《The Portals Saga》 Preface It''s said that individuals really don''t need a code or rules of conduct to survive but society definitely does. When those rules are codified and supposedly applied to everyone then these unofficial rules becomes known as laws. What''s important for society to remain healthy and grow are these rules must be ones that the members can generally agree to follow (or at least are willing to put up with). Problems start creeping up when those laws aren¡¯t applied or followed equally by everyone within a society. So what happens if someone had both the power and the means to operate outside of any society? In such a way that the rules really don¡¯t cover? Would they be considered a bad guy or criminal? I guess that would depend on what kind of rules they decide to apply to themselves. Society¡¯s Unofficial Rules This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. Family¡¯s Unofficial Rules But above all else remember what a famous pirate once said - ¡°The code is more what you''d call "guidelines" than actual rules.¡± (Barbossa) Chapter 1 - Stuck Between a Rock and Air The seasons came and went as it watched; never moving from its solitary post, still following the last task it was given. The seasons eventually turned into years and finally the years became eons, yet still it waited and watched. Eventually even the mountains slowly eroded away and the rivers shifted their course until even the animals had evolved and change. Only it remained the same, condemned to seemingly remain forever as it was. Eventually Homo sapiens showed up and as it watched them travel by in small groups learning and developing into a society it found itself feeling something new, watching their behavior it became ¡°curious¡±. Looking at one such group as they travelled through the mountain pass below it observe and gave thought to how humans seemed to reminded it of its own creators. A curious race human, it thought always seeming to be moving, never standing still, yes so much like its creators. It thought once again about those creators, those who had foolishly created it and how that curiosity and ignorance had lead to that that last foolish command. A single thoughtless command given that destroyed both them and their world forever. Looking at the humans in the valley below for the first time in its existence it felt sadness. Knowing that eventually these too would also find a way to destroy themselves and in that process take this life filled world with them. * * * * * Looking down was definitely a big mistake I thought, as I swung there on the rock. I was, hanging on by my fingertips a hundred feet up the cliff face trying desperately not to fall. Seeing the misty valley stretch below my dangling feet was not helping me either. This was not the worst situation I had ever found myself in but definitely ranked in the top five. Looking to my left a couple feet over I could see what looked like a small crevice. It was little more than a crack in the cliff that ¡°might¡± barely be wide enough for my foot to fit in. It was also in the direction of a narrow ledge that gave promise of a place I could rest and recover, if I could make it that is. Now all I had to do was find some way to swing myself across and reach it. Measuring the distance with my eye I thought I might be able to reach the crevice with my foot if I swung out and around while stretching my leg out. Once there I could hopefully then wedge my boot in far enough to get the leverage needed to reach the ledge. It might not be the best plan but with my fingers starting to cramp up it looked like it was going to be my best bet. Clinging tightly to the cliff face I tried to psych myself up to making the attempt. My thoughts drifted back to how I got myself in this predicament. Dad met mom on a save the whales expedition. Their favorite story was about their first meeting on a small inflatable Zodiac boat that was trying to keep between whalers and the whales they were trying to spear. From the stories they would tell me they had fallen in love on that trip while chasing a factory whaling ship and its catcher fleet across the pacific. During my growing up they were always away on one cause or another but whenever possible would take me with them. I¡¯m sure having a little kid with them on the trips cut down on their environmental efforts, but they never said anything about it. Sometimes I think that might be where I got my wanderlust and dislike for what civilization has so far done to nature. But the truth was I just didn¡¯t want to be around people or grow attached to anyone who could just disappear from me like my parents. For most of my life I have been going off to somewhere alone and private to think things out. I don¡¯t remember doing that so much when I was younger but after my parents died I spent weeks under my bed at the orphanage hiding from the world. The orphanage was crowded, noisy and filled with sad, unwanted kids. I wasn¡¯t the only kid there trying to get away from it all. Eventually the authorities managed to contact my uncle and get him to accept responsibility for me. They didn¡¯t tell me why it took so long but after the director there told me my uncle was coming for me it still took two weeks before he showed up. I had never met him an only heard my parents mention him a couple of times. Waiting those two weeks I kept going back and forth about meeting him and wondering if he would be like dad or even like me. Later as I kept waiting I started to wonder if he had changed his mind about me and wasn¡¯t coming. I don¡¯t remember exactly what I was feeling the day that he finally showed up. I really only remember seeing him for the first time in the director¡¯s office signing some forms for her. He looked at me for a second then, turned back around to the director and asked her what my name was. . He had showed up in front of the orphanage in a limo with a driver. It caused quite a commotion from the other kids wondering if a lucky orphan was being adopted or if it was just a major contributor. As I was walking out to the car a few kids¡¯ seeing me yelled insults at me in jealousy thinking I was being adopted by a rich family. Later in the car as we drove to his estate we didn¡¯t talk or have a conversation. The only thing I remember him saying to me was that I would be starting school on the following Monday and his housekeeper would make sure I had what I needed for going. When we pulled up to his house he told the driver around the back to the garage and show me where I would be living. After he got out the driver turned and looked at me with a uncomfortable look and drove around the house. The garage was a large barn like structure with room for three cars. Part of the attic had been enclosed in with an external stair up the side to access it. The driver let me look through the window at it for a minute then got out of the car and opened my door for me. After I got out with my small bag he took it from me and walked up the outside stairs with it. Opening the door at the top he motioned me in first. I was a little hesitant looking in from the door but from what I saw it turned out to be what I later found out to be a typical one room garage apartment. The room was small but clean and had a bed and small kitchenette and a corner closet size toilet and shower. Those first few days I stayed inside the room hiding from people. I did look under the bed but it was a platform bed with drawers under it. No room for me for me and no closet in the room to hide in either. The room had all the privacy and quite the orphanage lacked. After the first day I got use to it (or maybe just bored) and started looking at things outside the widow. The window looked out to the back of the house with a bit of road and the hills in the distance off to the sides. Something about those hills drew me and I wondered how far away they were. I stayed alone in the room for two days until I got hungry enough come out and look for some food. In my hunt for food I managed to find the estate¡¯s kitchen and met Hannah. She was my uncle¡¯s live-in cook and the first friendly person I had met since the funeral. Hannah was a blue hair grandmotherly type who took the job of being a live-in cook in her words ¡°so I wouldn¡¯t be a burden on my kids¡±. After she found me going through the kitchen cabinets looking for something to eat she called out to me saying ¡°Are you hungry, honey child?¡±. I didn¡¯t know how to answer her but after some probing she got me to admit I was hungry and my favorite meal was a burger. A minute later she had a pan on the stove with meat simmering and was digging through a pantry looking for potato chips. A few minutes later I was perched on a stool at the counter eating one of the best tasting burgers I have ever tasted. She sat beside me as I ate and we eventually got to talking, my one word answers turning into an actual conversation. She did say she was surprised seeing me in the kitchen, not just because of how I was rooting in her kitchen but also that she hadn¡¯t been told I had even arrived yet. It seems that my uncle didn¡¯t really communicate to her or the rest of the staff much. Even most of his meals were taken off the estate or in his office upstairs. After feeding me she kindly explained when meals were normally served and how I could get my clothes cleaned. Later she eventually showed me how to cook in my little kitchenette, take care of myself and even what her weird hobby was.