The Unexpected
Copyright© 2025 by Technocracy
Chapter 12
Fiction Sex Story: Chapter 12 - "If you do not expect the unexpected, you will not find it; for it is hard to be sought out, and difficult." -- Heraclitus of Ephesus
Caution: This Fiction Sex Story contains strong sexual content, including Ma/Fa Consensual Heterosexual Fiction
Needham, Ma - 29 February 2004
Benny was determined to get the store closed up ASAP, as there was a Matrix Reloaded video waiting to be watched. He did not know how Harry got the disc, and Benny did not ask.
“Miguel, would you get the chairs in and take down the awning? Then close out the register and clean the meat counter. I’m gonna sweep and mop and get the restroom.”
“I’m on it, Benny.”
Miguel could not draw an understanding of Benny. To Miguel, Benny seemed to be a brilliant scientist or something that had graduated from MIT, and ran a successful tech company. Yet here he was, working the floor of the store and cleaning commodes.
Miguel was further confused as to the young man’s ambivalence towards politics and money. Benny had explained to Miguel that politics and power does not matter once you have enough money; and that money does not matter once you have enough of it to buy the politicians and the police. Miguel did not understand, but he wanted very much to see the world as Benny does.
“Done?”
“Yeah, but we’re exactly one dollar short.”
“Oh, my fault. I gave a dollar to that old guy that came in for water. Make sure you write that down in the ledger for today’s close-out ... Are you doing better with your writing and reading?”
“It’s really weird, Benny. They don’t want to teach me to read, ya know, like normal. They want me to memorize stuff and not try to read it. They say my brain is not wired for the way most people see letters and words. But it’s really strange that I can see numbers okay.”
“Hmmm ... Actually, it does make sense. Numeric literacy is not related to general literacy. Numbers, at least the way numbers and mathematical symbols are represented in equations, are a direct representation, yet at the highest level of abstraction. And high levels of abstraction and representation is what makes us human. Which reminds me, did you pass the Algebra test?”
“Made a B.”
“Excellent. Your brother will be proud.”
“Why do you like my brother, Benny? He sure does think you got it together. But he’s just a baker cabron.”
“Cabron? Your brother is a good man, he is an person that is easy to like ... Lock the store up, Miguel. I’m going home.”
“That six-pack is for the long trip upstairs?”
“That it is, Miguel. Bye.”
“ ... how’s he doing?”
“Miguel? Very well.”
“You and Robert did good, my love. You may have given him a life.”
“I did not give him anything. The boy received a chance, and he was smart enough to take advantage of the opportunity. Nothing unexpected. Got the video loaded?”
“Ready to go.”
When Andrea bent over the coffee table to place the snack tray, it was obvious that the robe was her sole layer of clothes.
“Andy, you are not cold? Not that the view down your robe is not extraordinarily beautiful. Want me to get a blanket for us?”
“No. Start the movie, my love...”
“Wow, that was ... unusual. I don’t understand the ending ... actually I don’t get the movie at all. But it had some intense action.”
Benny raised his ‘Spock’ eyebrow at Andrea’s luke-warm review. But he could not disagree.
“Perhaps this movie was not intended to have an ending. They have already filmed the third of the series.”
“What did Harry say about the movie?”
“He liked it, but had severe criticisms of the Architect, and other plot mechanisms.”
“The Architect? I agree. That character essentially says that Nemo has a choice to make, and humanity has free will, but runs the whole thing with predetermination.”
“Excellent observation, Andy. And to paraphrase Harry, Matrix is, for the most part, the ‘Bourne Identity’ with ontological masturbation.”
Andrea filed Benny’s and Harry’s incomprehensible movie review in her mind, perhaps to be explained in a later conversation with Doris.
SIG, Needham, Ma -- 26 April 2004
Benny was scrolling through charts and graphs from the numerous monte carlo simulations of his circuit design. His desk phone was set to mute, thus oblivious to Lydia’s calls. At least until she came through the office doorway.
“Benny, we got two cops and a bunch of municipal officials knocking on the front door.”
Benny never bothered to look up as he replied.
“Tell Doris to handle it.”
“She told me to get you, Benny. There’s a lot of officials sitting in the conference room waiting.”
“What? Who invited them in?”
“Doris.”
“Damn ... I will be there in five or ten minutes. Go away.”
Lydia muttered something about boorish engineers as she exited his office. Benny would not go downstairs for another twenty minutes, because Harry and Mike converged on his office.
Benny, Harry, and Michael ignored the gaggle of unknowns as they entered the conference room, while engrossed in a walking discussion. The three men walked to the west wall, and continued their conversation while Benny crossed out sections of flow diagrams to overwrite a different solution, followed by Mike drawing a line from an equation, then drew a block diagram of a signal processing circuit.
Doris shook her head, not in disbelief, but in resignation. She knew how these three men were victims of tunnel vision, once on a problem-solving quest.
