Market Forces

by Richard K. Morgan

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. Conflict Investment provides resources to incumbent or rebel factions in exchange for promised share of the nation's gross domestic product. CI members often toast to continued "small wars" as their primary source of income for themselves and their investors.

Executive advancement in 2049 is not based on merit or politics alone, rather executives can issue challenges to each other which are held on highways emptied of cars and usually fought to the death, in a fashion similar to Mad Max, a source cited as inspiration by the author in the acknowledgements of the book. Chris Faulkner gains recognition and small celebrity for a particularly brutal win over a much older and more seasoned member of his firm, from which he is head-hunted by Shorn to join their team. Within the media landscape, business executives have fame on the order of sports stars or movie actors and their driving duels are analysed and covered as sporting events. Chris' wife Carla is also his mechanic, a vital role where an executive's car is the difference between promotion and death. She is not a fan of the way he makes his living, but they have an initially strong relationship.

During a night out in the one of the Zones – the cordoned off zone of decaying ghettos surrounding the City of London – Mike introduces Chris to journalist Liz Linshaw, who is also Mike's former mistress. Before they leave the Zones, Mike brutally executes several gang members who attempt to steal his car. Back at work, Mike brings Chris in to use contacts and analysis from his prior firm to assist into a project regarding propping up the ageing Colombian dictator General Hernan Echevarria. 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. Chris' profile is greatly increased with this victory, including appearances on TV and magazines as the latest star from a line of Shorn executives. 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 believes that a long-time rebel leader might be a better option than Francisco. Vincente Barranco, the rebel leader chosen by Chris, is signed to a contract with Shorn and brought to London to shop for arms to bring his small force the resources they need to overthrow Hernan before Francisco takes over. However, other Shorn executives sabotage Chris's efforts by arranging for Barranco to overhear a Shorn executive negotiate with the Echevarrias. When challenged by Barranco that he is not truly committed to his cause, Chris reacts by spontaneously beating Hernan to death in a conference room. Shorn concocts a coverup and pins Hernan's death on an otherwise unknown terrorist group. The killing is also concealed from most of Shorn's employees, but the senior partner of CI agrees that while a completely unorthodox act, it's the sort of rule bending which is sometimes needed to return the maximum for their clients. While his actions convince Barranco that he is in fact committed to his side, Chris is removed from the Colombia job which is handed over to a senior partner, Hamilton, who takes a more pragmatic view and moves to align with Hernan's son.

{{quote box |align=left | width = 24em | quote = 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.

| source = —Market Forces, page 209.}} As it is clear that the demands of his job are taking a toll on Chris, Carla becomes increasingly uncomfortable with the brutal competition among firms and the violence they incite in other countries. Seeking an escape from Shorn and to save their marriage, Carla, with the help of her father, who lives in the London Zones, and her mother in Sweden, secures a position at the United Nations as an Ombudsman, a sort of outside auditor/investigator who attempts to enforce the UN's mandate across the world. This position is viewed as honourable but ultimately ineffective as neither the US nor UK recognise the UN's authority and run roughshod over them in their pursuit of profits. After an initially frosty meeting, Chris' conditions are agreed on, but with the requirement that he stay in place at Shorn through the end of the current conflict in Cambodia, in which Shorn is backing a rebel leader.

As the conflict in Colombia tilts in favour of the son, Hamilton goes outside of the normal chain of command to plan the execution of Barranco and the elimination of the local Shorn representative in a gladiatorial duel. Faulkner finds out about this and barges into a video conference Hamilton is having with Francisco, telling him that he in fact killed his father with his bare hands. He then beats Hamilton and breaks his neck. He is duly captured and placed in a Corporation operated jail. In jail, Chris is offered a choice: be convicted of murder and have his organs harvested after being subject to capital punishment or participate in face-saving (for Shorn) farce by saying he had legally issued a challenge to Hamilton for his position in the firm. Conditions of this agreement are steep however as he must drive against Mike Bryant, who he had grown to be truly close with, but who is now completely done with him with revelation of Chris' affair with Liz Linshaw and Chris' brutal killings outside of the bounds of the challenge process. The night prior to the challenge, the UN representative returns with the chance for Chris to escape and reunite with his estranged wife, who has left the country. He declines. Mike is the superior driver but using a creative interpretation of challenge rules, 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 when the gang is gunned down by Driver Control authorities, the sanctioning body for duels. 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.