Chapter 8: Afterward

“Why didn’t you call me when you heard the news about Phylicity?” I yelled at Liam Roberts, CEO and President of Roberts Electronics. Next to Ted Brooks III, Liam is perhaps one of my closer acquaintances ... almost nearly even a friend, although he’s technically my boss and I’m about five years older than he is. He’s still on the friendlier side of thirty, barely. Not that this gets him laid very often. He’s also really much better looking than Ted is and standing next to homely old me, he stands out like a movie star ... and a rather golden-bronze one at that, but that’s all I’m going to say about that. Like everything else in our extended family, for every tiny little nugget of truth there is a wheelbarrow full of muck loaded with rumor, innuendo and hearsay.

Like his father and grandfather both, he acts like a misogynist to the very core. Upon reflection, he doesn’t like most guys either, so perhaps he’s just a misanthrope instead. Undoubtedly because each of them loathed their fathers. Mine was just ‘ok’, Ted’s was something of a drunken bastard, and Liam’s dad was apparently Satan personified. Accordingly, he swears that he’ll never marry or knowingly procreate, to spare his own potential progeny a repetition of his own suffering.

I like Liam, but we’re not besties or bosom pals, even though we’ve spent a fair amount of time together over the years. Usually at pointless family meetings. He’s got his share of issues with the world ... and some of his issues even have issues of their own!

“I waited so that I could tell you in person,” he calmly said, “She deserved that. Besides, I thought you were ‘just friends’ close, but you’re taking this all really, really personally.”

“We’d spent a few rather nice nights together underground, right at the end, after blowing the mine. No regrets at all. I thought that it was a relationship that had future potential. It could have worked. I’d made the mistake of mentally starting to work it all out for us in my head, and now that spot is just empty, like you’ve burned it out with a hand-held soldering iron. Fuck you.”

“I deserve it,” he conceded, getting up from behind his rather undersized executive desk to stand and come around to my side. He made a motion of offering to place his hand upon my shoulder in comfort and when I didn’t shy off, he completed the gesture and we hugged in silence for a minute or two. That meant something, coming from Liam ... he never liked to touch or be touched by other people.

“You’re still a bastard for sending her,” I sighed, with more annoyance than any genuine anger, “but she really would have volunteered anyway. She was our best security team leader with the most experience ... that’s why I asked for her in the first place when we first started test work at the mine. I just had other plans for later, back on the island. Just what the hell really happened in Oklahoma anyway? I saw the news footage of the earthquake and fire on CNN downstairs at reception while waiting to come up. They’re spinning it as a weird but unfortunate 30 second story that probably will be off the news rotation sometime after dinner tonight. An earthquake followed by an unfortunate natural gas explosion. Hell! The way that burning crater is still growing and already the size of a sports stadium over a day later, that fiery natural gas sinkhole is going to end up rivaling that famous eternal burning ‘Pit of Hell’ in Siberia.”

“That was pretty much the plan exactly. AIS had been on our watch list for a while and the moment they showed their flag as aggressive we started working on our potential countermeasures, some more aggressively radical than others. Then, once they launched that military tactical assault on the crater, we pulled out our own nuclear retaliatory option so to speak. Wheels sent me the plan ... and probably wrote it too. It has his fingerprints all over it.”

“So, we sent in our own tactical assault team in response and generated the natural gas explosion to blow the place. But how did you manage the special effects? That earthquake timed exactly to the start of the explosion, blowing up parts of the building to low earth orbit less than five minutes after the quake. Now that’s a neat trick!”

“Toy of Doc’s,” he laughed, walking over one of the bookshelves in his office to quickly locate and extract an old pulp adventure magazine, one of the early one’s from the 1930’s that depicted ‘fictionally’ a story from our family’s past ... heroes defeating a villain who could indeed generate earthquakes via fantastic pulp-era ‘science’. He handed it to me and at a glance I knew exactly how it had been done.

“So, the earthquake device was real then. Wheels didn’t invent or create it, but he took it rather firmly away from its original owner and then might have tinkered with it over the last eighty years and improved on the theory a bit. So, the real destination for our assault teams was someplace inside, probably down in the basement next to the main natural gas intake pipes where the earthquake machine could do the most good ... at least for us.”

