Purus Corporation provides construction and facilities management services to large-scale investors and clients. Purus contracts with government and corporate agencies to design, build, and maintain structures ranging from skyscrapers and business offices to recreational and public facilities to mass housing to infrastructural facilities such as airports, maglev stations, water and waste treatment plants, and transportation corridors to industrial warehouses, factories, and power plants. The Civil Infrastructure division oversees the planning and creation of key structural elements within the integrated social services provided to the citizenry. Key contracts are normally drawn from governmental sources, and the division is responsible for creating and maintaining, among other systems, water treatment, desalination, dispersal, delivery, and reclamation projects; waste disposal and recycling facilities; air purification centers; prisons and rehabilitation centers; road, bridge, and rail complexes and transport corridor maintenance, including dredging and landscaping services; and power plant construction, including petrochemical, hydroelectric, solar, orbital beaming station, nuclear, and tau-generator sites. The Housing segment designs and erects habitation projects for a variety of purposes, from low-cost urban housing (most recognized in the well-known Quanjia Project in Tkin Keyah and then reproduced in many metropolitan areas), to military and civilian law-enforcement and other government housing, to high-end luxury condominiums. The segment also offers homebuilding services for wealthy clients under the Khesed brand of contractors and homebuilders. The division also works with the Civil Infrastructure segment to produce venues such as museums, sports arenas, parks, shopping districts and malls, schools, hospitals, and historical preservation sites. The Industrial segment is the most lucrative arm of the company and designs and constructs factory models for a huge variety of manufacturing needs, warehousing and transportation facilities, dock and cargo transfer sites, and service buildings for vocational use. The Facilities Management segment provides advising, as well as complete staffing and specialists, for security, operations administration, cleaning, maintenance, and safety management for large facilities, whether Purus-constructed or not. Hartley Staffing, Makheru Management, and OCL Services are the most well-known brands in the segment.

Cyrus Mak is widely considered the most down-to-earth and approachable of the major PCKs. Mak routinely dresses in casual clothing and carries a datapad at all times, usually reading or making notes for himself as he goes. An earnest face, reading glasses, and a hairstyle that always appears to be just short of a bird's nest cap off the impression of an unassuming and earnest fellow worker rather than one of the most powerful men in the world. Mak is plainspoken and often has an expression locked in serious concentration when he is at work or in a wistful half-smile when interacting with others. Workers continually rate him very high as a leader; polls suggest Mak is viewed as approachable, friendly, and competent.

All this might make the casual observer underestimate Cyrus Mak's talent for management at all levels. The Purus corporation is a sprawling giant with a hand in a vast number of projects, and assigning resources to ensure that all of them are well managed is a Herculean task. Mak has hired very talented executives during his tenure (notably snapping up Dr. Padma Lauritsen from her post at Ygauzes University), but he seems always to know about every aspect of the company when called upon.
Mak's training is in architecture and design, but he showed strong skills in administration early on in his career; he rose quickly and steadily through the ranks into upper management. His ability to get along with people at all levels of his organization has made him a humble hero to the working men and women. His devotion to his workers has not always endeared him to his shareholders: more than once he has made decisions to maintain or improve the standards for his employees rather than bow to the pressures of the market. Though this occasionally has caused friction with the board and affected Purus stock prices, in the end such maneuvers have provided long-term employee satisfaction and, in return, workers give their all for the company.

Mak has put some considerable company resources into exploring the Rain, though mainly in the areas of providing lift-off and support facilities for space exploration. Purus is consulting on DDH Matsaya's Kalpana space platform, and there has been some rumor that Purus is considering building (or may already be covertly building) its own rival platform. Like all the major corporate players on Ptah, Purus is building ships in privately held factories and launching from specialized facilities; thanks to existing infrastructure, Purus may be better positioned to field a fleet than any other company other than DDH itself.

