Chapter 8

Chuck stepped into the manufacturing facility. It was a machine shop that produced ‘one off’ kinds of products. Usually, they were parts to repair equipment used in other manufacturing facilities. It had filled a niche market, prior to the collapse.

He had purchased a five percent share of the business about a month before the collapse. The owner, Al Lynch, had run short of capital when trying to purchase a couple of very high precision machines in order to support a contract with one of the other manufacturers. Chuck had learned about the company after Al had tried and failed to get a loan from American Bank.

Al had felt like he was dealing with the devil having to give up a percentage of his company just to expand his business. Chuck had given him more than he had asked, making the suggestion that he replace or repair his existing equipment along with purchasing another fusion cell to power the facility.

Betsy followed him into the place. She turned around slowly in place and looking at all of the equipment located there. She didn’t know what half of it did, but she was impressed, none-the-less. It looked to her as though they could make anything that needed to be made.

The owner walked over them and asked, “Can I help you?”

“I’m Chuck Cole.”

They had to talk in loud voices to be heard over the noise of machines turning metal stock into metal products. It wasn’t deafening, but it was loud.

“It’s a real pleasure to finally meet you. I don’t know what we would have done without your help,” Al said reaching out to shake Chuck’s hand.

The two men had never met face to face. They had talked several times over the phone and their business with each other had been handled through lawyers.

“It’s nice to meet you, too,” Chuck said while shaking hands. “Al, this is my fiancee, Betsy Carter. Betsy, this is Al Lynch.”

“Nice to meet you, Ma’am.”

“Call me, Betsy,” she replied with a smile. “This is a nice place you have.”

“Thank you,” Al said.

“I see that you’ve got a few people at work here,” Chuck said.

Al said, “It’s not all that busy, but at least we’re still in business. I’m making some parts for some of the earth moving equipment owned by the state.”

“Good,” Chuck said.

“I sure was happy to discover that the pod you had delivered on the morning of the crash, contained food. The folks working for me were overjoyed, as well.”

Al had pulled into the parking lot the morning of the crash to discover a large storage pod sitting in the middle of the lot. He’d been ready to tear someone a new asshole, when he saw that his name was on the storage pod. Not expecting anything to be delivered, he had opened it to discover that it contained a variety of foods. He’d been puzzled, until he heard on the news about the bank collapse.

“I’m glad it served its purpose,” Chuck said.

Al said, “I’m sure you didn’t come all of the way out here on a social call. Let’s go in the office and get down to business.”

“That’s fine with me.”

Betsy and Chuck followed him into a small office located off of the work floor. The noise disappeared when the door shut behind them. There was a sense of sudden relief at being in a quiet place, again.

Al gestured to two chairs by his desk. He went around and stood by his chair. He waited to sit until after Betsy had taken a seat. Betsy noticed his good manners.

“What can I do for you?” Al asked.

Betsy said, “We need farm equipment.”

“Farm equipment?” Al asked surprised by her answer.

“Yes. There are folks all over the island trying to plant gardens of sufficient size to feed themselves. That requires farming equipment. Unfortunately, that equipment doesn’t exist here on the island. We need someone, locally, to make it,” Betsy said.

“I can make it, if I know what needs to be made,” Al said.

Betsy held up a briefcase and then put it on the desk. She said, “I had a couple of students from the Druid College make up some plans for general purpose farming equipment appropriate for the kind of small scale agriculture we expect to see here.”

“Plans from the Druid College,” Al repeated rather surprised. He had expected her to tell him to copy some existing product.

“I own them,” Betsy said.

“Nice,” Al said.

Betsy said, “I’ve got little shops on the mainland making them, as well.”

“I’ll look at the plans and give you an estimate on how much it will cost.”

Betsy shook her head. “No. You’ll take the plans and start making equipment. There’s a place down the street that will be a distributor. You’ll need to work out a good agreement with him.”

“You’re giving me these plans?”

“Well, Chuck already owns a percentage of this place. If he didn’t, I’d be negotiating for a percentage,” Betsy answered.

“What about the distributor?” Al asked.

“Now that ... Let’s just say that I’ve already negotiated for ten percent of it,” Betsy said with a smile.

Al exhaled loudly. He said, “I’ll need metal.”

Betsy said, “Who is your regular provider?”

“Dick’s Metals.”

“Guess what?”

“You own a percentage of that,” Al said.

“Ten percent,” Betsy answered.

“Where will he be getting his stock from?”

Betsy said, “The recycling plant.”

“Let me guess, you own ten percent of that.”

“No. I own eighty percent,” Betsy said. “My dad owns the other twenty percent.”

Al asked, “How many companies do the two of you own parts of?”

Betsy said, “I’ve got a handful over three thousand.”

“I’ve got about sixty,” Chuck answered. He shrugged his shoulders and said, “She started before I did.”

Al sat there studying the two young people sitting in front of him. He wasn’t sure if he was dealing with organized crime or just two brilliant young people. Once again he was wondering if he’d made a deal with the devil.

“How can I trust you?”

“I serve the Two-Sided One,” Betsy said. “Does that help?”

“Druid?”

“I’m a Catalyst.”

“What’s that?”

“Someone who makes things happen, just by being there,” Betsy answered.

“Like what you’re doing here?” Al asked.

Betsy shook her head. “No. This is business. I keep my business and my service completely separate.”

“How do you do that?”

Betsy said, “I ask for nothing when I’m performing a service to or for the Gods and Goddesses.”

“Okay, I guess.”

Betsy asked, “Any more questions?”

Al shook his head and then said, “If I have any questions, I’ll call.”

“Good,” Betsy said. “Let’s go.”

Chuck said, “Thank you for meeting with us.”

“You’re welcome. Let me get the front door for you,” Al said rising from his desk.