“Exactly. Their HQ building was famous for running off of cheap and nearly free natural gas from the deposit field below the building and it fed a decent sized pipeline to the electrical turbines that powered the building. A pretty nice bit of civil engineering, or so King Renny says ... and they were proud enough of the engineering design that they patented it and marketed it off to a few other companies. This made it pretty easy for us to get a pretty accurate site map of their entire HQ. The plan really only needed about eight people, but we added an extra person to each of the four teams to compensate for any changes to the plan, or some weird fuckup, but it really all went virtually perfectly, at least until the end.”

“How so?”

“Ok, the first team secured the perimeter, allowing fast uncontested access for the other three teams both in and out. Easy squeezy. The gate guard didn’t even need a hypo-shot and was already snoozing at his post even before we drugged him. The second team burst into their main operations room almost as quickly and easily. They put down the three guys on-shift with Doc’s old Tom-Tom gun that shoots sleep bullets. Unfortunately, they became toast once the building imploded but we didn’t directly kill them ... Wheels wanted it that way. The third team then breached the main server room on the IT floor and made copies or downloads of every bit of data on their systems and scrubbed out their cloud storage too. The reward at the end of the rainbow was the pair of computers locked behind a secure door and without external data or internet connections. Their Holiest of Holies ... undoubtedly the data is encrypted to a crazy degree but we’ll be able to read their real secrets in a week or two, month at tops. All according to plan and without the slightest hitch...”

“Except for the fourth team, the most critical group,” I surmised, and he nodded.

“It was triggering that earthquake machine that caused the only hiccup. The sub-basement below had a lot of extra physical security and a whole sequence of fire doors that had to be passed both ways, really slowing down the egress once the device had been activated. Strictly manual controls only, not at all stable or safe enough to be triggered remotely, according to Doc, so someone had to stand right there to physically hit the on-switch. That was Phylicity. The other two members of her team held open the nearest two sets of security doors that Phyl could then run like hell through out of there ... but she, they, didn’t make it out in time.”

“Wasn’t there a safety margin?”

We’d estimated ... been told, that they’d have at least three minutes after the device was started before structural damage would begin to occur but that basement floor concrete layer was thinner than we had projected, or else Doc’s modernized device was just a tad bit too efficient. And/or the whole place had cheap ass building construction not up code either, maybe. According to their last radio messages the basement started to shake itself apart in less than a minute and while they were still opening the third innermost fire door about halfway out to safety the floor started to buckle upwards and roof started to fall down. There wasn’t even time for them to scream, so the three of them went fast. If they’d have had just had another thirty seconds even, they’d have been out of the basement and then safely been out of the building entirely. Well, at least they didn’t suffer. The rest of the teams were safely out of the building as planned five minutes before triggering the device, right on schedule. Phyl’s team just had bad luck or something from Murphy’s Law out of left field. Your pick.”

I had to agree, but from where I was standing it seems as though Wheels had made the mistake with his gizmo. Haste or lack of prior testing had cost Phyl and two of her team their lives. I was starting to get even madder, but in a disturbingly calm and cool sort of way. Placid on the surface but my nerves were simmering underneath.

If I had known about this before Teddy Juniors funeral yesterday, I just might have quit too, right there on the spot along with Ted!

For the next two hours while sipping away at a decent bottle of whisky, Liam filled me with the short-term plan for things, post crater. Everyone agreed that Littlejohn was too small and vulnerable to keep operating, except solely for its on-going non-profit projects under its current CEO. The twins would have a few ‘family’ jobs of their own to finish up but within the next month or two they’d be relocating (permanently like me) to Poravuvu. His own future was somewhat less certain.

“Roberts, the company certainly but probably also including me, is heading to kind of a crossroads where our own public security is highly questionable. For decades, since the 1970’s anyway, my father had been financing Doc’s plans and operations and often had to sell off big chunks of our own family shares of the company to finance things. Dad also financed a lot of other R&D projects directly for the family but hid them amongst our other normal corporate ventures. Then after I took over there was the crater mine operation, plus the two other smaller test sites. Big expenses, but disguised enough in the accounting books that only a genius forensic accountant could find those transfers out now.”

“I bet. The way I heard it back in the day ... Roberts first just needed to ‘help’ supplement the reduced production of the Hidalgo mine operations and then in the last twenty years also help get Poravuvu started, once Renny neatly managed to restore the monarchy and make himself king of the island in the process. I bet if anything, all of those sunk costs are just fish food to what Wheels needs funding for now!”

