Chapter 8

It seems like forever since Cathy’s death, but the calendar indicated it had only been a little over six months. During those months, Cathy and I learned how to use our modified link, how to link when I was awake, and I accepted the Council’s role as their Agent of Change. When I wasn’t grieving over my loss of Cathy, most of my time was spent trying to resolve all of the problems that Art, Mary, and Cathy’s deaths had created.

Once our link was fully functional, Cathy started taking control of my life as she had when we were together. I don’t mean that in a negative way for there are many aspects of my life in which I needed help. When she lived with me, I had been glad to have her steer me in the right direction.

My morning started with Cathy contacting me.

“Ward, it’s time for you to get your personal life in order. During the past six months, you have let yourself and everything around you go to pot. You stopped exercising, started eating nothing but junk food, don’t talk with any of our friends, and have basically closed yourself off from the world by remaining in the house when you aren’t at the office.

“It is time for you to accept that I’m gone and I’m not coming back. I want you to start living life again. You made a deal with the Guidance Council to support their Mission in return for them elevating you to the Fourth Dimension when you die. If you don’t change what you are doing, you aren’t going to succeed. I want you in the Fourth Dimension with me, buster, so we need to get you back on track.

“The Guidance Council needs for you to be fit and healthy in order to do the things necessary to complete your part of the bargain. Beginning today, you will restart your exercise routine and you will stop eating nothing but junk food. You will clean up this house and keep it clean. That includes doing laundry at least once a week.

“We will work together to formulate a detailed plan for completing the four tasks, and we will devise an organizational structure for an Inner Council and an Action Group.”

“All right, Cathy, but isn’t it more important for me to work on the finances that we will need for supporting the tasks. It seems to me that the financial aspects of the Mission will take far longer to do than putting several plans together. We could do the planning when I am not busy with the financial side of things.”

“You are correct in what you say, Ward. The main thing you didn’t consider is you need a clear picture of how much money you will need and where it is to be spent. You will be working in multiple countries. The Guidance Council said that moving large sums of money from one country to another would cause the governments to focus on your Mission’s activities, which is what we do not want them to do.

“The Council believes that it will be better for you to earn the money in the countries where you will be spending it. In order to do that, you will need to know what countries you will be operating in when initially working on the tasks. Once you are established, you can expand your mission and financial activities to other countries.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. So what part of the planning do you think we should do first, Cathy?”

“I suspect that we will have to define an initial plan for each task, and then periodically revise the plans for changes caused by the other plans and the activities that we will be engaged in. After all, they say no plan survives contact with the enemy, and I think that will apply to our planning even before starting the tasks.

“The Guidance Council believes the four tasks they gave you will require you to have a very large staff. With that in mind, you will need a large group of people to coordinate everyone’s actions. I like the term ‘Inner Council.’ The people supporting you will form a pool of people who you can select to control the actions necessary to complete the tasks. To me the easiest and most important item to plan is the structure of an Inner Council to help you with doing the planning and other things, and an Action Group to support your Inner Council. I suspect that structure will have a major effect on how you go about accomplishing the four tasks.”

“I’ve never planned anything this large and complex, Cathy. Did the Guidance Council give you any advice on how to go about putting a plan together?”

“Well, not exactly. I talked with Jan — my Guidance Council representative — about the planning that we would be doing. She is one of the people who monitor Earth and is familiar with the ways that the people of Earth do things. She told me that software designers on Earth use what they call a ‘Top Down, Bottom Up’ approach to designing a software program. She felt that we should use a similar approach. Are you familiar with it?”

“Isn’t that going a bit far, Ward? We won’t need that type of security for most of what we do. Why should we burden ourselves with restrictions we don’t need?”

“I understand what you are asking, Cathy. However, I think we need to get in the habit of using good security procedures and practices. Then we will have the procedures and habits in place when we need them. It will take a long time to develop good security habits and practices. When we first start, we will make mistakes. I would prefer our making mistakes in security when it doesn’t matter, so we can correct our security practices, rather than make a mistake when it does matter.

“That’s true, Ward. It’s like any other habit that a person forms. Good habits lead to good behavior, and bad habits get you into trouble. But what does security have to do with the structure and function of our organization?”

