Dr. Zeus Inc., also known simply as the Company, is a fictional entity in a series of time travel science fiction stories by Kage Baker. Most of the characters in the novels are immortal cyborgs created by Company operatives throughout history and recruited to work on preserving art, artifacts, rare species and other valuable items which the Company can sell for huge profits in the 24th century. The cyborgs look forward to receiving their final reward when they reach the 24th century by living through all the preceding times, but some suspect that when they do, they will instead be deactivated, or worse.
The immortality process, taking place as it does in early childhood, results in an individual who matures into a young adult and remains that way forever. "Facilitators" resort to makeup and prosthetics in order to appear to be older for their roles, but others appear as they always have. The Botanist Mendoza, for instance, appears to be approximately 19 years old despite having lived for thousands of years during her life and exile in the distant past. Joseph is described as "seeming to be about 35" (The Graveyard Game), indicating that Facilitators may have their "natural" ages set higher for their roles.
Preservers Preservers are the main agents of the Company, specialists in different types of artifacts. They look exactly like normal humans, but small differences give them away to observant individuals. Typically a Preserver uses a credenza, which apparently is a piece of data processing, or analytical, equipment suited to their work. When among mortals, the Preserver can conceal the credenza, if necessary, by "merging" it with a piece of ordinary furniture (as Mendoza does in In The Garden of Iden). The technology behind such tricks is not explained in any detail, if at all.
Mendoza Mendoza is a female cyborg, a botanist recruited from the dungeons of the Inquisition in 16th century Spain. In appearance, she is a barely adult woman with flame-red hair and startling black eyes. While still chronologically young, she suffers a huge psychological trauma after falling in love with a doomed mortal in Tudor England. She is also a "Crome Generator", with a powerful psychic potential that she cannot control. Through a series of awful events over the following 300 years, she comes to despise mortals, her fellow cyborgs, and eventually herself. She attempts to isolate herself from all harm, but cannot escape the Company, for whom everything she has done and will do is in the temporal concordance.
Lewis Lewis is a male cyborg, a Literature specialist taken as a baby in Roman times. He is short but handsome, with a resemblance to the 1940s actor Leslie Howard, for whom he acts as a movie stand-in in the 20th century, along with stints as a double for Rudolph Valentino and others. Meeting Mendoza at a Company base in South America in the 17th century, he falls hopelessly in love with her. She is barely aware of this, of course, being already traumatized by the loss of her first love. She disappears from his view in the 19th century, and he tries to find her through the next 300 years, stumbling across Company secrets in the process. He is also the object of pursuit by strange pale little men, who were responsible for almost destroying him in medieval Ireland and would eventually manage to capture him. His memories of this have been suppressed by his superiors, to keep the existence of these strange beings a secret.
Kalugin and Nan d'Aragnée Unusually, these two have been allowed to marry, and even occasionally work on the same projects together. Kalugin was recruited in medieval Russia, while Nan is from Africa, recruited in the same batch as Mendoza in the 16th century. She takes her name from Anansi, the Spider God of her people in Africa. She was orphaned when the Smoke Men, probably Arab slave traders, attacked her village.
Both Kalugin and Nan specialize in rescuing artworks. Kalugin gets the assignments where the art was lost at sea, in which case he is designated to be on board when the ship goes down, and stay with the artifacts till a Company sub picks them up. However it is soon apparent that Kalugin is lost somewhere on one of his operations. Which one it is, and why, becomes apparent in The Children of the Company.
Imarte Recruited in ancient Babylon, Imarte is an anthropologist who collects cultural knowledge and customs. Like all Preservers, she cares more about her work than anything else. Since contact with outsiders inevitably contaminates her work, she resents the activities of any other Preservers, as is evident in Sky Coyote. She also practices a form of "total immersion" learning which involves having sex with her male subjects, either as a freelance prostitute, as in Mendoza in Hollywood, or else a "religious concubine", as in past assignments. Joseph describes her as "Mesopotamian dusky, with green eyes and an hourglass figure" in Sky Coyote.
Nefer Nefer is Mendoza's team-mate on the expedition to Tudor England in In The Garden of Iden. She is a Zoologist specializing in livestock but was apparently recruited in Ancient Egypt. As Mendoza is obsessed by plants, she is obsessed by breeds of sheep, cattle etc. Being much older, she plays the "old hand" to Mendoza's rookie. Since there is nothing for her to do at the house of Iden, she spends her time listening to agricultural broadcasts on Dr. Zeus' radio network, at one point disturbing the household by clambering about the roof trying to set up an antenna. In the 24th century she is wandering in the Serengeti when she hears of the increasing internal conflicts inside the Company. She seeks sanctuary with Suleyman.