They followed him out to the front door. He held it open and let them out. He watched them stand in front of the building. He didn’t know what to make of them.

“Where to now?” Chuck asked.

“I want to check on the sharks,” Betsy answered.

Al stared at her wondering what sharks she was talking about. He closed the door and raced back to his office. He wanted to see what the students from the Druid College had designed, and what would be involved in its construction. He opened the briefcase and pulled out the blueprints. He studied them for several minutes.

“This is brilliant!”

Colonel Stewart watched Betsy walking towards him. She was holding hands with someone he had never seen before. He cocked an eyebrow studying the young man. He didn’t seem to be the type who could keep up with a young woman who raced around on roof tops, leaping from building to building.

He said, “I’ve been watching the rooftops for your return. I’m disappointed you chose to keep both feet on the ground.”

Chuck looked puzzled.

Betsy laughed. “I’m heading over to my office.”

“I guess you don’t see a need to rush to work.”

“Actually, I’m looking forward to spending a little time in lab,” Betsy replied.

“Who is the young man with you?”

“This is my fiancee, Chuck Cole. Chuck, this is Colonel Stewart.”

“Nice to meet you, Chuck.”

“It’s an honor to meet the man who saved the university,” Chuck said.

Colonel Stewart frowned at the reminder of the worst night of his life. Firing upon Americans was the most distasteful thing he had ever been called upon to do. Only now had he come to realize the true treasure he had been guarding. He thought it was a crime that the people in power had allowed the situation to get so bad that such an action was necessary.

“I’d rather not talk about that,” Colonel Stewart said.

“I understand,” Chuck said although he didn’t truly understand.

“So how are things going here?” Betsy asked.

Colonel Stewart said, “The faculty and students have been returning to the university. We’ve been talking to them to make sure that they have a legitimate reason to be on the campus. It’s kind of amazing to see what these folks are working on.”

“Like what?”

“There was a young woman and young man in here earlier today discussing the possibility of bringing back ancient fish ponds, as a source of food. With minds like that hard at work, here, there’s a real possibility that my kids will have a decent life in the future.”

“You must have met Sally and Steve,” Betsy said.

“You know them?”

“Yes. She’s a very close friend of ours. She’s going to be my maid of honor at my wedding,” Betsy said.

“She’s a smart one,” Colonel Stewart said. “The Governor was here, yesterday. She was putting some task force together on providing her with advice on how best to navigate this situation.”

“I told her she should get a Bard here to advise her,” Betsy said.

“That’s not a bad idea. Why not a Druid?”

Betsy said, “Nobody understands human nature better than a Bard. If you want to set up some rules that folks can follow, it’s best to have someone around at the time, who understands people. Otherwise, you’ll have some pretty stupid shit getting spouted.”

Colonel Stewart looked like he was going to choke when Betsy mentioned stupid shit. It was so unexpected.

Betsy continued, “You know how it is when it comes to a stupid idea, and committees. Everyone jumps on the stupidity bandwagon, proclaiming it to be brilliant.”

“I’ve encountered that phenomena several times in my career,” Colonel Stewart said.

Sounding like an airhead, Betsy said, “Let’s pass a law that says that everyone has to love everyone else. That will solve all of our problems. People will be nice to each other, they’ll help each other, and then we won’t need policemen. We’ll all live forever and happily ever after.”

“You sounded like my old sociology professor there for a minute,” Chuck said with a laugh.

“I’ve heard people say things like that to me,” Colonel Stewart said.

A lot of people viewed the military as loving war rather than wanting peace. They didn’t know the young men and women in the services very well if they believed it. Most of the people in the military wanted to put in their time serving their country by ensuring the peace, and then to get on with the rest of their lives.

Betsy said, “People like that should talk to my father Ed about evil, sometime.”

“Your dad has seen things, huh?”

“My dad has fought serial killers, white slavers, racists, and child abusers. There’s evil in this world. It’s there even if you choose not to acknowledge it.”

“I can’t wait to meet your parents,” Chuck said dryly.

He knew that her family had a number of larger than life characters in it. Some of the stories the staff had told him were rather unbelievable; but they all spoke about it in such a matter of a fact manner, that he was inclined to believe them anyway.

Colonel Stewart asked, “Aren’t they here on the island?”

“No, they’re in Arizona.”

“There’s not much of a chance of meeting them, now,” Colonel Stewart said.

“They’ll fly out here for the wedding. My moms, dads, brothers, and sisters will all show up for that. There’s no way they’d miss it.”

Colonel Stewart asked, “Aren’t you forgetting the current situation?”

Chuck answered, “She’s not forgetting it. It’s just not an issue.”

“You might not want to get your hopes up too high. I don’t think there’s a single airline in operation, now,” Colonel Stewart said gently.

He had experience with young women who set their hopes too high for the wedding and turned into absolute monsters when things didn’t turn out well. He felt that a lot of women weren’t exactly rational when it came to their wedding. He could imagine Betsy wanting the ‘big wedding’ with hundreds of people in attendance, the white dress, the big cake, and a reception that would be the envy of all of her friends. With the economic meltdown, that wasn’t going to happen.

“My father Dan owns one, if I’m not mistaken. It should be in operation between the major cities, by now,” Betsy said.

“Your father Dan?” Colonel Stewart asked thinking she had just been talking about her father Ed.

“Yes. He’s a computer genius,” Chuck said. “He invented the Raptor and Thor line of computers.”

“He may own an airline, but it isn’t flying to the islands yet,” Colonel Stewart said still trying to be the voice of reason.

Betsy said, “I’m not worried about getting them here. In the worst case, I’ve got an airplane large enough to get all of them here in two or three trips. I have a pilot who knows some of my family. He will enjoy ferrying them all here.”