“I have to agree, Ward, that drawing government attention to our activities will be a bad thing. It will happen eventually, but the longer we stay off their radar, the better. If we structure our organization properly we won’t draw undo interest until after we go active on Task 1, and even then, it may take them a long time to realize it is an organized plot aimed at all of the world’s governments.

“I would say that the organization of the individual Action Groups should be determined by the way the respective task is executed. However, since we will have four groups, it is logical to have each group guided by a member of the Inner Council. When I think of the immensity of each task, I can’t see one person doing all of the management, control, and planning activities.”

“I agree, Cathy, and that is why I am thinking of setting up the Inner Council using a cell structure. My plan is for a cell to control a single task, which means we need four cells for the four tasks. I have been thinking of these cells as Task Cells. I think the leader of each Task Cell will be responsible for a single task, and I think each leader of the four Task Cells should be allowed the option of how their cell and its Action Group are organized. That way we can structure each cell to fit the Task it’s performing. I also think we will need a fifth cell to coordinate the four Task Cells. I have been thinking of the fifth cell as the Mission Control Cell. The five cells will make up my Inner Council, unless we decide we need additional cells.”

“You’re right, Ward. In order to be effective a single person should be responsible for each task, and they need to be in total control of the task’s planning and activities. We will also need someone in charge of the overall Mission, and that should be you, since you agreed to do the Mission for the Guidance Council. Have you given any consideration to how you are going to stay in touch with everything that will be going on with the four tasks?”

“Sort of, but first I think you will be overextended if you try to be the leader of the Mission Control Cell, the Task Leader of a Task Cell, and engage in the business activities necessary for earning the money that will be needed to support the Mission. The most I can see you capable of taking on is being the leader of the Mission Control Cell and earning the money the Mission will need. I’ll leave that decision to you, but I think once we get started, you will find that those two efforts will be close to overloading you.

“Now if I understand your concept, Ward, the Inner Council will have five cells, a Mission Control Cell and four Task Cells. Each of the four Task Cells will be responsible for one Task and will report to the Mission Control Cell. The Mission Control Cell will provide oversight for the Mission and provide guidance to the Task Cells. Each Task Cell will be responsible for planning its task and controlling its Action Group. The leader of each Task Cell will be a member of your Mission Control Cell. The Action Group that we originally envisioned will be developed as four autonomous groups, one for each task, and the groups will be isolated from each other. The manner in which the Task Cell executes its task will determine its structure and the structure of its respective Action Group. Is that right?”

“Yes, that is what I am currently thinking of putting in place.

“I’m used to the time I spend on business activities. When I got the idea of managing a Task Cell, I was not thinking of how much time I would work on the mission. So thanks for reminding me of the effort I need to expend financing the Mission. So I will limit myself to running my business and the Mission Control Cell.”

“Good, I just wanted to be sure that I understand what you intend to do for I need to brief the Guidance Council, and they will undoubtedly have questions. One of the questions they will probably ask is how close you will monitor the actions of the Task Cells and Action Groups.”

“I’m not sure. As you said, I will be busy and I doubt that I will micromanage my Task Cell Leaders. I will probably rely on their status reports, and only become involved if they have a problem. Although, I will have face-to-face meetings when necessary.”

“What are you doing with the plans that the Guidance Council gave you for the four tasks?”

“So far I am in the process of trying to break down their objectives and the general guidance to specific topics and actions.

“For example, their plan for Task 1 is for me to pick a country, destabilize its government, take the government over, restructure it, and then repeat the process for the remaining countries.

“There are no criteria for selecting the first country nor for the order of selection for the remaining countries. Destabilizing a country’s government can be a very difficult thing to do. Telling me I am to do it, doesn’t address how to do it, and what will work for one country, will not work for every country. The steps of the task in another country will also need a detailed plan. About the only thing that will be even close to standard from one country to another is what I put in place as the new government structure, but even that will vary according to the needs of the country.”

“I can see your problem, Ward. I passed the plans on to you without really giving them any consideration and without envisioning how to execute them. Do you plan on starting all of the tasks at once or initially focusing on one task?”