“ ... but don’t you see Harry? I can do this, look here. It won’t load the sensor, I don’t need to buffer the signal, so we still got our 500 nanosecond sync.”
“Benny? Ya okay with the kid’s idea?”
Mike had become inured to being referred to as ‘the kid’. He wore it as badge of honor, that he had been (mostly) able to hold his own and make an occasional contribution in face of the perceived behemoth intellects of Harry and Benny.
Benny nodded his head in affirmation to Harry, then added additional directives to Mike.
“Mike, do not bother with testing latency intervals until you got the total system interface. Do it ... What the heck? What is this Doris?”
Doris had been wondering when Benny would notice.
“Benny these three people are Needham Select members. This man is Thomas Leary, Needham police chief, and to his left is Sergeant Christopher, the police officer in charge of the Professional Development Division.”
“Okay, good to meet you people. Have a good day.”
Harry and Mike, having already made their exit, left Benny holding the bag. As Benny attempted his exit, Doris raised her voice in displeasure.
“Benson Harrison. Get back here. These people are here with the important business of our community.”
“Okay. So what is this community business?”
Sgt Christopher rose to address Benny.
“Doctor Harrison, the area council of law enforcement, and social service agencies, have sought mentors and advisors from professional community leaders. When asking for technical assistance for communications systems, Harvard, MIT, and Boston U all pointed to this company.”
“Tech assist? Communications? I do not know anything about comm systems. We do computer systems for automated market transactions. Have to go, bye.”
An attractive woman with an undefined eastern European accent interrupted Benny’s escape attempt.
“Doctor Harrison? Do you not remember me?”
Benny’s head jerked around when he recognized the voice. Henry never lost his equanimity at the sight of Helene Silva-Devanne sitting at his conference table.
“Yes, I remember you, Ms Silva-Devanne.”
Benny saw Doris’s long and sharp stink-eye and sighed in resignation to the lost time.
“You people have ten minutes. Talk.”
Benny could not understand that Doris could not understand. He and Harry had formed the company to make money, nothing more, nothing less. He knew that this ‘purity of purpose’ did not make him a good person. Benny had accepted that with a stoic serenity, and rationalized that he would allow others in the company to do ‘good’ with any accumulated wealth at a future date; but not now. Benny was disappointed at Doris s misdirected efforts and poor focus on her job.
Doris found her husband sitting on the credenza, next to Benny’s desk. Harry raised a Vulcan eyebrow to his friend, a signal to proceed.
“Please shut the door, Doris. Please sit down ... Doris, this is not a rhetorical question. Per the scope of your beliefs and experience, what do believe the rationale is for the SIG incorporation to exist?”
Looking for support from her husband, she only found a blank expression.
“I believe you once said that you wanted to do interesting stuff and make money.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Doris detected a tinge of anger in Benny’s voice.
“In general, a corporation exits to return value to its owners.”
“Do you believe that?”
“I do. But I also believe that corporations owe something to their employees and to the society that allowed their formation. Nothing exists in a vacuum.”
“You and Robert do the numbers, Doris. So you know the amount of taxes we paid to the federal, state, and local governments. That is what we owe to society. We pay fair salaries to our members, with excellent benefits, and provide a safe work place. That is what we owe to our employees.”
“That is statutory, Benny. We live in a community of people with needs; needs that can’t always be fixed by the existing system. That is why NGOs and private charities exist.”
“That is true. I do not care. I cannot, literally, afford to care.”
“I disagree, Benny. We can afford to care. You are connected to the community through more than just this building. And what about your education, all of your stipends and support from MIT? All the expensive labs that you used?”
We are a small company, with hard numbers to make or Goldman Sachs penalizes us. We have salaries to pay, quarterly tax bills, infrastructure costs. We have two engineers doing the work of five. At this time, we do not owe anybody anything, other than what the law says we have to do ... And Doris, for the record, I never received one penny from MIT. I paid tuition for the courses I took. I do not owe that school, or its surrounding community, anything other than my compliance with statutes and regulations.”
“Benny, we are not hurting at all. We are in an very...”
Benny waived Doris’s rebuttal with a curt gesture and raised voice.
“Stop. Doris, this is the third interruption from local bureaucratic officials that you have allowed in the previous two weeks. You are going off on tangents not related to our business. It appears that you are not up to the job of being general manager. And what is the status of the responses to the IP rate quotes? Those were due yesterday. These new IP licenses represent a possible annual net of several million. You have abandoned the company for your socialist pursuits. Harry, anything to add?”
“Babe, I love ya like nothing else. I would die for ya. But while you’re working in this building, ya gotta do what’s best for the company. Harry and I are going in five directions at once. We can’t be doing all this social activism stuff now. That’s for the future. Not now, babe.”
Tears were streaming down her face, but Doris answered evenly.
“I’m sorry, Benny. I really am. Maybe I don’t have the experience and judgment required for the job. Do I resign?”
Harry was crushed at seeing his wife hurting. He was about to offer her a way out when Benny stomped on his attempt at an equivocating offering.