As the premier construction and engineering corporation on Ptah, one would expect Purus' corporate headquarters to reflect a certain magnificence, and indeed the Spires of Han are very impressive. Ancient in the extreme, the Spires are massive granite monoliths that tower over London and dominate the skyline. Each of the seven towers is large enough to be a skyscraper in its own right: with its connecting bridges and skyways, the entirety is nearly a city unto itself. This is all the more remarkable since the low green hills of southern Delanus are renowned for their fecundity but not their stone; the granite was hauled (by hand) from quarries leagues away far in the misty past.

Interestingly, Cyrus Mak, like most PCKs in modern times, has never expressed great affection for the Spires, and many within the corporation have openly complained for years about the chthonic structure. Built to impress outsiders, the interiors of the buildings have been described as gloomy, imposing, and-given modern staffing-mostly empty. (In its early years, the structure housed workers and guild masters in their tens of thousands; now, many of those original cells are used for storage at best.) Nabarun Hannah, in her seminal Architechture and Design, gives grudging respect to the Spires' "antique grandeur," but excoriates the building for its grim, Spartan lines and the lack of innovation to be found within: "The Spires of Han might be a fine place for a warlord to house his troops, but you wouldn't want to contract with those barbaric architects to design your business center-or even your garden shed."

Many earlier PCKs have undertaken to renovate the Spires, and much of its public interior space is now at least graciously decorated and well lit. Mak, however, has begun a massive effort to remake the headquarters to bring the company into the present and to show that the corporation is as skilled on their own turf as they will be on that of their prospective clients. The cathedral-like greeting hall in the Nehu Spire, with its elegant arches and holographic décor, smoothly bridging the gap between the antediluvian exterior and the modern world, has received high praise, and the conference suites are renown for comfort and security.

The Purus corporation began as a guild of skilled masons, carpenters, and builders. With the power of kings and priests rising and the need for both grand structures and defensive fortifications increasing, workers by hand and tool were increasingly sought after-and adept planners and workers were always in high demand. Finding that they were often exploited or mistreated, tradesmen formed a union to protect themselves. This allowed for both preservation of their resources and also a chance to train and pass on their skills to new apprentices who would become the masters of the future.
- - -
So successful was the Purus guild that it became the premier provider of architectural and engineering know-how to merchant companies, emperors, and priesthoods. And so successful were they in their business that their fees for becoming a member of the guild or training in their workshops and for their building services soon became astronomical. Pressure from outside began to force the guild masters to respond to market forces, and it became clear that, to combat rival guilds and remain competitive, moving to a corporate structure would be more beneficial than preserving the old ways. There were many within the guild that decried this abandoning of traditional techniques, but the leaner Purus corporation that emerged (after a great deal of infighting, much of which is was notoriously bloody) was far better able to respond to the market and maintain a profit.

Purus is the premier builder of large-scale projects on Ptah: wherever you hear jackhammers and the high-pitched singing of tau-powered girder climbers and heavy lifters, you can be reasonably certain of finding the Purus logo blazoned on some nearby construction site.

For many centuries, Purus was considered only a business for huge concerns: governments hired the company to design and build dams and stadia; corporations contracted for factories and skyscrapers; cardinalates used them to design their temples. While this demand was always present, long periods could pass during which no large orders came though, and many smaller shops prospered by taking on lesser jobs. More recently, the company has begun pursuing smaller contracts, lead by a housing sector in which private citizens are demanding more palatial homes. Though they still do not trade in traditional house building, Purus-built apartment complexes, condominia, and other large residential structures are in great demand. Purus is also now pouring a huge amount of resources into its showpiece arcology project, the Akitu Habitation, which will be its "city on a hill," offering excellent housing, commercial, and recreational opportunities to Purus workers at every level of the corporation (indeed, Cyrus Mak intends to reside there when construction is complete), all within a carefully controlled, self-contained city-sized structure. The next step up from a master planned community, Akitu will provide not only single-family and group housing, but shopping centers, parks, worship spaces, sports complexes, and every amenity a modern worker could want, all integrated with careful climate control and perfectly integrated transportation hubs, all housed within one massive structure. Though the arcology can house the same number of citizens as an average city, it takes up far less land and saves enormously both on costs and resources to manage. If Akitu is successful, Purus hopes to market the design to the other major corporations of Ptah.

