Gideon Malick found that the Emperor was nothing like he had imagined. He showed no particular concern for the tasks General Hale was to undertake, nor did he dwell on their details. During their earlier conversation, the Emperor had displayed a knack for negotiation and an understanding of General Hale's character as though he knew her better than she knew herself. He knew which subjects would interest her and which secrets could drive her to do what. Yet that attitude changed when it came time to assign the tasks. Drawing on his many years of political maneuvering, Gideon Malick instinctively sensed that something was wrong.
What followed merely allowed him to glimpse the tip of the Emperor's plan.
Gideon Malick recalled how the Emperor had used him to tell General Hale to bring her daughter. Then, during their conversation, the bargaining chips the Emperor offered were enough to make General Hale realize that her work required more trustworthy assistants—and no one but Ruby was suited for that role. This led him to instinctively conclude that the Emperor's true target was Ruby, that young and beautiful girl—yet he immediately sensed something was off. If that were the reason, there would have been no need for the Emperor to go to such lengths or even fabricate a mission or crisis. That was too excessive. There was no need to pay so much merely to obtain a youthful body. The real target had to be General Hale.
The Emperor had also offered resources that could allow General Hale to establish a Conservative Hydra family: a revolving door between politics and business at a top Military-Industrial Complex contractor, a Family Trust Fund, and a government position that could be held by the family itself—which General Hale could have managed on her own. For General