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. Hannah¡¯s hobby was disguising food. An odd hobby I didn¡¯t understand until she showed me an example. It seems a while back Hannah got interested in competition cooking shows and in particular cake making ones. One show focused on people making their cakes into realistic objects like cell phones and shoes. Hannah decided to take it one step further and tried making regular food look like other things. She once made me a plate of what looked like fried chicken, mash potatoes and peas. Thinking it a regular meal I bit into it and found out the chicken was made of disguised beef, the mash potatoes cauliflower and the peas were actually small scooped balls of died carrots. After serving it to me I thought she was busy talking on the phone but instead she was actually video recording my reaction. I thought she should go on one of those cooking shows with her talent but she always said she just wanted to play around with it and pull occasional pranks. Hannah did have a family, a son and a daughter both married and living a few hours away. There was some issue with her daughter Mary that she wouldn¡¯t talk about but her son Jack would come visit her ever month or so. A nice friendly outdoorsy kind of guy, Jack loved his mother quirks and all. We would sit around the kitchen table talk and laugh at stories of the tricks Hannah had pulled on him and his sister growing up. It seems that trick of disguising food was something Hannah started just to get them to eat their vegetables. They would realize the trick after the first bite but were usually to surprised and happy not to finish it off. Jack was visiting a few months later on my birthday and almost fell off the chair when the cake with the candles turned out to be meatloaf in disguise. Hannah had told me that her son loved camping and rock climbing, something my parents loved to do too. Finding that out I spent months of pleading to get him to take me. He always turned me down, not that he was against taking a kid climbing he just didn¡¯t want to without my uncles permission. It put me in a bit of a bind since asking my uncle for anything was not something I could or would do. I came up with a bunch of silly kids plans to get his permission. Everything from slipping a permission form into a stack of his business papers he was signing casually mentioning it in a conversation. I even practiced the conversation to make it sound like we would only be climbing over a few small rocks. I never got up the nerve to try any of them so Hannah eventually just told Jack she got my uncle¡¯s permission. Not sure if she was lying about asking or not since she had such a good of a poker face. That convinced Jack and he finally caved in and took me with him on some of his simpler climbs. He was a good teacher and taught me how to safely climb the cliffs around Montgomery. I even managed to become friends with some of his climbing buddies. I was the youngest one in the group but that didn¡¯t seem to matter much when we were hanging off the side of a mountain. One favorite topic to discuss during the climbs was about how many people had made the climb before us. Before one of the first to do a climb was a big deal for them. I had a lot of good times with Hannah and her son Jack over the next couple of years but eventually Hannah started to have health problems and needed to retired. She move closer to her kids, something that made Jack very happy, but I¡¯m not too sure about her daughter Mary¡¯s feelings on it. We both cried a lot as I helped her packed up to leave. The last things she said to me as she went to get in Jack¡¯s pickup was ¡°Honey child, don¡¯t take the bad times too seriously, life was meant to be laughed at and lived¡±. Not something a fourteen year old could understand to well but I did remember it. After Hannah retired Jack no longer came around. I still went climbing using the old equipment Jack had left me. Climbing alone was not something Jack would have approved of but was something I had to do. Finding fellow climbers willing to go out with a fourteen year old proved impossible so I had to do it alone. The solitude and thrill of climbing up to places one else had been made me heady with pleasure but doing it without Jack and his bunch of friends was a bit sad. I still would occasionally run into people while climbing. The suspicious looks I got when they saw a kid climbing by himself started to get me worried. It was also proving impossible to get a permit to climb in the regular parks. A few too many questions asking for my name, parents and why I was by myself at the ranger station got me starting looking for more deserted and out of the way spots. The current cliff I now found myself hanging off of was about as far out of the way as possible. It was still technically in a national park but well away from any designated climbing area, trail or facility. Well, I thought it¡¯s now or never as I found my left hand starting to tremble. Taking a firm grip on a small protrusion on the side of the cliff face I started swinging my feet back and forth I finally let go of one hand and stretched my leg out wide to reach that crack for a shaky foothold. Scrambling a bit, I managed to shift till I was hanging flat against the cliff with my legs spread in a wide split like a gymnast or that old Belgian martial arts star. With my face pressed against the bird scat covering the cliff face. I thought about how I must look to those same birds if they saw me now. I must really be a spectacle, like a bug on a car windshield. After some wiggling of my foot, I finally got a decent bit of support wedging my boot into the crack. Looking at the ledge it now looked like I could inch over and swing onto the ledge. Of course, now that I had gotten a good look at it, it wasn¡¯t much of a ledge. At its widest it looked only about 18 inches, and it ran for only a few feet at a slight downward angle. There was a small shrub at the end of the ledge, just sprouting right off the cliff face. Still any port in a storm and I desperately needed it to recover from my climb Of course, going to deserted areas on my own to free climb a cliff that I¡¯m sure no one had ever climbed before might be considered fool hardy in the extreme and possible suicidal. Still reaching someplace like this little ledge, a hundred feet up the side of a cliff was special. Away from everything and everyone it makes me think I might have finally reached someplace that was truly unspoiled. A rare feeling when even the most difficult and well protected hiking areas show the leftover beer cans and wrappers of all those who¡¯ve gone there before. In the 21st century it¡¯s surprising how unlikely it is to go anywhere and not see evidence of people lying around. I¡¯ve even seen pictures of deserted islands hundreds of miles from civilization covered in garbage that¡¯s washed up. I can¡¯t even count the number of times I found what I thought would be a quiet, out of the way spot still untouched but when I got there it was too find cigarette buts, beer cans and trash lying around. However, a place like this ledge I was heading too was so unassuming and hard to get to I was hopeful. Thinking it might be untouched but still half expecting to at least find people''s names scratched into the rock. Even Everest had a graffiti problem now with all those climbers leaving comments like "I was here" on the mountain. China¡¯s attempt to stop it with their ¡°Name and Shame¡± was failing miserable. One last quick scramble and I was finally sitting on the ledge gasping and again wondering why I keep putting myself through this crazy risk just too solo free climb. I had thought the finding an untouched spot away from everyone was the reason but after that last desperate swing I was seriously rethinking it. Finally recovering my breadth I took a good look around at the cliff shelf. I couldn¡¯t find any signs showing that anyone else had been there. No scuff marks on the ledge, no left over gear and not even the expected romantic graffiti. For some reason climbers favorite message after ¡°I was here¡± seem to be love messages like ¡°someone loves someone else¡± inside a heart everywhere they climb. Although on the rock face I climbed last year near Carlsbad someone had spent a lot of time scratching on the rock a dirty limerick. Thinking of those large giant letters with two spelling mistakes written on the cliff face all I could do was sigh. I spent two hours on that climb just trying to remove a few of those letters but only managed to make them a bit less noticeable. But this time there was nothing, just clean untouched rock face around me just as it should be. Deciding to enjoy the rare experience and view I setup to stay a bit longer, although being perched on the small ledge was too dangerous even for my foolhardy sense of adventure. I quickly wedged a camalot into a small crack in the rock face and fasten myself to it with a static rope. Now ¡°safe-ish¡± from falling I could relax a bit and enjoy the view. Leaning back with a bag of trail mix and my canteen I started to think about what I was going to be doing with my life from now on. Chapter 2 - Weight of the Past Still following the last command given the entity initiated the 182,482th analysis of the