Purus has always had strong ties to Panis Global. Purus engineers helped to raise Readiness Tower on its original site in Aegis Fields, and was instrumental in helping the military corporation design its fortifications and training facilities. More important, though, is Purus' role in rebuilding areas decimated by Panis' actions. In an effort to improve its image, Panis PCK Rachel Towns has directed company resources to not only carefully targeted attacks to reduce collateral damage during military actions, but also to contributing to the rebuilding of those areas hardest hit by their activities. Purus contracts have proven instrumental in getting those areas restored and maintaining a positive image for Panis worldwide. (Some observers, such as Zef Dreessen in Beadledom: The Tentacles of Power, have suggested that the relationship between the corporations is far too close, bordering on collusion.)

Purus has worked hand in glove with DASA Corp. in the construction of its many healthcare facilities: Soundholm Center is a masterpiece of Purus design, and every one of DASA's major hospitals is a Purus project. Purus was also instrumental in limiting the damage caused in the Therecia Incident after DASA's disastrous meltdown in Quilon. The walls built around the Hole, both to contain the bio-hazardous waste within and to keep outsiders out, are wonders of engineering. Purus constructed the facilities in record time, and the bill for that was record-breaking as well. In the rush of the emergency, then-new PCK Hiouen Thsang agreed to nearly any terms, and among these in the Purus contracts were stipulations demanding that Purus would continue to man and maintain the barrier network for as long as necessary. Since then, Purus has continued to bill DASA at fantastic rates for its services, eating up a sizable chunk of the health care corporations' profits. Though publicly DASA and Purus continue to enjoy amiable relations, word has it that behind the scenes, the issue of the Therecia bill is one of the few things that can break Thsang's calm, and DASA chafes under the financial yoke (and would do nearly anything to get out from under it).

Purus and DDH Matsaya do a great deal of business, though it may not always be obvious to those outside the business. Purus has had a hand in building many DDH facilities (which have to be constructed to fantastically specific specifications for the transportation company's purposes), and Purus is designing and building most of the new aerospace launch facilities that DDH Matsaya is putting into production. More importantly, Purus is the most important contractor DDH has for maintaining its transportation corridors: though DDH owns the rights to hundreds of thousands of miles of road and rails, as well as transport and toll facilities, they are physically maintained by Purus engineers. Echo Tellurian, DDH's mercurial PCK, has been happy enough to leave such mundane matters to Cyrus Mak: Tellurian has privately suggested this is just the kind of drudge work to which Mak is most suited. With much of the responsibility for maintaining DDH facilities in his pocket, however, the soft-spoken Mak has been in the position of being able to dictate terms to Tellurian, lest his infrastructure fail him at this critical time.

Purus and IDX are close business partners, with Purus building most of IDX's power plants and factories and IDX providing the machinery Purus uses for its projects. In fact, IDX is one of the few corporations that seems to have much of a stranglehold on Purus, for without their equipment, Purus operations would quite literally grind to a halt. Cyrus Mak and Illya Bhrigus have always gotten along well personally (though many wonder what might happen in their meetings beyond Bhrigus forcefully talking and Mak quietly listening), but tensions between the corporations have been on the rise, possibly due to negotiations over creating the generators needed to meet the truly fabulous energy demands that Purus' Akitu Habitation will require.

Bridges. Towers. Monuments. All around us is the story of civilization writ in stone and steel and concrete. The legacy that lasts is the one that is built by strong hands, tractors, and trowels. Whether it's municipal infrastructure projects or the massive temples to Osiris and Sobek, civilization is measured by its buildings.
Purus has built many of the most notable structures on Ptah. From the awe-inspiring Alinas Temple to the gravity-defying Causeway of Ra, from the Moberot Arena to London Arts Center, Purus has both the skill and the resources to bring the grandest vision to fruition.

Purus: Building Tomorrow