“My original thought was to start Task 1 first for it is the most difficult and will take the longest amount of time to complete. However, as I was considering the outcomes of the four tasks, I realized that the legislation generated by Task 2 might help us in what we will need to do for Tasks 1 and 3.”

“I like what I am hearing of your plans, Ward, and I think the Guidance Council will agree with your approach. What were you thinking of for financing the group?”

“I haven’t gotten that far in my planning, Cathy.”

“When you find a companion to keep you company, will you make her part of your Mission efforts?”

“I’ll have to think about that when I get around to finding a girlfriend. Why did you ask that?”

“Oh, just curious.”

Cathy is never ‘Just Curious’. Something was up, but I wasn’t going to spend the time trying to find out what she had in mind. I’ll deal with whatever happens when it happens. Even if I had spent the time, I doubt it would have affected what did happen.

My planning the structure of my Inner Council and Action Groups didn’t take that much of my time, or perhaps I should say I didn’t have a lot of spare time to dedicate to the planning. I was busy with many things, so I probably averaged less than an hour and a half per day on defining the structures. Shortly after my first discussion with Cathy about my Mission, Cathy contacted me about the finances.

“Ward, the Guidance Council told me your outline of your Inner Council is a good first cut at what you will need to complete the four tasks. They did say that you may not have realized the scope of the plan. They will get back to me about a few details that you will have to take into consideration when finalizing your plan.

“The Guidance Council told me the investments you inherited need to be restructured. A few of the investments are under performing and need to be sold and the proceeds reinvested. They provided me with an explanation of how to invest the proceeds.”

“Is the Council aware that William will have to sell a portion of your dad’s stock portfolio to pay the estate taxes, and what did you mean by my not realizing the scope of the plan?”

“I doubt the Council is aware of William’s need to sell part of the portfolio, but I will make them aware of the need to do so.

“In regard to the scope of the plan, I think they were referring to the number of people and length of time you will require to complete each task. Have you been thinking of doing the tasks in a single country or in all of the world’s countries?”

“I’ve been focused on a single country. I guess I should have been thinking of all of the countries. That changes a few things regarding how I structure my Inner Council. I will have to rethink my plan’s structure. My Task Cell leaders will also need to plan for working on their Task in multiple countries.”

Cathy had mentioned that the Guidance Council would be aiding me with financial matters. When she told me what they planned, I didn’t understand their logic. Cathy said it had to do with the Council’s idea of accountability, so they divided my financial affairs into personal finances and Mission finances, To me, it’s all one big pot of money. The thing they addressed first was what they called my personal finances. When it came to selling and restructuring Art’s stock portfolio, I would have to merge the two activities.

They considered my personal finances to be everything that I inherited from Art and Mary’s estate, to include what Cathy and I had before her death. My Mission finances would be derived from the products I designed and sold. The products would use the advanced technology the Council would give me. To be more accurate, they would provide me with knowledge of the technical theory on which the devices are based and provide a design package of specifications and drawings. I would then invent the technology here on Earth.

Cathy’s comment about me only having the time to manage the Inner Council and earning money for financing the Mission got me to thinking. After we finished our conversation, I wasn’t going to have the time necessary to manage the two companies I would soon inherit. I didn’t want to sell the companies, so I would have to think about how to structure things so I could control of the companies without having to spend a large portion of my time at the companies.

I briefly considered selling the companies, but didn’t want to do that. The main reason I didn’t want to sell Art’s company was, initially I would be earning more money than I would spend on the Mission’s activities. I would have to invest the excess funds. Since I would shortly own an investment company, the company was the logical group to manage the excess Mission funding. Therefore, it made no sense to sell his company, and if I kept his company, I might as well keep both companies.

My original intent had been to wait until after the estate was finalized to turn the management of the two businesses over to Hank and Leila. The Guidance Council’s decision to reorganize my finances, so I could begin working on the Mission finances just accelerated my time schedule for turning the businesses over to Hank and Leila.

When I arrived in my office the next day, I called Hank and asked him to meet me in my conference room. After making ourselves comfortable, I said, “Hank, I have a couple of problems and a solution that I would like to talk about with you.”