“It’s worse than you could guess. Here and now, I barely control 25% of the stock and any well-organized take-over attempt could succeed. As a result, in order to protect the family interests, we’re going to need to do some rather fancy company reshuffling, starting now. First, to spin off the really essential pieces of remaining R&D to direct island control, disguised as corporate restructuring and purging ‘unprofitable’ subsidiaries. Then we need to perform a rather thorough in-house weeding and cleaning of any and every incriminating document linking us to either Wheels or the island, let alone the hundreds of various goodies that our secret R&D has generated since we were toddlers. Stuff we developed with or for Wheels and then kept hidden away and never openly marketed ... inventions that would have made us as profitable as Westinghouse or GE now!”

“Chicken feed, and you know it. Quit those crocodile tears, you aren’t fooling me. You still make crazy money for patents you have licensed, besides in five more years ... ten certainly, we’ll all be so rich that money won’t have any practical meaning. What’s this about a take-over? You can’t be serious? That would really screw things up entirely!”

“Maybe ... maybe not,” Laim sighed, “With all of the stock that my father had to sell off, quietly, to start funding this great family endeavor, I’m dead serious. A hostile take-over of Roberts is not only possible now, but even likely! Even Cassandra isn’t certain if we can hold things together – or if we should even try to. The word is, she says it’s pretty much a coin-flip that I’d be able to hold on to what’s left of the public company or if there’s a successful corporate takeover before the presidential election at the end of this year. I’ve got to plan for both eventualities, but no one’s gifted me any helpful ideas just yet. My father will be rolling in his grave at even the thought of a Roberts no longer controlling grandfather’s company ... that alone is nearly enough motivation to make me want to start off the liquidation myself! On the other hand, Poravuvu is going to need much more heavy funding soon, if not sooner, and even if I had a fire sale and stripped the company down to the bare floors this wouldn’t generate even a quarter of what we’re going to need for expanding the heavy manufacturing. It’s a start I suppose. At least you’ve got an assured job for the next few years.” He laughed.

“This next election is going to change things, maybe everything. Even without Cassandra, I can safely predict that.” Some good, some bad ... some undoubtedly awful.

“It’s worse than you think. A complete change to the paradigm of everything, or so I’ve heard from Wheels at the last meeting I was at. According to Cassandra, if Doc’s plan doesn’t succeed, the world will be a rather different and unfortunate place in just ten years, and after that if we don’t win, they will and no one will enjoy the results. Consequently, I’ll start doing my cleanup and burn the midnight oil to largely liquidate the company that my famous grandfather started. Fuck dad ... I think I’ll rather enjoy preparing to burn everything here down to the ground. It killed my father and I never wanted the burden of replacing him, let alone shouldering all of the financial burden of keeping the Great Undertaking financially out of ruin. Best case, even if I can liquidate half of the company and all of the so-called family fortune that’s less than half of what we’ll need to keep us operating for just the next five years, let alone the likely minimum of ten years before everything is ready. We’re all probably fucked anyway, but you never heard that from my mouth. Oh, fuck Ted as well. He’s seen all of the legal stuff, especially the sneaky stuff we’ve had to pull since we started at the mine. Wheels is not going to like him going completely off the reservation or leaving the family business. Like it or not, he’s got to step in for his father and keep the existing skeletons buried. If I can ruin my own hopes and dreams to keep the family business going, then so can he! Fuck him again, I say!”

“Ted’s not going to be a loose cannon, even after leaving the fold. I think he just needs a while to himself after his father’s death, away from everything for a while. Marriage will probably suit him, make him less whiney. He’ll come back eventually, I’m sure of it.” Actually, I wasn’t. Theodore Brooks the Third could out-stubborn an army mule and once he made up his mind he stuck to it, for better or worse.

I had already decided to give the poor guy a month or two to get over his father’s death and then I’d start nudging him back into the fold ... unfortunately at probably a glacial pace. Did I mention that Ted could do ‘stubborn’ for the Olympics? Yeah, he really could. Suddenly I had a really bad feeling about this.

“Actually, as of tomorrow morning you have more interesting problems than Ted’s orneriness to deal with. Guess who just came out of her coma today. Can’t talk or tell any tales yet, and she’s a total wreck - missing both of her legs and most of her left arm, not to mention several semi-critical internal injuries. Since she can at least blink now, I’m sure that Phyl would want us to do something to correct that particular problem.”

