced responsibly. And while doing so, we empower everyone involved in the production, distribution and sales processes. In our businesses incomes are automatically distributed widely unlike the still common practice of handing huge incomes to a few or worse to speculators, which then need to be taxed in order to make up for mechanisms which always favour a few, which always favour those who only seek to increase numbers not actual wealth and wellbeing. Besides, how about you take a closer look at the idiocy of producing anything on the off-chance that a marketing team is good enough to sell the product. It defies all logic. You can ask your questions now!’ Alice ended, unhappy about the lame exit line, unhappier that the press didn’t take the bait. They didn’t retort. The didn’t call her out for losing her composure. They didn’t ask a single question relating to dot. Silence. Bloody silence. It’s so effective in shutting someone up. Why not shut up idiots for a change? one of Alice’s thoughts fumed. Another thought shrugged. Listen to them, even here, even now, all they care about are their bleeding millionaires and billionaires. Another thought sneered. Good. Our millionaires boot camp will teach them something, too! Alice took a deep breath and was glad that her Campaigns & Negotiations Team handled all following questions with ease, humour and clarity, even when the rumours about the queen being held hostage by the project were brought up — again. Alice smiled a little when a few good questions were posed about the first three campaigns which were running parallel by now. Two hours later, back on the seventh floor, Navarro remarked: ‘This press conference was another interesting display of how people rather suspect a conspiracy than focus on issues we need to address. And no amount of nudging them towards relevant issues made a difference. They just kept digging were their suspicions hoped to find an irresistible headline. Bizarre.’ Not much later, Alice signed several orders for project businesses and other contractors. On the shopping list were: pipes, tubes, cables, solar panels, small wind engines, biogas equipment, work clothes, sleeping bags, tents, scooters, bicycles, cargo bicycles, project phones, tools, helmets, and what else was likely to be needed in the first weeks of the building phase. All orders were made public. Comments ranged from praise for thorough planning to taunts for creating waste by producing what the town project would never need. The most shared meme was: ‘Plastic-free helmets! Turning workers into knights!’ Around the same time, Hayley (tech) stated in an ad hoc interview: ‘The project phones are built and customised by our tech company highFLY. The phones have a link to the town simulation, and to special Hub rooms. There is an overall Hub room for the building phase, and there are sub-rooms for the various building teams where team members can connect, keep up to date, and where all relevant data is published. In case we don’t need those phones, they can easily be repurposed because these are modular phones with our own, highly adaptable operations system.’ Back at the meeting with the Business Expansion Team, Alice asked Miles, the head of Ingbars Inc: ‘How are the Ingbars doing?’ ‘Going through the roof after our test campaign. We’ll start for real in the following cities: Plymouth, London, Manchester, Swansea, Glasgow and Belfast. In each city, we start with one area and then slowly expand as demand grows.’ ‘That’s the plan,’ Milli, another member of the Ingbar team said. ‘Only demand is already much higher than we expected, and the question is whether to ride this wave or whether to grow slowly, learn, extend a bit more, learn and so on.’ Alice thought for a moment and then said. ‘Maybe you can do both. Stick with your one step at a time policy, but in the background you build the foundations for expanding further. This way, after you’ve learned a good deal, you can speed up the process.’ There were several smiles around the table and Alice asked: ‘What’s the secret of your campaign?’ Miles grinned. ‘“Ingbars: no more wasting time and money on shopping grocery. With Ingbars you get exactly what you need and eat. Ingredients and foods at the highest quality with the guarantee that no exploitation of planet or people are involved at any stage of these products.”’ Magnus, head of Ingbar marketing, nodded. ‘We have a second spot. “Ingbars — No more worries about ingredients, labels, environmental damage, slave labour, false promises. Ingbars are free from all pretence and waste. Each Ingbar is customised to meet a household’s food needs. Worry-free quality for people’s health and conscience.”’ ‘Fantastic,’ Alice said, smiling. ‘Yes,’ Miles returned. ‘Ingbars went viral. And we got some thousand lawsuits.’ Alice laughed. ‘On what grounds?’ ‘Manipulation and intent to destroy the global economy.’ Alice shook her head. ‘Wow! What imagination. What are you doing about it?’ ‘We asked a judge to compare our business practices with those of our opponents’ and to determine which of us is bent on manipulation and exploitation, and which of us is doing an overdue rethink of harmful business practises — and benefits more people—’ A knock on the conference room door made everyone look up. The knock was followed by Rohana’s head who mouthed that she needed a word with Alice. As soon as the door closed behind Alice, Rohana said: ‘The mayor of London requests your presence.’ ‘Oh! OK. When?’ ‘Now!’ ‘Oh.’ ‘Several people think you should take Jack, use his celebrity status as a calming effect.’ Alice raised her eyebrows. ‘Why does the mayor need calming?’ ‘He’s upset about the longest photo gallery ever.’ Alice laughed and punched the air. ‘I knew it! I knew that the feet and faces idea would open doors. YES!’ Around four o’clock, Alice and Jack met with the mayor of London who seemed curious about them but who was visibly annoyed about the photos which cluttered the sky. ‘If you were a bird,’ Alice returned with a lopsided smile. ‘I’d understand that the photos must be irritating. But you’re a human. You can keep your gaze on your own feet. You don’t have to look at the feet and faces above your head.’ ‘Alice Adler, half of London is a live gallery of faces and feet of all sorts. Some parents reported that their children got scared by some expressions and by the sight of naked feet.’ ‘Many kept their shoes on.’ ‘Some had ten photos taken of their feet: feet with shoes, with socks, dancing feet, running feet, squatting feet.’ Alice smiled. ‘I saw those. I love the creativity people bring to the campaigns.’ The major grimaced. ‘And what has any of this to do with longevity?’ ‘Embracing diversity, laughing together, creating together, shaping together. Everything that makes our hearts lift contributes to our health.’ ‘Hm. Why feet?’ ‘Because we see feet even less often than faces. And feet like all our body parts are unique, and uniqueness is fun and precious. Besides who would have expected feet in connection with faces?’ ‘Someone smart who thought this was about a person from head to toe.’ Alice smiled broadly. ‘That’s good! I hadn’t thought of that.’ The mayor smiled a little, too, and let out a loud sigh. ‘Alright. But I make you personally responsible for cleaning up this fun. You have until Monday morning. And from now on, I want to be kept in the loop regarding future show-offs with the press — which is the whole point of this so-called celebration of creativity, I believe.’ ‘Not really. Though we might not have made this into such a big event if we weren’t a little annoyed by the press’ constant attempts to make us look like fools. But an event like this is absolutely in line with who we are: the crazy people who do the impossible and somehow make it work.’ The mayor shook his head. ‘A business partner warned me, not to underestimate you.’ Alice shrugged. ‘I wish people would say instead: there is a person with the kind of mind and openness you could make use of — if you had the courage.’ The mayor smiled a bit and looked at his watch. ‘I will keep that in mind. Thank you for coming at this short notice. Oh, and by the way, any chance I could get a signed copy of the “This is our world” comic? Not for me. Obviously. My daughter is a great fan.’ On their way back to the Compound, Alice listened in on the remainder of the Business Expansion Team’s meeting, and when they arrived at the Front House, Alice and Jack joined this week’s Q & A in the theatre.

© Charlie Alice Raya, book 4, building, 2025