Professor Siefr
Professor Siefr First appearance The Glass House, chapter 11 |
Professor Siefr is a figure of the C9 universe and a senior officer of BNCY. His full name is not documented. He built the BNCY Division, recruited Commander Fredrick into it, and funded the opposition to it at the same time.
He is known by the cardigan, the warm tea, and hands that do not move.
Method
Siefr's power is institutional rather than physical. He constructed BNCY as a legitimate body and built into it the architecture that lets him pay for both sides of a war without either side finding out, and he sits between them and takes what the conflict produces.
His working advantage is information. He knows more than anyone else in whatever room he is in, and he keeps it that way.
The warmth is equipment. The grandfatherly manner is built and maintained with precision, and he is never flustered, never caught out, and never not performing. The hands are the part that gives him away, if anything does: they are a surgeon's hands, or a butcher's, and they stay still.
In the story
He met Amaryllis and Eevi at BNCY and studied them, asking intelligent questions about the tesseract in a manner that reads as admiration.
He falsified the tactical map that put the Great Plateau inside a red zone, and ordered the mercenary strike that followed from it. His routing orders were still reaching the plateau while the House was trying to hold it, and Samantha intercepted three of them[1].
What he said to Amaryllis, when he knew, was that she was a little traitor. He said it fondly, with disappointment, almost as a grandfather would.