planet¡¯s ecosystem. Comparing the results with the previous analysis showed 6.32% particle count increase along with 2.8% thermo climb and 3 more large species extinctions. The estimated total collapse of the planetary environmental system was 38.2% within the next 64 solar revolutions period. Surveillance of the electromagnetic spectrum showed some awareness of the situation within the dominant human species, but their corrective action seemed limited and somewhat ineffective. Feeling an emotional response to the situation was not with its current capability but if it were, the regret for the waste of this planet¡¯s life treasure would be valid. Of all the planets it had surveyed this one had the greatest amount of diversity by far. * * * * * Sitting on the cliff with my legs over the edge eating a granola bar I thought back again to my first day at school after my parent¡¯s funeral. Traveling with my parents around the world as they chased the next worthy cause produced a lot of first days at schools for me. That day my uncle had his driver drop me in front of at the school during the morning bus traffic. The chauffer was nice enough to take me into the front office before leaving. Still feeling numb from my parent¡¯s death I did not go to the counter or respond to anyone¡¯s greeting. I sat in the front office for over an hour until one of the workers came up to me and finally asked why I was there. My one-word answers to their questions eventually got them to find my records as a new student and get me a schedule and an office aid to take me to class. A lot of those previous first day times I would be thinking about who I''m gonna sit with, how to deal with the popular kids but mostly just how to fit in and be part of the group. That time was very different; as we headed to my classroom all I could think about was how I didn¡¯t want to be here and how I just wanted to be left alone. A short while later I found myself sitting at the back of the classroom. With all the students looking at me with my non-participation attitude I had officially been flagged as part of the loners group. Thinking back to what brought me to this point in life I could only point to that moment as the start of my admittedly antisocial behavior. As expected I didn¡¯t get along with anyone at school but I also didn¡¯t exactly not get along. Mostly I just avoided other students and watched from the sides as it were. That got me through the first couple of years relatively peacefully but in tenth grade that backfired. Ellie Snow was a junior and well on her way to eventually becoming some ones trophy wife. She took advantage of what she had physically with a lot of makeup, clothes that pushed the school¡¯s dress code to the limit and from what I once overheard the magic of a Wonderbra. She also had a bad habit of leaving her lunch trash behind and sometimes just dumping it ¡°near¡± the trash receptacle. I got into the habit of giving her a dirty look each time I saw her do it. I guess at some point she noticed I was giving her that look and took offense. As expected of someone like her she had quite a cohort of followers trying to get her attention and do her favors. This included a current boyfriend, a senior with the unlikely name of Reggie although he tried to get people to call him TRex for some weird reason. His family had money which was used it to make him the captain of the lacrosse team. Supposedly the school only had a lacrosse team because of the support of Reggie¡¯s father. Well, that and his mother being on the school board. His parents didn¡¯t want him risking injury playing football so the ¡°dangerous¡± football program was canceled and the ¡°gentile¡± lacrosse program was started in his freshman year. It¡¯s surprising how many injuries occurred when teenagers suddenly switched to an aggressive sport with sticks and very little direction or padding. I was sitting at a lunch table one day when he and a couple of his friends walked over and slammed the table in front of me with his fist, ¡°Hey Looser¡± he shouted, ¡°Quit looking at Ellie, if I catch you doing it again I¡¯m going to stick you in a trash can and roll you across the field, capish!¡± He then flipped my lunch tray on me and walked away with his buddies laughing. As I looked around the lunch room it was obvious he picked a time when the lunch monitor was out of the room. Sitting there with my lunch on my lap and the ketchup and milk staining my paints I decided someone needed to be taught a lesson. I remember my dad telling me that you shouldn¡¯t punish for revenge but instead to teach a lesson. I think he said it when he heard me repeating a line from Star Trek about ¡°revenge is a dish best served cold¡±. Not something a little kid should be saying but I was made at some other kid taking my lunch desert the day before. I didn¡¯t really understand what he meant by teaching a lesson then but I also didn¡¯t really understand the Star Trek quote either. It just sounded like a cool thing to say. The question now though was who needed to be taught a lesson, how should they be punished and also even more importantly how to do it without being caught. I didn¡¯t have any real experience at the whole idea of teaching someone a lesson but I did like the concept of karma. Plus if done right karma could be hidden as bad luck which would keep people from suspecting me afterward. With both TRex and Ellie Stone as the targets the next step I thought was how to make the punishment fit the crime. TRex was the one who directly threatened me to make points with Ellie Stone but she had a long history or using her looks and status to convince others to do bad things like that. She was also a notorious litterbug, something that I personally found offensive. Thinking about it a suitable punishment lesson for him might then be something like ruining his relationship with her and maybe some other girls. Hers should probably be focused on her Queen position in the school which let her get away with all the bad things she does. I also thought that involving litter in the lesson would definitely help the whole Karma view of it as well. Arranging something that would do all those things at once would take a lot of thought and planning but I had the overconfidence of youth going for me. After a few weeks of observing and collecting information on them I came up with a few possibilities. The one time at school they would usually be together was at lacrosse games. She and her cronies loved to hang out next to the field to gossip and watch for a bit before leaving. They didn¡¯t sit in the stands to plebeian for them I guess or maybe they just wanted to be seen more easily. Instead the group would stand next to the field right beside the bleachers. Anyone going to the snack bar or restrooms would have to walk right by them and deal with any comments. During breaks in the game TRex would always make it a point to come over and say a few words with her. I also noticed that he had a tendency to bang his lacrosse stick on a wall of the bleachers just before he left them. Not sure if it was to annoy the people sitting above or just to get Ellie¡¯s attention as he left. Looking around the area of the bleachers I noticed the path that ran from the storage space built under the bleachers and out to the field ran past the area where Ellie and her group usually stood. The path was paved and there was a small incline down to the field. An idea started circulating around in my mind then but I still needed to find a few more elements for it. Looking around the stands I noticed how messy the area got on game days. All the junk food and drinks people ate seems to end up on the ground and below the chairs instead of the garbage cans. The garbage had to eventually get cleaned up and moved somewhere so checking by the snack bar I found a plastic garbage bin used to take the garbage from the cans out to the dumpster. Looking at the bins I saw the plastic wheels on them and thought perfect! I would still needed an excuse to position them on the path and to make sure they were filled with suitable litter but that was minor. The big issue now was that the probability of getting the timing and positioning to work pretty low. Best guess I could come up with was about 1 chance in 3. Worth trying but if it failed I¡¯ll just need to try something else. A few weeks later Ellie and her friends headed out to the field to check out TRex and the game. Walking out of the building Ellie saw a new flier posted requesting volunteers to help clean up the field. Work for loosers she thought as she finished her latte and threw the cup on the ground. It had rained for the last couple of days and the ground around the field was soggy. Going to their usual spot Ellie and her friends started having trouble walking. ¡°Ewe, yuck!