Chapter 17 - Building the enterprise

Building the enterprise.

Marie and I spent the better part of a year building the project.

First, I killed off my own identity, cleaning the house carefully to remove all traces of my NanoRep theft, moving all my computers to the RV, etc. Then I infected a medical doctor and a mortician, making them do all the paperwork, writing death certificates, cremating an empty coffin and burying “my” ashes, put together a lovely little funeral and the like. I even left a considerable amount of money - my house and car, specifically - to my neighbours’ daughter Jessica, for reasons she would understand, but that would leave her parents and some of my relatives very perplexed.

The money kept pouring in to my bank accounts for many months, showing few signs of dropping off at any alarming rate. Rather, I felt I had maybe overdone it a little. I hadn’t planned on leeching a billion Euros, but if it didn’t drop off soon, I would eventually start to approach those numbers.

That would probably cause economic problems for the whole city, I thought. But then again, since I had cured thousands upon thousands of people of their major depressions, maybe they would contribute to the economic growth of the community? They probably would. Perhaps even enough to compensate for my leeching in the long run. Anyway, most of my money would be spent on building a research institute to develop NanoRep technology that would hopefully soon begin to compensate for any damage I had caused. I actually didn’t feel very guilty about that.

Marie and I scouted several locations for our boarding school and eventually found a perfect location by the Mediterranean where we would have both privacy and a fantastic climate. It was a gigantic Neo-Renaissance manor (or perhaps ch‰teaux would be a better word) with extensive grounds, including a parterre garden with statuary, pavilions and aviaries. Some baron had lived there until the middle of the 1950’s, when a wealthy businessman had bought it because the baron lost his family fortune, and now I bought it from the grandchildren of that businessman, who wanted to live their lives in penthouse apartments in larger cities.

The businessman and his progeny had made some changes to the manor that would have made any lover of classic architecture weep, but would be very good for my purposes. There were indoor swimming pools and spa facilities in the basement. The aviaries had been converted to covered outdoor swimming pools. The grounds were not only walled off, (about a kilometer away from the house in any direction) but the high wall had also been fitted with barbed wire and broken glass climbing obstacles, video surveillance and electronic alarms - the lot. Surrounding the grounds were beechwood forests and idyllic pastures, and the nearby town was neither too small nor too large. The place was simply perfect. All we had to do was to hire some contractors to convert one of the smaller buildings next to the main manor house into a real school building, and one of the other buildings to a boarding house.

We hired a PR firm to put together marketing materials that would reach our target audience and their parents, had a graphical profile designed for the school, even asked them to come up with a good name. ‘Non schol¾ sed vit¾ discimus’ - ‘We do not learn for school, but for life’ was to be our slogan, they suggested - stolen from Seneca’s letters - and for a school name, simply ‘Sylvatica’ or ‘Ch‰teaux Sylvatica Boarding School for Girls’, because it was situated in the woods. We went with the latter, and had a bunch of copper signs made with the school logo. It was a lot of work kitting the place out to become an authentic school. NanoReps made it real easy to get all the proper licenses from the regional board of education though.

One of the more interesting tasks involved in building the school was recruiting teachers and tutors. We thought long and hard about the problem before finally putting out advertisements all over Europe. By then we had a beautiful web-page to refer to, where interested teachers could read about our ideas about building a school for gifted girls from all over the world, who would get scholarships to come study and achieve excellence. The story we concocted was that the school

was funded by an inheritance from a wealthy man who didn’t have any children of his own, but wanted to leave something truly good for posterity. We got hundreds of applications.

Narrowing the field of contestants down to about twenty, by certain selection criteria, we actually invited them to the ch‰teaux for interviews, paying for their flights and their time. They all arrived on the same day, and I showed them around the premises, introducing Marie as my niece and assistant for the summer, took dinner with them and spiced their food with NanoReps, obviously.

The applicants were all female. All had excellent teaching qualifications, interesting CVs, and more importantly, they all looked rather attractive. By this time, Marie had cracked the problem of how to use the NanoReps to sculpt one’s body, so whatever these women lacked in youth at the moment, they could still be quite miraculously rejuvenated and rebuilt once we decided on who we wanted.