“Best news by far I’ve heard this miserable day. I take it the company jet is already waiting to whisk me away to my pleasant task on the morrow?”

“Waiting and already fueled up. Also, as we speak since she’s off of the critical list, we’ve quietly arranged for an anonymous benefactor to fund her transfer to a rather private convalescence hospice away from the county hospital outside of El Paso, where I’m certain you can arrange a very private interview with her away from curious eyes. Carol Granger, our in-house physician’s assistant is going to meet with you tomorrow morning before you leave to discuss medical options. After that you’re on a series of flights to LA, Hawaii and then Poravuvu. Probably to stay ... until the shit gets even worse than things already are.”

“I can hardly wait!”

I was already itching to go, and after an altogether too early final breakfast meeting the next morning the private jet made the rather short flight to El Paso, where as planned a rental car waiting for me. This was going to be fun!

Phyl was dead, largely because Claire couldn’t keep her greedy piehole shut! She sold us out to our enemies and if there was even the slightest chance of anyone communicating with her, I needed to learn everything that she’d told or given them ... and perhaps exactly what they’d intended to do with our secrets ... and anyone one else that her research had been passed on to!

I have to admit that it still came as something of a shock to see Claire’s brutally ravaged and virtually limbless body lying there upon the hospital bed. When I arrived into her private room that mid-morning she was asleep but indeed out of her coma according to the overworked and frantically busy floor nurse on duty. She’d probably not even remember our brief conversation, particularly since I was wearing the standard whites of an orderly. Good looking handsome men like Ted or Liam could dress up like doctors and fool most people, but when you’ve short and have got a rather homely looking mug that resembles some missing-link Neanderthal ancestor, then dressing as an orderly is the way to go. Nearly foolproof, every time. Moseying down the corridor with a trolley cart of cleaning supplies in-hand, not a single nurse or doctor even made eye contact with me. To them I was just another minimum wage dog’s-body doing the scutwork.

Claire’s room was on the downstairs right wing of the hospice and the second to last room on the right-hand side. No security and the floor nurse seemed far too busy to pay any further attention me and no one saw me enter Claire’s room with my rolling cart. I stopped just inside the doorway and swung the door about two-thirds of the way shut, just enough to block any casual view of the room. Claire had a private room that had a sliding glass door that opened onto a pavestone patio overlooking the center’s garden. The garden was rather nice, complete with lots of rose bushes and all sorts of other flowering plants. As it was a fairly nice fall day and relatively cool outside (especially for El Paso), I slid open the glass doors to the patio garden and took in a half dozen deep floral scented breaths. Then it was time to get down to business.

For starters, I checked on Claire’s vitals which were weak but showing slow improvement since her arrival here yesterday. There was a fairly aggressive morphine IV drip to control her pain, which undoubtedly was massive, judging by her physical injuries. Just as the initial report to us had stated, she’d lost both legs and her left arm nearly entirely, with the right side of her body faring just slight better than her left side. There were also further significant internal injuries that pretty much shredded all of the organs on her left side, like the lungs and kidney. Her heart was apparently uninjured and there were no skull injuries apparently either.

This all fit the wounds from the rooftop explosion. Old beer kegs loaded with explosives and improvised shrapnel like junk steel ... and lots of ball bearings had pretty much done what they had been designed to do, take out a helicopter landing an assault force. Claire had been about halfway inside that helicopter when I blew the roof, gaining some slight partial protection, at least for her head. Surprisingly, if her neck and spine hadn’t been fractured in at least three different places by the helicopter crash occurring after that explosion, the odds were likely that Claire might have been already up and rolling about in a wheelchair, and starting her full recovery with artificial limbs in a few months.

She’d been damned, damned lucky! Now it was imperative that I get a few answers from her!

For starters, I turned off her narcotic flow into her IV. I’m not really that medically savvy, but Carol Granger, Robert’s corporate resident Physician’s Assistant, had given me a fairly exhaustive overview of what I’d be likely to encounter here. Complete with a simulated test dummy hooked up an IV, intubation and feeding tubes. She showed me how to disconnect and reconnect them all, if necessary. Not to mention how, when and where to use the contents of a small zippered pouch containing five different pre-prepared syringes.