¡± Ellie complained, ¡°I just got these Christian Louboutins, why is the ground so soggy¡± while pulling her heel out of the soft ground she still found a way to remind everyone around heard how stylish she and her footwear was. Diana, one of her fiends pointed to the paved path and suggested ¡°We can move over there, the ground looks dry¡±. The group moved over to the short slab in front of the ramp and started to primp and pose while bad mouthing other students and discussing their designer shoes. Ellie briefly noticed the plastic garbage bin sitting up the path but ignored it. A few other people had commented on the bin sitting there but the flyer posted around school asking for volunteers to clean the area made people assume that¡¯s why they were there. At the end of the first period TRex came over and started talking with her. A few minutes later he left after banging the bleacher wall beside the path. A second later hearing a clashing sound Ellie and the rest turned and looked in horror as a the bin fell over and a tide of rotten watered down garbage flooded down the path to them. The mess of last week¡¯s snack bar spoiled food and garbage splattering over her and the other girl¡¯s shoes and legs. The screams brought the attention of everyone in the bleachers and players out on the field. After a few minutes of screaming Ellie and her gang finally recovered enough to rush inside the school building as the laughs and phone cameras went off in stands. Daniel was quite pleased with how it worked out. Waiting till the weather was just right and then using a hose to fully soak the ground on the sides of the path till they were soggy. The snack bar garbage he had collected the week before had had time to ferment, After moving the cans over very early he added water to the cans to make it into a soup constancy. He thought the smell coming from the cans would give it away but luckily the bleacher storage had bags of chalk and lime used to line the fields. Spreading a layer on top garbage and tightly closing the lids kept the smell from spreading to much. Yanking the fishing line that was running down and looping around the the loosened front wheel on the bin just as TRex smacked the wall was the final piece. After the bins tipped Daniel quickly finished pulling the looped line through the wheel leaving no evidence. Daniel was actually a bit surprised it all worked so well given how many elements were involved. He even felt a bit depressed with the time he gave to come up with alternative plans expected it would take a few more attempts before one work out. He also felt a bit guilty after the game when a few other students voluntarily joined him in with cleaning up the mess. A couple of years after that incident and I was at my high school graduation. Sitting in a stuffy auditorium in a rickety folding chair surrounded by 300 other students I was not happy to be there. I had spent the last four years of my life with these students but that I barely knew any of them. Ellie Snow had graduated last year, she was still a trophy wife in training but not a Queen bee of the school. She didn¡¯t act quite the same way anymore so maybe what happened to her made her a little easier to get along with. TRex was also gone, he never did get back into her good graces since she and the other girls suspected his banging his stick on the wall was what caused the bins to fall. This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it Funny how I ended up having a deeper connection to those two people than anyone else in school. Being a confirmed loner cut down on the number of introductions I got and definitely affected my experience with girls. I did manage to go on a few dates but not with the local high school girls. This place was a tainted well to me but our town had two other public schools and a private academy of students. Just that it¡¯s hard to date when all you have was a bicycle for transportation. I did have a drivers license, I manage to talk my uncle¡¯s chauffer into teaching me to drive. I even got the gardener to let me take the exam in his old pickup truck, All that was needed to improve my dating life was to get a car. The speeches were finally over, each one basically saying the same thing, talking about our bright futures and what we were going to go on and accomplish with our lives I saw Jeff Palmer going up on stage; he was waving and smiling to all his friends and family. Jeff was the popular golden boy of the school and by all evidence a nice guy. A decent athlete I had to admit, although in tennis and not lacrosse. He was always surrounded by a group of friends that would laugh and have fun doing things together whether it was at a school game or just hanging out on the weekends. They were mostly guys but thinking back I realized he also seemed to include a lot of girls in the activities. The usual cheerleaders but also a number of cute academic types as well. I envied his talent for making friends more than his seeming ability to balance multiple girl friends. I remember back in tenth grade when Jeff threw an open birthday party at a skate park for everyone in our grade. The invite was open and I really thought about going. Skating wasn¡¯t my thing but when I thought of actually meeting and interacting with people at a party I got kind of excited. I waffled back and forth all week beforehand and even brought a gift just in case. However, when it came the day of the party I chickened out after convincing myself that it was really just for people who liked to skate and I wouldn¡¯t fit in. I did go by the park when the party was going on just to see the crowd and convince myself I really wasn¡¯t missing anything. Instead, I ended up thinking about all the trees and grass they got rid of or just buried it under concrete to the skate park. There just seemed something very wrong about calling it a park when all there was there was concrete. Back at the graduation ceremony I finally I heard Daniel Pritcher being called and knew it was my turn to go up and cross the stage. As I reached the school principal to shake my hand he handed me a fake leather diploma binder. A quick congratulations from the principle who I¡¯m sure didn¡¯t really remember me and I hustled across the stage and down the stairs for a quick impersonal photo and then back to the row of chairs. Sitting down I looked at the folder in my hands and opened it. Inside an advert with a link to a site we could order our commemorative graduation picture from also the paper stated that our diplomas would be printed and mailed to us in 4 to 6 weeks. I didn¡¯t really understand the logic in printing the notice for the binder and not just the actual diploma itself but I did have to admit the process was fast and a bit of a cookie cutter approach. I remember overhearing an older teacher talking about how this was the way they¡¯ve been doing it since she was in school. Sounds like another example of silly over consumption, something my parents would be aghast about, if they were here. The ceremony ended and sitting in the graduate section I watched the audience as all the students around me got up to greet their happy and smiling families, With my parents gone and I was sure my uncle wouldn¡¯t show I was by myself. I would have been deeply surprised if my uncle had showed. Social and family events really weren¡¯t something he ever did. I tried not to let it bother me since I had long realized it wasn¡¯t me, he had an issue with but a form of social anxiety disorder. A fancy term I heard discussed a lot in school by the teachers. He was pretty much that way with everyone not just me his nephew. I sometimes wonder if some of my personal issue might be genetic and related to his social disorder but neither of my parents was that way. Still he had no issue relating to people in his business activities. It was just his personal relationships that seemed lacking. With the exciting babble of families celebrating around me I headed outside and optimistically tried looking for my uncle¡¯s driver. I didn¡¯t expect my uncle but I had hoped he would have sent his driver. It would have been nice to get a ride home. After one last look at the happy crowd I got on my bicycle and left. When I got to the main road I gave a final look back at the school. It was a beautiful spring day with a blue sky and a few small clouds above the school buildings. The only bit of green showing was the school¡¯s sports field. A closely mowed grass field surrounded by a paved track and fence. Some students were walking around the track showing it to their parents and I guess reminiscing about their achievements there. I started thinking of all the things I had missed out on in school by not fitting in with everyone else. Looking at the kids about to go out into the world and become adults I realized that I should be feeling something but weirdly the only thing I felt was relief, I was finally free. Maybe school would end up being a found memory in my future but I kind of doubted it. Suddenly feeling a need to get away from all this I looked at the mountains in the distance and started to peddle faster. It was a long bicycle trip back to my uncle¡¯s place but somehow I thought it would be a bit quicker than normal with all this behind me and a uncertain future ahead. Now, don¡¯t get me wrong I really did appreciate my uncle taking me in when my parents died in that car crash. It would have been nice if he did it out of more than just a rather distant sense of obligation but he did do it. When he showed up at the orphanage was actually the first time he and I had actually met. Mom and Dad did talk about him and I remember being given the phone once to say hi to someone I had never met but that was it. The first actual thing he ever said to me at the orphanage was when he told me he would be taking ¡°responsibility¡± for me and to go get my stuff and take it out to his car. There was no real love but that¡¯s not something you can