“Doris, I want you to recruit and hire an operations manager, whom will be your boss. Then I want you to keep doing your experimental financial runs and continue working with Robert on quarterly filings. And find a lioness for a receptionist and admin assistant. Or a lion.”
Without further ceremony, Benny left his office, obviously angered, quickening his pace down the hallway to the inner sanctum of the electronics lab, leaving Doris and Harry in his wake.
Doris was crushed about the demotion, seeking forgiveness from Harry.
“I’m so sorry, baby. I just do not...”
“Babe, ya gotta put it away and get it together. Let’s go hire a good manager, then you can do your job. Don’t blow this. We’ll never see anything like this again. Not in our lifetime.
SIG, Needham, Ma -- 11 June 2004
Lizzy blew through most of the day studying and doing homework. In addition to the coming final year of core courses, Lizzy needed three more ‘humanities’ courses to get her degree, so her summer, as per Benny’s plans, was to park her butt at the SIG receptionist desk for three to eight hours day, 5 to 6 days per week, answering phones and running errands while she studied her butt to a frazzle.
Lizzy reported to Brian O’Mulriain, the operations manager. A heavy man in his mid 40s, with reddish-brown hair of shoulder length, and sharp green eyes. His pipe remained unlit, although always packed with fragrant tobacco. The pipe seldom left his mouth.
“Isabelle, my dear. I would have you mail these when you go to the lunch.”
“You got it, Brian. Here’s everyone’s schedule on a single chart. I will send it to you before lunch.”
“Well done, young lady ... Oh yes, and please have Jose deliver a dozen rolls and two soda breads on the morrow.”
Brian used the opportunity to do a subtle glance out the front window, to avoid being obvious. Brian, being an old-country Irish/Scot gentlemen, had always assumed responsibility for the safety of the women and children in his ‘tribe’. Scientific Investment Group, LLC had become his tribe.
The man in the dark sedan was young, had short hair, and had watched with a discipline that marked the snoop as a man of training. The unknown man had been camped out at various places, for intermittent intervals, during the past two or three weeks, along Dedham Avenue.
“One other thing, Isabelle. Please put me on the colonel’s schedule. I would suppose fifteen minutes in the afternoon shall suffice.”
Lizzy smiled at the way he enunciated her name. To her ears, it was almost exotic. But she did question why the man insisted on addressing Henry as ‘colonel’, as all of the security team had been long retired from the army.
“Ill put you in at 1:45.”
Henry was impressed, but it was not unexpected, with Brian’s level of detail for both his short and long-term recall. Henry was hammering his keyboard, fighting Benny’s command-line program for recalling security videos off of the three servers designated for Henry’s group.
“Always the same vehicle? Always the same person?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Found it ... Looks consistent ... You’re correct, Brian. Always gone by 1630, always arrives after 0800 ... Did you ever see him get out of the vehicle?”
“Only once. I believe it was Tuesday afternoon, some time after 1400.”
Henry hammered more on his keyboard, expressing chastising expletives silently in his mind, for Benny’s (lack of) efforts in human interface design.
“Perfect ... Got it. He was about thirty or forty meters down the road. Not a good image, but now we have something.”
“Colonel, Do you believe that this person is a danger to Isabelle? I was thinking about moving her out from behind the store-front window.”
Henry blanched at the title.
“Brian, the front door is constructed of a solid piece of steel plate with a wood veneer, and has both electronic and mechanical locks. The front window is over two centimeters thickness of cross-laminated polycarbonate in a steel frame. Lizzy is secure inside the building.”
“Perhaps you would permit me to carry my personal weapon while at work, concealed, of course. I have a Massachusetts LTC.”
“What is your personal weapon?”
“A Browning nine millimeter.”
“Very well, but keep this in mind, Brian. While Benny and myself have agreed to not disclose your ARW background and related information to other employees, be forewarned that if someone does notice the weapon, there will be questions. Benny or myself will not avoid providing the rationale ... I will discuss the situation with Benny and Harry.”
“That I do understand, colonel. Please Let me know soon.”
“We’ll probably talk further of this within the next two days.”
SIG, Needham, Ma -- 2:11 PM, 18 June 2004
Lizzy signed the shipping receipt for the DigiKey package with a nod to the hurried FedEx driver. On his way out, as he opened the outer door, a young man walked in to the ‘trap’ between the inner door, the outer door, and the receptionist counter.
Lizzy jerked her head around at the intruder, but remained calm as she press the silent alarm to Henry’s office.
“This is not a public-access building. Can I help you, sir?”
“I would like to speak to Doctor Harrison about applying for the IT support job.”
Lizzy wondered how the man would know Harry’s name. The young man did not look, per Lizzy’s standards, to be a computer nerd. He was alert, of a thin and sturdy build, with short hair, and appeared to be centered on an unknown task.
Needham, Ma -- 2:15 PM, 18 June 2004
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