Chapter 16: Next Steps

Jim played one of his best rounds of golf, ever, the next morning. He felt great. Things were falling into place and all he wanted to do was make sure he could protect his little slice of the world from negative influences. He was no threat to try to take over the government or cause revolution. All he wanted to do was live in a safe, healthy community and be able to have all the sex he could handle. Was that too much to ask? Apparently.

So, when he got to work that morning he began to put things into motion that would ensure the status quo remained just that. Having given himself mad IT skills, Jim went to work on the Master PC program. He knew it could be improved upon because someone had already done it.

He’d asked that all of his calls, except for a very short list of people, be held and that no visitors be allowed to interrupt him either. Pat was like a mother bear when it came to protecting his privacy. He needed to be able to concentrate on the task at hand.

Two hours later he felt that he’d made significant improvements to the program. Now, to test it. He put Susan’s name into the system. After her modification by the FMCA, he hadn’t been able to “see” her with Master PC. Now, her image appeared on the screen, in a bikini, rotating slowly in front of him.

“YES!”

His victorious outburst brought a crackle from the intercom and an “are you OK, Jim” from Pat.

“I’m fine, Pat. Just solved a big problem, that’s all.”

He made a few adjustments to Susan that would make it impossible for anyone else to successfully reprogram her – but they would think that they had. She was also going to be feeding them false intelligence about his Master PC use and plans. That ought to keep Mr. Friday and his mind control thugs busy for a while.

Jim hit the intercom button. “Pat, what’s the status of the search for my new assistant?”

“Your committee selections were approved. Application documents will be here this afternoon, probably right after lunch. You can start looking right away. The deadline for applications is next week. This is a pretty short turn around for a hire, Jim. Did you work some magic on the higher-ups?”

“Oh, I sprinkled a little fairy dust in the right places. You know how it works. I’ve done a lot of favors over the years and it was time to cash in one or two.”

“Good job then.”

Jim looked at his watch. It was lunchtime. He closed the Master PC program, ejected the disc, and put it in the locked file cabinet in his office. He’d have to devise some stronger security than this, but for now, he felt reasonably safe.

“I’m headed out for lunch, Pat,” he called over his shoulder as he headed out the door.

Fifteen minutes later he was in a booth at his favorite café and Cheri was bringing him his Diet Pepsi (with lemon).

“Here you go Jim, one Diet Pepsi with lemon, as usual.”

“What if I came in some time and ordered milk or iced tea, or coffee?”

“I’d call 9-1-1 because I would know for sure you were very sick. Patty melt no Swiss again today?”

“Yup. No need to tamper with success.”

“I don’t know how you can eat this stuff and still look so good,” Cheri said. “If I ate what you eat I’d have thighs the size of Fat Bastard,” she added.

“What can I say? I work out and my metabolism seems to be that of a 14-year-old,” Jim said, smiling. He made a mental note to adjust Cheri’s metabolism so that she would never have a weight problem.

Cheri laughed and went to another table to take an order. It was noontime and the place was busy, so Cheri didn’t have time to talk to her future boss. That was OK. He enjoyed his meal, exchanged a few pleasantries with Cheri as she refilled his soda a few times, paid his check plus a generous tip, and left. Jim had been monitoring Cheri during lunch, checking on her thoughts and attitudes toward him, in particular.

He was encouraged. She really liked him, appreciated the fact that he was polite, tipped well, didn’t complain, and (he smiled at this) he was pretty hot for an “old guy.”

Later that day, as he was working on finishing up for the day, his phone rang. It was Cheri, and she was crying.

“M-m-m-mister Olsen,” she sobbed, “You said I could call you if I ever needed anything. Was that true?”

“Of course it was, Cheri. What’s wrong?”

“Oh, Mister Olsen ... it’s terrible. I c-c-c-ame home after my shift at the café and caught my boyfriend cheating on me.”

“Oh, Cheri, that’s awful. What can I do?”

“I-I-I-I don’t know. I’m living in his apartment now – I moved out of my old place because I couldn’t afford it when the rent went up – and I don’t have any place to go.”

Cheri broke down into sobs and Jim couldn’t get anything more coherent out of her for several minutes. He made reassuring noises on the phone.

“Cheri, where are you now?”

“I’m on a bench in Memorial Park.”

“Stay there. I’ll be right over.”

“OK.”

“Don’t worry, Cheri. Everything is going to be all right.”

“OK, Mister Olsen, thank you.”

Jim hung up the phone put on his jacket and left the office. Taking out his cell phone he called Susan.

“It’s me. We’re going to have a house guest for a little while. Cheri Langston. Yeah, you know her – she’s a waitress at our favorite café. She’s a student at the U. She walked in on her boyfriend with another girl and, since it’s his apartment, she has nowhere to go. I had given her my card once and she called me asking for help. She can use the guest room until she gets things sorted out. She might need a woman’s shoulder to cry on too. OK, see you later.”

Now, ordinarily, Susan would NOT have wanted a young coed as a house guest. But, Jim had done some mental rearranging in Susan’s attitude department and he knew things would be OK. In fact, he figured it wouldn’t be long before Susan and Cheri (and probably Sam) would be sharing some girl-girl time. He knew both Susan and Samantha would talk him up to Cheri and that would help him with his seduction when the time came.