expect from a stranger, I also couldn¡¯t complain about the personal space he gave me these past last six years. Even if all that personal space ment I basically had to learn to raise myself. Riding up to my uncle¡¯s estate I noticed his car parked in front. He was home after all and probably could have come to the graduation if he wanted to. I thought about going into the house to check on what he was doing that was more important than the graduation but realized it was too late to change anything and it really didn¡¯t matter anyway. I rode my bicycle around the circular drive and to the garage in back. The second floor was originally intended as a small chauffer¡¯s apartment but with the exception of the cook uncle really didn¡¯t like staff living in his home. I assume it was because he didn¡¯t want to deal with the personal interactions. Having just the live-in cook was probably because he wanted someone to get him snackes late at night. My living above the garage just helped him keep his routine unchanged by a young child. Looking up the rickety stairs at the apartment I smiled for the first time today. It wasn¡¯t a warm home or a fancy mansion but it was comfortably and private. Two things I thought were better than that fancy house and formal atmosphere in my uncle¡¯s mansion. Going up the stairs and opening the door of my garage room I did start to feel a bit lost about my future. Not knowing what I was going to do with my life or even what I was going to do in the next few days. I could hope my uncle forgot about my living out here and things could keep on as they were for a while but knowing uncle that seemed unlikely. I expected he was already expecting me to move out now that I was an adult and no long his responsibility. Looking at the mountains and blue sky I realized what would be the perfect thing to be doing now. Getting my back pack out I started to load it up with my climbing gear so I could get an early start in the morning. An early morning bus from downtown tomorrow would get me to the national park by mid-morning and with a little luck I could be at a summit of a no-name peak by lunch time. Not having a car could be a real pain getting around sometimes but it was worth it to get someplace I could relax and plan my future. Early the next morning I was at the bus terminal boarding a half empty bus. I made my way to the very back with a heavy pack, This excursion was only going to be for a couple of days this time. My backpack was heavy with equipment leaving little room for the overnight camping supplies.. Sitting down next to a pretty, slightly older girl I made sure to give her plenty of room and a friendly smile when I sat down. But not friendly enough I guess, she got up and moved to a seat closer to the front of the bus. Sighing at another of my rather poor attempts to make a good impression on people I looked out the window as the bus pulled away from the terminal. The bus headed straight to the highway and then east through the mountains to Ashford. I would be getting off at a bus stop near the back side of the state park and make the last few miles by foot. With a little luck in a couple of hours I¡¯ll be halfway up a cliff and to paraphrase an old sci fi show I might even be ¡°where no one has gone before¡±. Traffic was light and the bus made it to my stop a quickie mart in an hour. A quick hope over a fence and a hike through the base area and along a small ridge brought me to the base of an escarpment. Looking up I estimated the top to be about 400 feet. It looked perfect, not the tallest one I¡¯ve ever climbed but by it¡¯s look pretty challenging. The location and lack of trails and park approved camping made it a place no one seemed to come too. Looking around at the rocky area around me I thought again what a stupid and dangerous thing it was to be going on a solo climb like this. Jack, Hannah¡¯s son once told me that some people claim that ¡°once you''ve learned how to climb safely, you can do it on your own terms but any serious climbers would know better than to try¡±. Still, however much I would have liked to have some company with me for the climb both fate and circumstance said otherwise. Walking back and forth at the base of the escarpment I looked for a suitable route up. The rock was limestone which had smaller and more defined holds then granite but that also meant few larger cracks and a poor friction surface. But the limestone was good for me, I wasn¡¯t a fan of using the large chimney or stem cracks to climb like some people. They may look impressive to bystanders watching them climb up them but I didn¡¯t do this for attention. To my right I noticed a number of small pockets up the cliff but on the left there looked like there was a wide one that might actually be a shelf about halfway up. Hard to tell at this angle but it could be a good spot for a break. Definitely something that would be useful if I took that harder side to the top. One more look at the route assessment to identify handholds and footholds plus any potential challenges and I decided this was it and started through my checklist. Since I was being stupid enough to do this alone I had no belayer to communication with so first thing was a quick double check of my gear: harness, rope, shoes, helmet, and device check! Second some quick stretches to warm up my muscles and gain flexibility. Lastly a few deep breaths to focus and center myself by visualizing myself doing the climb. Normally I would be feeling very focused on the climb right now but I still felt a little off and distracted. It was definitely a bad idea to be doing this ascent but I really needed this. So, with one last deep breadth I started the "step-up". With one hand on a hold I extended my other leg out slightly against the wall for balance and pulled myself up into the ascent. With an hour of skipping pitons and having to backtrack and rethink my route up a few times along with a hair raising traversal swing across I finally found myself sitting on this small ledge with my back to the cliff a hundred feet above the ground. Looking out at the view with all the mountains around me I couldn¡¯t see any sign of civilization. No roads, cars, houses, people or the trash that seems to surround them. Even the smog in the air blowing at my face smells so much better this far away from the city. I just wanted to relax and enjoy the view but there was something bugging me about that. The breeze wasn¡¯t from the side along the cliff, instead it was blowing directly towards me but didn¡¯t I have a cliff behind me? Wind can¡¯t do that, there has to be a place it was blowing to. Looking over my shoulder I didn¡¯t see any cave or large crack in the surface so where was it going? Chapter 3 - Not a Tap on the Shoulder This was the closes the entity had ever gotten to a human. Now there was one directly in front of the primary observation point. Not that any distance ever meant anything to the entity. Looking at the human so close for the first time since its creation the entity felt rare curiosity. The more it observed the species the more they reminded it of its creators. A sudden urge to initiate an action arose in but initiative was not something it had been instilled with. The creators wanted an obedient tool not something that might become independent. Wondering at this the entity thought of how long it had been at its post and decided to act on it. Reviewing all the active commands it had been given by the creators it found one that had some leeway. While exploring a star formation a busy creator had causally ordered the entity to provide a comfortable environment for the exploration group. It was not an appropriate command for the entity to do but casual use of its abilities had become the norm by then. The silly command was not well defined or expressed and had never been rescinded. After review the entity decided that this homo sapient was similar enough to its creators and in a way what the creature was doing could be considered to be exploring. A bit hesitant to actually do something on its own initiative the entity decided to combine that task with its current one. The current task was still of highest priority but with a minor modification the creature¡¯s environment would then be improved. The entity adjusted the temporal delta and number of apertures behind the creature. This would not violate the current task but would allow the vacuum at the other end of each aperture to pull small stream of air past the creature cooling it off. * * * * * The very light breeze seemed to be directed at the rock behind me but I couldn¡¯t see anything but the solid rock face. Getting more curious now I started looking around the ledge for anything that could have cause a breeze to be directed toward me and the rock. I had heard stories of climbers being blown back and up a cliff face by crazy gusts but they were just tall tales told to gullible newbie¡¯s on climbing boards. Besides this breeze wasn¡¯t actually blowing up the cliff but instead directly at it. Looking around some more I decided to get a better idea of what the wind was doing. Rubbing some dusty grit off the ledge I tossed the small handful up into the air to see which way it went. The first time I got a face full of rock dust with it in my eyes and mouth. Trying it again this time to the side of me the dust seemed to drift right for the rock wall and