Market Forces - Plot

Plot

In 2049, Chris Faulkner is recruited by Shorn Associates, an investment firm in London.There he befriends Mike Bryant, a fellow junior executive in the "Conflict Investment" division. During a social gathering in Zones, the ghetto areas of London, Mike introduces Chris to journalist Liz Linshaw, who is also Mike's former mistress. Before they leave the Zones, Mike kills several gang members in a failed robbery. Back at work, Mike brings Chris into a project regarding propping up the ageing Colombian dictator General Hernan Echevarria by providing military resources in exchange for a portion of the country's gross domestic product. With Shorn's contract due for renewal they are challenged by competing agencies Nakamura and Acropolitic. The challenge is settled by a driving duel in which the Shorn team eliminates the two competing teams. As Chris becomes famous for his driving performance, he begins an affair with Liz Linshaw. With Echevarria's son, Francisco, who is aligned with a competing American firm, preparing to take over, Chris recruits a Colombian rebel group, led by Vincente Barranco, to overthrow Hernan before Francisco takes over. However, other Shorn executives sabotage Chris's efforts by arranging Barranco to overhear a Shorn executive negotiate with the Echevarrias. Chris reacts by spontaneously beating Hernan to death.

One thing that every Conflict Investment client Chris had ever dealt with had in common was their love of developed world technotoys. It was basic CI wisdom, handed down from partners to analysts everywhere in the trade. Don't stint on toys. At the top of every hardware gift list, you placed your state-of-the-art global communications gadgetry. That, and personalised airliners. Then the military stuff. Always in that order, it never failed.

Meanwhile, the demands of his new job stress Chris's relationship with his wife, Carla, who is uncomfortable with the brutal competition among firms and the violence they incite in other countries. With the help of her father, who lives in the London Zones, and her mother in Sweden, they secure a position at the United Nations for Chris on condition he bring insider information with him. As Chris resists and their marriage ends.

In jail, Chris is offered a choice: stand trial for murder or participate in the cover-up by saying he had legally issued a challenge for a senior position in the firm. Knowing murder merits capital punishment, Chris agrees to the cover-up but must face Mike in a driving duel for the senior position. Mike is the superior driver but Chris forces Mike to drive off a bridge and into the Zones. Chris finds the badly injured Mike and kills him just before a gang, who had watched the duel on television, finds them. The gang beats Chris but he survives. The story ends with Chris, as the new senior executive, giving the new dictator Francisco Echevarria 48 hours to flee his country in favour of installing Barranco.