Facilitators and Security Techs Facilitators are fixers, smooth talkers, masters of disguise. Their job is to lay the groundwork for Preservers to do their work, and cover up their mistakes. They are consummate role-players. From time to time it is hinted that known historical figures were really Facilitators acting out a part. Security Techs operate as a kind of police, secret and otherwise, with the cyborg community. Their duties range from day to day monitoring of other cyborgs to Facilitator-like jobs overseeing groups of Preservers. A special sub-group are known as "problem solvers" who are equipped with the means to disable and dismantle rogue cyborgs.
Joseph Facilitator Joseph is 20,000 years old as a cyborg. He was recruited by Budu when his tribe was wiped out by members of the Great Goat Cult, a fanatic religion in prehistory. Being from the Basque area of Spain, he is short, dark and also somewhat sinister looking. Joseph recruited many other cyborgs, including Mendoza. Having outlived everyone else he ever knew, including various mortal wives, Joseph regards Budu as his father, and eventually sees Mendoza as his daughter. After both disappear, Budu in the 11th century and Mendoza in the 19th, he too wants to know what happened to them. While not as committed as Lewis, he follows the clues Lewis finds, with disastrous results.
Porfirio Although much younger than Joseph, Security Tech Porfirio has something Joseph lacks - a family. He has been allowed to maintain contact with blood relatives descended from his brother. Like his brother, he is a first-generation mestizo, his mother having been an Aztec, and his father a Conquistador. Often he presents himself to his relatives as a long-lost uncle, or simply is allowed to work close by to keep an eye on them. In the 1860s, he runs an Inn in Cahuenga Pass, California, so his Preservers can glean information from passing travelers and the local population. Mendoza is one of the Preservers who has been foisted upon him; ostensibly she is to gather plant species soon to become extinct in a years-long drought, but the Company fails to move her on once the drought hits. Porfirio has to deal with her moods, her night-time psychic fireworks, and eventually her disastrous encounter with someone who is involved in an unknown Company-related plot. Mendoza and a few other cyborgs disappear as a consequence, but Porfirio is allowed to stay free and monitor his family. Over a century later he is able to tell Joseph something of what happened to Mendoza. He also reveals that staying in contact with his family is his reward for being a "problem solver" who does the Company's dirty work.
Sarai Facilitator Sarai, under the name Sarah, participates in the Adonai project as the young Alec Checkerfield's nurse-companion. She is outwardly a young dark-skinned Jamaican but is actually centuries old, having been transported to the Caribbean on a slave ship, presumably in the 17th century. After the adult Alec's disappearance she is convinced the Company will take her into custody and she will disappear as so many others have. She is contacted in London by Latif who gives her safe passage to Suleyman in Fez, Morocco. Apparently she, Nan and a Preserver, Nefer, were once Suleyman's wives, and as the year 2355 approaches they are re-united with him. The name Sarai may be intended as a reference to saray, the Turkish word equivalent to harem, from which the Italian word seraglio is apparently derived.
Executives The highest class of cyborgs, Executives, Executive Facilitators, Facilitators General etc., these individuals are responsible for seeing the Company policies and missions are carried out. They organize and run Company facilities, sometimes as personal empires. While they are supposed to obey instructions sent back from the 24th century, in some cases they pursue their own agendas. Most are identified at an early age as having extraordinary talents for organization, and may be sent out for field experience when still quite young, as Latif was. Preservers, in contrast, remain at training facilities until they reach adulthood.
Labienus One of the oldest of the Executives, he came originally from the location of Jericho in what is now Palestine, having been orphaned by the Great Goat Cult in prehistory. Although he was given charge of a region of Mesopotamia, his arrogance caused him to treat it as a personal playground until told to start organizing villages into cities. Still, he retained a contempt for humans throughout the ages and is the leading member of the Plague Club.
Houbert Described as resembling J. Wellington Wimpy, Houbert is both an executive and an architect, but expends much energy on sybaritic living and ostentatious display. Having run New World One, when that installation was dismantled he moved to a chateau on the Loire in France, and subsequently drove the development of Monte Carlo.
Aegeus Another old Executive, he runs Eurobase One for millennia, transforming it from a stockade into an underground palace full of antiquities and art. Like Labienus, he sees humans as inferior, but he believes that eventually they will simply be slaves to the cyborgs. Aegeus used Victor as an agent until Victor came under the influence of Labienus, whereupon Aegeus tried to have Victor spy on Labienus for him.
Suleyman With a base of operations in Fez, Morocco, Suleyman runs the North African operation of the company. For a long time he worked undercover as a Corsair. It was in this role that he found and recruited Latif on a slave ship in the 1690s.
Latif We first encounter Latif at the age of three, already apprenticed to Houbert at New World One, and set to serve with Labienus at Mackenzie Base. At the age of five he works for Van Drouten in Amsterdam, causing her some problems with some creative freelance marketing. By the 24th century he is grown and working for Suleyman in Fez, monitoring and attempting to frustrate the activities of Labienus, Aegeus, and other parts of the Company working against mortals.
Van Drouten