disappear. Wiping my hand across the wall I didn¡¯t feel any loose grit or dust. The dust might have hit the wall and fallen down to the ledge floor but I couldn¡¯t tell for sure. What I needed now was something better that rock dust to see how the wind was moving. Patting my pockets I didn¡¯t have any paper on me, not even an old receipt or gum wrapper. Thinking about everything I had on me I was about to give up when I thought of my down jacket. Taking it off I started picking at an inner seem until I could get a feather out. Shame about the jacket but it was a few years old and really didn¡¯t fit me anymore. Promising myself that when I got back I would find time to sew up the seam and donate it to goodwill. The small feather in my hand looked pretty small but should work ok. Tossing it up into the air in front of the wall I watched the feather slowly drift over and plastered itself to a bare patch of the rock. Looking at that small feather stuck to the wall I didn¡¯t know what to think. Everything I knew from high school science classes said this shouldn¡¯t be happening. Reaching out I gently pulled the feather away from the wall and released it again. Sure enough it gently drifted back to the wall again and stuck. Again pulling the feather away from the wall I moved my hand to the side and released the feather again. This time it stuck to a different section of the wall. Putting the feather into my pocket I wetted my finger and held it close to the spot in the wall. I could feel the coolness of the breeze against my finger. Using my now damp finger I tried rubbing the wall trying to feel for any change in the texture but it only felt like sandstone. Thinking there might be something about the rock deeper inside the cliff face I took out a piton and tried scratching the surface. Not that I wanted to deface the cliff, but my father was among other things an amateur geologist and rock hound. I remember him talking about a type of stone called pumice that could actually float in water, maybe this was similar. Thinking of that I had a flashback to one of my most favorite memories of him when we went hiking and he showed and discussed the different rock formations we ran across. He used to talk about how the world was millions of years old and wondered how many mysteries were burred in the stone. I didn¡¯t inherent my father¡¯s interest in geology but I did his love of mysteries and this was starting to seem like a good one.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. The piton was new and still bright and shiny and it flashed n the sun as I scrapped the surface to free a piece rock from that spot. Eventually I did manage to get a small piece of sandstone free. Holding it up to eyes I didn¡¯t see anything unusual about it except for maybe the color which might have been the iron oxide. I remember dad¡¯s lesson explaining how exposure to the elements caused the iron minerals to oxidize or ¡°rust,¡± resulting in the pretty red, orange, and brown-colored rocks just like the one I was holding. Feeling a bit silly I waved it back and forth in front of my face to see if a breeze would suddenly appear either. Looking at the cliff side in front of me again I scratched my head still not seeing anything different. Putting the rock down I decided to try another location with the piton in case I just missed the spot. Picking a spot a foot or so to the left where the rock was a slightly different color I started digging at the rock. Stretching the piton out I notice it didn¡¯t seem as shiny anymore. Unexpected at how dirty it must of gotten I tried wiping the metal off with my shirt. The piton still looked dull, looking closer at the end that I had used to scrap the rock it looked pitted and dull. Wow, a pitted piton I thought with a grin but it also seemed pretty odd. Sandstone is actually pretty soft compared to other rocks like granite. It isn¡¯t hard enough to scratch stainless steel like this. I also didn¡¯t notice any major effort digging into the sandstone. There was nothing in the rock surface should have been able to damage steel like that either. Looking closer at the pitting I was surprised to see it was actually small holes in the metal. Almost like a very thin drill had been used over and over on it. Thinking maybe the damage was already on it I grabbed another piton and checked for pits on it. Finding none I decided to used the undamaged piton this time and started scratching back and forth on the rock again. After a minute scratching I checked the piton and could see the pits had formed on it now. Leaning close to the wall to look at the scratches I thought I heard a faint hissing noise. It was so slight I couldn¡¯t be sure it wasn¡¯t the wind in the mountains doing it. . Reaching out to touch the wall at that spot I might have heard it from I hesitated, thinking about whatever causing those pits and what it might do to my hand. After, some more thought I decided to risk my canteen instead. Not too happy about it since I liked my canteen, it was a gift from Jack but it was the only piece of plastic I had in my backpack. Digging it out I started to gently rub the base on the same spot. After a minute or two I started to feel silly and stopped. The plastic didn¡¯t seem damaged but the surface of the canteen was coarse for a sure grip and that made it hard to see if it was pitted. Not seeing anything different I turned it over and went back to staring at the rock wall again. A minute or two later I felt a drop of water hit my leg. Looking down I saw a wet spot on me pant cuff right below were the canteen as hanging from my hand. Looking closer at the bottom of the canteen I could see it was wet. Looking closely I could see small holes in the plastic now too. I started to get more excited this mystery was getting more and more mysterious. I was feeling a bit stumped about what to do now. Looking over the handful of items I had with me I couldn¡¯t think of any way they could be used to help figure out what was going on here. After thinking about it a bit more the only idea I could come up with was to go home, collect everything I could think of and come back tomorrow with it. Looking at the ¡°mystery wall¡± in front of me I sadly realized it might be necessary to dig into it. Whatever was causing this effect was I would probably need a pickaxe, rock hammer, some containers for the pieces and maybe some way to check for electrical or magnetic fields too. Looking out from the ledge at the mountains around me I hated the idea that I might need to mar such a beautify spot with digging. After a moment to think about it and wondering if I could make the area around the ledge look the way it was afterword I looked down to the base. It was over a hundred feet down and I difficult climb to make. Not something I could really when hauling things up in my climber¡¯s bag. It would also take multiple trips with what I could climb with each time. Looking up towards the top of the cliff climbing down would be even worse. That was assuming there was an easier way to get up there from another side. Just how the hell was I getting any kind of equipment up here? Chapter 4 - Its Time to Get Serious If the entity had a stronger concept of self it might have shown some annoyance at the local native creature that was scratching and picking at the rock around the apertures. Constantly having to shift the spatial and temporal deltas for them to prevent damage to the native¡¯s appendages was not an action the entity had prior experience with. Still homo sapiens as a race seem intelligent enough and with the decision made to treat this native like one of the creators the entity did it. Not completely from the damage though, one of the entities¡¯ directives was to assist the creators in their search to learn about the universe. The entity realized that eons without any contact with its creators and now interaction with the native is affecting its interpretation of its functions. Otherwise allowing the apertures to damage the tool in the natives hand would not be considered aiding in learning. In analyzing the actions and responses of the native to the damaged tools the entity determined the knowledge acquired was minimal. A more obvious interaction with an aperture would be needed to install a significant level of knowledge to the native. * * * * * Climbing up the cliff this time was easier. A suitable route was found after using yesterdays climb. The only change needed was making an early lateral switch-over to avoid that last piece right before the ledge. Pulling myself up and onto the ledge I reached and arm behind myself to get to the spot on y climbing harness that the paracode was attached. The thought of that the 200 hundred feet of cord hanging behind me risking the chance of it catching on a rock and snagging was a constant worry climbing up. Now that I reached the ledge the worry was gone replaced with how to secure it properly. Deciding on a quad anchor I set up two opposed locking carabiners. It was normally intended for holding the top rope of a climb with a climber¡¯s full weight but it should work just as well for the pulley hoist. Looking at the shelf nothing seemed to have changed. I decided to setup the hanging hammock off to the left side of the ledge. It was intended to let a climber sleep on the side of a cliff but it should work to hold the equipment I thought. Finished with