Aron and Rina's conversation continued as they toured the skies of Avalon Island before heading to Edenia.
"It's quite surprising how fast Eden started mixing with other countries. It even managed to join the UN, though that seemed to have been made easier with your discovery of oil," Rina said.
The UN Security Council had acted with surprising speed when approving Eden's application, especially since Russia and China knew nobody else would be allowed to harvest the Edenian and Esparian oil fields.
"Well, there's a reason they call it black gold, after all. It's pure wealth and power, and it all boils down to how much we can produce. The more we can produce, the better we can stabilize the global market if a crisis arises in the OPEC nations," Aron responded as he expertly piloted the helicopter.
"Although I know how you're planning on pumping the oil, I wonder what the people who expect you to fail will think. They're all just waiting for you to fall on your face and go begging to them for cooperation. But you've wildly exceeded expectations and you don't even need more than 1% of what you're pumping to feed all of Eden's requirements for it. You've become a global exporter almost overnight!" she said.
The workers had finished being trained a few months before, and had taken over the offshore platform that'd been sitting idle for nearly two months in the wait for workers. The production speed had stunned everyone, and proved Alexander's decision was correct; his party had even won more than 90% of the parliament seats. He could almost be considered a dictator himself! There was actually a term for that in politics: a benevolent dictator. They wielded absolute power, but not only for themselves. Instead, they worked for the people under them to benefit.
"The people almost couldn't believe that everything was ready so fast. We only released the report and announced the completion and we upheld our promise to deliver within three months. Luckily for us, it just so happened to begin a few days before the parliamentary election. There's even a bunch of conspiracy theorists that cropped up on Pangea, I guess because the timing was fertile ground for them. The thing is, some of them are right," he let out a hearty laugh that was joined by Rina.
When the helicopter reached Edenia, they flew over the major projects that Hephaestus Heavy Industries had either completed, or made major progress on. Most of them were completely finished, with only the rail network lagging behind a bit. But even that was mostly completed, with only the minor lines left to build; the trunk lines were already in full operation, becoming the heart and vessels of the country's economy.
Just the completion of the trunk lines alone had attracted the attention of the rest of the world, as the project had achieved its current success at a speed everyone would consider impossible. Things like the sheer scale of the network, which spanned thousands of kilometers. Yet all of that had taken just a single year concept to completion. And that was while the company was still constructing three other megaprojects and had completed a fourth! There were still two megaports and a mega-airport, plus the utility infrastructure. It was completely unbelievable... almost magical, some would say.
Another attention-grabbing thing about the rail network was that it was completely comprised of maglev rails. Eden was the only country that had managed that, as most other nations only used maglev for local public transportation, while they relied on the aging and sometimes crumbling rail infrastructure that had been around since the early 20th century for most intercity and interstate/international transportation other than japan with their shinkansen line which was the only example this network could be compared with if you don't consider the sheer size of the Edens network.
Experts speculated that it had to have cost an arm and a leg to accomplish that on such an enormous scale in such a short period of time. That, too, acted as a major surprise for anyone who decided to investigate HHI, especially after they found out that it was a private company that had never even had rumors spread about. People were flabbergasted; didn't that mean that a single company with a fairly few people had invested all of that money and would be the only ones benefiting from the network's operation?
That was a lot of money!
ραndαsΝοvεl ƈοm Economists estimated that the rail network alone would require more than $50 billion to build, so where did the money come from? Banks all around the world that were capable of lending significant amounts were the first to deny that they had loaned anything to anyone that was earmarked for any construction projects in Eden at all, let alone a megaproject like a countrywide rail network!.
With just that project alone, Connect was valuated at over $100 billion. But that wasn't all of their projects, as people began estimating the amount of investments and profits for the utility infrastructure, along with the two megaports and the mega-airport that were already considered to be among the world's largest.
All of those projects were solely invested in, and operated by, a single company: Connect. The only other company involved was Hephaestus Heavy Industries, which was awarded no-bid contracts for all of the projects and the amount was confidential. That led some people to believe that the companies absolutely must be state owned and operated—especially since no company in their right minds would keep that amount of liquidity on their balance sheet—but a few people had either connected the dots between three long-time friends or already knew the truth: the companies were wholly owned by one Aron Michael.
However, most of those people were considered crackpot conspiracy theorists. Aron was famous for only one thing: GAIA Technologies was his company. How could he have time to run more than one company, even if he had friends to take the day-to-day operations on? It was one thing to sit on a board, and many people sat on multiple boards of directors of different companies, but to actually be an owner of them? That was too much work for one person to do in a day that was limited to 24 hours!
All of the speculation was only made possible because the companies were private, so there was no requirement to report the names of their owners, or any employees, really. Thus, people only knew that Connect was headed by Felix Hanover and Sarah O'Connor was the CEO of GAIA Technologies. Aron was still in public memory as the owner, but only barely; he had mostly faded from public view at this point, and only the truly powerful were still keeping an eye on him and his movements.
But still despite all the secrecy, there were still people that suspected there was a shadowy figure at the helm of all of those companies. Hephaestus Heavy Industries, GAIA Technologies, Helios Energy, and Connect... just what was the connection there? There had to be one, and all of the theorists mostly agreed on a single name: Aron Michael. Still, they couldn't quite accept that. Perhaps due to his age, or maybe because of his humble beginnings, they suspected that there was an even shadowier shadowy figure behind him and were arguing about which major family scion it was.
"So when do you plan on releasing the products you've been hard at work on in Lab City?" Rina switched the topic to what Aron had been spending most of his time doing. She had been very curious as to what he'd been planning, especially since he specifically teased her with it as an upcoming surprise.
"I plan to announce and simultaneously release them on February 15th," Aron said as he landed the helicopter on the roof of the tallest building in the city, his company's temporary headquarters.
They disembarked and took the waiting elevator to the meeting room, where they would be holding an in-person meeting with Sarah and Felix. They had decided to meet in person as they would be restructuring the companies for more efficiency and eliminating redundancies. Nova had earlier highlighted the waste in all of those companies that was a result of the lack of consolidation.
Aron sat at the head of the conference table and greeted his friends, marking the beginning of the restructuring process. Rina, who wasn't officially involved in any of the companies' operations, left the room to tour the city after pecking Aron's cheek.
"Let's begin," he said.
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