The next day, we started conducting interviews after lunch. By then their NanoReps had finished building their internal hardware. For lunch, I served food that was high in iron and vitamin c, and many of the applicants expressed that they had never felt this hungry in their lives, and that the food tasted miraculously good despite not being the kind of food they would normally have liked.

Marie and I exchanged glances.

One of our first interviews, conducted outside in the shade of a big tree because of the mid-day heat and malfunctioning air-conditioning inside, was particularly memorable. Her name was Sophie, and she was a 38-year-old mother of two. She had taught science and maths at a British secondary school, but had also worked for a few years in middle school. She was passionate about photography, and since she was divorced and her children were already out of the house, she was something of a camera collector. When she got started talking about Nikon cameras, Olympus cameras, the advantages of digital photography and the state of modern optics, she revealed herself to be quite the nerd. Her hair was red, more carrot than copper or auburn, and her skin was pale and freckled. When she got excited talking about her cameras, she flushed red and her freckles were very visible.

I enjoyed talking with her. She was about my own age, so she wasn’t really my type sexually, but I liked her straight away because she was so intense and verbal, and still enthusiastic about life although she had, in a sense, already lived a whole lifetime as a working mom. She cared for computers, writing, photography, art While we talked, I had finished setting up her NanoRep system, and it was gently squeezing her social inhibitions away, blocking the connection between inhibitory systems and the rest of her brain. Now I squeezed them harder, seeing her smile even more broadly as she relaxed.

-”So, Sophie, you like writing?” -”Oh yes, love it. Hobby of mine, really.” -”What do you write?” I saw her social inhibitions screaming at her, trying to reach the rest of her brain with an important message, but to no avail. Her eyes twinkled with excitement, and I saw activity in her pleasure centers that gave me the answer before she could speak it.

-”Erotica, mostly. You know - short stories, fantasies, things out of my real life also. I make pictures too.” -”Make pictures? Not take pictures?” -”No, make pictures. I render them on my computers, and then write stories about them. Or the other way around - I write a story and then I render images for it.” -”And these are sexual stories? Erotic?” She was blushing with excitement. She had a bemused and somewhat perplexed expression, so she was clearly aware that what she was telling me was something she wouldn’t ordinarily tell a potential employer, but since her social inhibitions were blocked, she couldn’t help herself.

-”Oh yes, very sexual. Taboo, you know?” I smiled warmly at her. My kind of girl, definitely.

-”Go on, Sophie - describe them please Not that this has anything to do with your job interview, but I’m just curious to know.” -”Masochistic stories, you know medical examinations, humiliation, torture, non-consensual.” -”That sort of stuff turns you on?” -”Oh yes. And then I write pedo stories too - girls, eleven-twelve-thirteen years old - discovering themselves, being used by grown men and women.” -”My gosh, Sophie. And you render images of that kind too?” -”Sure. But I never share them, you know, because that’s illegal. I guess possession is also illegal, but I can’t help myself. It’s just my little secret.” -”Not any longer, Sophie.” Her brain was screaming at her to stop talking, but she couldn’t hear it.

-”I think I spotted a fellow pedo in you though, “ she said, smiling; “I saw you looking at Marie here, and you were definitely not giving her a disinterested look. In fact, the way she’s been looking at you, I think you’re a couple.” -”You’re perceptive, Sophie” I said, smiling back at her and exchanging glances with Marie; “ So, tell me more about these stories you’ve written - they’re about 11-year-olds, are they?” -”Oh, sure. And older than that, but I’m definitely most interested in girls in their early puberty.

Innocent, awkward - delicious.” -”You’ve taught middle school, right?” -”Yes, I love girls that age. Never did anything, of course - strictly look, don’t touch.” -”Sure, I understand. Fantasies never hurt anyone. So, you think me and Marie are more than just niece and uncle? That we are a couple? How does that make you feel, Sophie?” -”I think that’s hot. You’re such a beautiful girl, Marie. I can imagine you having sex with Karl. I bet he loves your petite body.” -”Thank you, Sophie” said Marie, a twinkle in her eye.

-”How about you then, Sophie?” I asked; “Could you imagine yourself watching Marie undress in front of you? Would that turn you on?” -”Oh yes - absolutely!” she said, emphatically. Her social inhibitions still screamed at her, but to no avail.