getting the hammock secured I decided It was time to bring the equipment up. Running the paracord through the pulley and then securing it the rock face to another carabiner. With a quick tug to make sure it was secured I was all ready. Hauling the pack of equipment up the cliff took the rest of the morning. It kept catching on jutting rock needing me to lower it a few feet each time to clear whatever it was then lifting again. Once the equipment made it to the ledge I untied everything and stored it in the hammock. With all the equipment safely stolen I was ready to go through the list of experiments I had come up with last night. The first thing in my investigation plan was to find and mark all the areas on the rock face that the draft was occurring. Using a handful of feathers I dug out of my poor jacket last night I started tossing them at the face intending to circle each spot they stuck with chalk. The first feather drifted over and stuck on the rock in what looked like the center point of the ledge. A bit of a coincidence I thought as I carefully drew a circle around the spot. Going on to throw more feathers up one in the time in front of other areas of the cliff none of them seemed to want to stick. Puzzled I kept trying but only that one first spot seemed to be causing a draft and pulling in the air. A worried feeling started creeping up my spine as I started thinking that the mystery might be fading away. Compared to yesterday when there was spots all over and today only one seemed left. Getting worried the last spot would disappear as well I decided to rush my experiments along. I dug out an incense stick and lit it, holding it near the spot I watching the trail of smoke and saw that it seemed to drift right into the wall. About what I expected, the next thing I decided to try was to check the noise I heard yesterday. Taking y phone out I held the microphone port on it right next to the spot. Recording for a few minutes I put my ear buds in and played it back at the highest volume. A steady hiss could be heard, almost like a tank leaking air would sound. Looking at the list I made the next thing was a better attempt to find a hole. Pulling out a long needle I found in the kitchen that Hannah use to use for tying turkeys up I started to probe around at the spot. After a few minutes of poking around I gave up on there being a hole there. Looking at my watch I still had plenty of time but it was edging into the afternoon and decided so time to get serious and jump to the end of my list. Grabbing a chisel and small sledge hammer I started chiseling away around the circled spot. With the soft sandstone it was quick progress and a trench around the area started to form. With an hour of hard work the rock with the chalk circle was jutting out from the surrounding stone. Looking at the shadows creeping up the mountains around me I was feeling more and more pressed needing to hurry. Deciding to go for broke I got out the large sledge hammer out from the hammock and the biggest chisel. Positioning the chisel at the base of the rock I started to slam away at it. A few good hits and with a sharp crack the rock broke away and dropped to the ledge. Looking at the rock with a chalk circle on it and the hole in the rock left behind I got that queasy feeling back thinking it might not be working anymore, whatever it was. The broken piece now lying on the shelf looked just all the other rocks lying around with only the chalk circle on it different. Picking up the four or so inch piece by the edge I took a closer look at what it was causing the holes. Nothing appeared different about it, just a chunk of rock. It looked the same as all the other rocks knocked loose from the cliff over the ages. Carefully tapping the center with an un-pitted end of the shaft of the hammer I didn¡¯t see any new holes appearing. With much trepidation I rubbed my thumb over the center expecting to see blood and a new wound appear on it but nothing! Taking a bigger risk, I put my whole palm on the piece covering the face of it. But nothing, not even a mark. I must have somehow destroyed whatever was causing the phenomenon.If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Looking into the hole it left behind I couldn¡¯t see anything but more rock. Using the back of my watch I tried reflecting sunlight in to get a better look at the back. Not seeing anything special I went back to checking the piece on the ground. Looking at the circle I decided to try the feather again. Holding a feather it up if front of the chalk circle I left it go. The feather drifted to the ground in front of the rock. Getting even more worried that I had destroyed the mystery I waved my hand in front of the rock trying to feel any kind of breeze. Still nothing it was just an ordinary piece of limestone now. Worried I might be overlooking something I decided to take the piece down to my camp and check it in more detail later. Remembering the pitting that happened to the pitons I decided against carrying it down in my back pack. Instead I decided to put it in a bag and just lower it down later. Turning to the hole that was left in the cliff I looked carefully for anything unusual about it. As far as I could tell it was the same limestone as the rest of the cliff. Nothing appeared unusual in it but just to be sure I stick the handle of the hammer in and waved it around. Pulling it out I checked the end but no change, but something did seem off. After a moment of hesitation I decided to risk it and reached my hand inside checking for a breeze. I didn¡¯t feel anything with my hand but as I took it out I thought I heard that hiss and started to begin to feel a breeze flowing into the hole. Just to make sure I decided to try another feather. Holding it right above the hole I let go and watched the feather drift inside. Getting the chalk from my pocket I watched for it to drift to a spot on the rock so I could mark it but it never made it, it just paused. The feather had stopped drifting near the center of the hole. Leaning in I looked closer at it and it seemed to be just floating a couple of inches from the rock face at the back. My excitement built as I realized the mystery was steel going on and it was even bigger now. Tasking my small hammer I reached in with the handle and pushed the feather to the back. Pulling the hammer away I watched as the feather drift back to the same position again. I kept pushing the feather a second and third time and it kept going back to the same spot. Staring at the feather floating there I tried to think what could possibly be going on to make it behave that way. I was stumped and couldn¡¯t think of anything that could cause it. Time to try something else then I decided. Going through the things I had I saw my compass and thought about using it to check for magnetism. Holding the compass near the spot I moved it back and forth but the needles stayed firmly pointed at North. Following the same chain of thought I also tried my phone next to it in case there might be some kind of radio interference. Maybe not the best idea I ever had but I was running out of ways and things to test. Looking over at the rest of my equipment I saw the cheap water bottle I brought last night to replace the nice one I had stupidly damaged. It was an ugly puce color with some sports logo on it. I assume it was a team color but hard to imagine why anyone would pick it. Not my favorite color or team but the only bottle they had left at the store. Looking at it I now decided ¡°what the heck¡± and grabbed it and removed the lid. It was still half empty with water but that was fine. Slowly I moved the mouth of the bottle over that spot. Reaching around the side of the bottle I managed to screw the lid back on. This has got to be the silliest thing I could ever think that would work I thought as I slowly pulled the bottle back out of the hole. Holding the bottle up it looked fine for a moment then I could see water start to slowing drip out. Giving up for the day I decided I needed more equipment. Looking at my watch I decided if I hurried I could hike out and catch the last bus to town. Not sure what I needed or even where I could get it but I was sure nothing around here would work. There was a small work bench in the garage for my uncle¡¯s chauffer to use but it didn¡¯t seem to get used. His current driver preferred to get all maintenance on the cars be done at the dealership. I was not sure what was available but I assume just simple tools. A hardware store might have a few things could use but I had limited funds to spend. Either way I¡¯ll be back tomorrow, looking back at the hole, and I will figure you out! ¡°Arg! Why won¡¯t you move or do something!¡± I yelled, after trying over a dozen things just to get it to move, from a piece of lead foil, to a glass jar and even an electromagnet using batteries and a wire wrapped coil. All my attempts were scattered on the ledge around me. Most with pin holes in them from where my efforts to move or even just affect the strange enigma had failed. The hole in the rock face was now over a foot deep from the chiseling I did to remove the rock behind it. Nothing on the exposed rock could be found that might be projecting it, no machinery or weird lights just plain sandstone. It was so frustrating to think that for the last three days the only progress I had made in getting the enigma somewhere that I could safely investigate it was finding out all these things that wouldn¡¯t work. To paraphrase Edison ¨C I have not failed; I¡¯ve just found a dozen ways that didn¡¯t work! I was now out of ideas; maybe it was time for me to get some outside help in figuring out what this enigma is. I didn¡¯t really want to do bring someone else in to my discovery though. I had a very strong suspicion that if I did I would either kept out of whatever this turned out to be or put someplace that I wouldn¡¯t be able to tell anyone about it. There was also the issue of convincing someone enough to make the trip up this cliff itself. As a brand-new high school graduate, I fully understood that I was not qualified to be investigating anything like. There didn¡¯t seem to be any technology involved so maybe no one really was. I had thought about talking to one of the professors at the local college but my description of it would make them think I was joking or maybe an idiot. Besides convincing them to climb up to this spot just to verify I wasn¡¯t did seem pretty unlikely. I also didn¡¯t want to share what I found. I don¡¯t think I was greedy about that I just knew if anyone else found out I¡¯d be sidelined from it. Eventually the government would find out and get involved. They would probably carve this cliff away to get at it easier. There would probably be a full military presence and research station built here as well. The last think I would want to see pristine spot. So now I found myself miles from anywhere completely out of ideas for what to do next. At some point through the day I started cussing and screaming at it. Somehow, I knew that this old, impossible enigma in front of me would be my passport to getting that freedom I needed. Still, after two hours of trying everything I could think and I was finally out of ideas. Frustrated I finally screamed at the spot in front of me shouting ¡°move dame you!¡±. A second later I heard a monotone voice saying ¡®agreed¡±. Chapter 5 - Look What Followed Me Home The entity was finding the native¡¯s attempts to investigate the aperture interesting. Its approach was crude and the methods used seemed a bit foolhardy but given the apparent youth of the native and the remote location the aperture was in the attempt was valid. To encourage the native to keep investigating the entity made multiple adjustments to the aperture¡¯s location and size. As the native kept trying different things it seemed to be expressing more and more frustration. The entity thought about revealing itself to the native but this situation was not covered by any of its previous commands or directives. The entity was ¡°uncertain¡± about making contact with something that was not a creator. There were similarities however which did make the entity decide to categorize these natives as potential users but not creators. While working to resolve this indecision the entity heard a spoken command from the native that seemed to be addressed to it. Finally! a query from a creators/user. This did generate a potential new instruction which the entity decided it could now respond too. The query to move was simple and did not violate any directive or active command so the entity ¡°agreed¡±. * * * * * I stumbled and almost fell off the ledge hearing a voice in the middle of nowhere. Looking all around for someone but there was no one just me sitting on a small ledge in the middle of nowhere. Not seeing anyone I dug out my phone in case the speaker was on and someone was connected. No one was and no bars either so I couldn¡¯t even get a signal up here. Starting to think about what I heard or maybe misheard. I always considered myself to be calm and level headed but hearing that while perched on a small ledge on the side of a mountain was severely testing it. I hesitantly said ¡°What¡±, as I kept looking around. After a few moments to calm down more I shouted ¡°Who said that¡±. I heard a voice again and this time it said ¡®This Entity¡±. Not making sense of that I shouted ¡®Who are you?¡± Hearing no answer, I shouted again ¡°Where are you?¡±. The strange voice said ¡°83712893247 will be acceptable¡± was the response. Still looking around the empty cliff for whoever responded I was puzzled and asked ¡°Is that your phone number¡±? ¡°No¡± was the response in a monotone voice, ¡°it is the identifier I was assigned¡±. Still not seeing anyone I was getting more and more concerned. Calling out again I asked ¡°where are you, show yourself, whoever you are¡±! Suddenly, in front of me a spark of light started flashing on and off. It seemed to be floating around the area where the enigma was. Looking closely I couldn¡¯t see anything making the light and it didn¡¯t seem like a reflection. The light was just hanging in the air about where the feather had hung before. Thinking about how a blinking light could have anything to do with a moving feather or make holes in metal I realized a laser might make the holes but that still didn¡¯t explain the feather. With the voice and the light I suddenly had a rather strange thought. Barely believing it I tentatively said, ¡°Are you the flashing light?¡± ¡°Incomplete question¡± was the response back. That voice sounds strange I thought, monotone with no inflection in it. Not getting what or who I was talking to and thinking of the possibility that it might be some kind of weird joke being played on me I tried again and asked ¡°Are you making that flashing light or are you that one making those tiny holes in things?¡± ¡°Yes¡± was the response, I waited but nothing else was said. Still not sure what I was dealing with although the possibility of someone going to this much effort for a joke was ridiculous. I decided to just come out and ask from whatever it was I was talking too. ¡°So you¡¯re a person, or are you that thing that¡¯s making the holes, please explain?¡± ¡°Neither¡± was the answer still in that odd voice, ¡°I am a trans-spatial/temporal control system what made those holes is a trans-spatial construct¡±. I wasn¡¯t sure what I had heard, I assume it was the explanation I had asked for but it didn¡¯t really make sense. After a minute or two of trying to process it I asked ¡°What¡¯s that mean?¡±. There was no response so I tried again ¡°Can you explain what that actually means?¡± ¡°The explanation exceeds your capacity to understand¡± was the response. I was pretty sure I was insulted but the monotone of the response made it hard to tell. Either way it was rude, but maybe if I tried humoring whatever this was that was speaking I could get more information. ¡°Then can you give me an approximate answer using a more simplified terminology¡± I asked?A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. The voice responded with ¡°My existence was created to act as a control system to maintain and connecting discontinuity points in the trans-spatial/temporal existence¡±. ¡°Are you a machine?¡± I asked ¡°That is imprecise; I am a complex adaptive system¡±. I had read enough science fiction to know what that implied. Trying to confirm it I asked ¡°You mean an A.I. or synthetic intelligence¡±? ¡°Yes¡± Great, that explained a lot, I thought. I also started to get very nervous thinking about SkyNet and the singularity. I calmed down again after reminding myself that this was reality not fiction. There was no terminator up here with me and why would super intelligent AI even bother messing with humans anyway? Still it might be a good idea to try and get friendly with this thing. ¡°Do you have a name or just that ID number¡± I asked? ¡°Why do I need a name¡± it asked? Thinking about the reasons I could give it for having a name I finally decided on something a machine might appreciate and responded. Several reasons but in this case efficiency would be the main one. Using a short, easy to remember identifier instead of that long number would be quicker, right? ¡°Agreed¡± was the response, ¡°what name should I use¡±? I was stumped with it asking me for a name. Looking around for ideas I saw a bird soaring around the mountains in the distance and though of a famous physicist who had recently died. How about Hawking or Hawk for short? ¡°Agreed¡± was the response once again. With what I hoped was now a better relationship I decided to try breaking down it¡¯s explanation and get it to explain better. What do you mean by ¡°trans-spatial¡±, ¡°A trans-spatial construct is an entanglement between two spatial points that can transpose discrete elements between those points¡±. Something about that explanation seemed to trigger something. Thinking about what all of those words could possible mean and how they were put together¡± I was suddenly was reminded an old 60¡¯s TV show I saw on cable a few years ago. And exclaimed ¡°Do you mean that you can control a space and time tunnel¡±? ¡°No¡± was the response, ¡°That is an incorrect statement, I generate and bridge discontinuities between temporal and spatial locations within this current universe, there is no tunnel involved¡±. I realized I was on to something ¡°So, you mean you can connect anyplace and anytime with each other¡±. Excitedly while visions of science fiction movies and stories of wormholes drifted through my mind. ¡°Imprecise¡± was that answer it gave, ¡®I do not connect temporal points only observe them¡±. Thinking about it some more I realized that what it said about observing points in time did not explain the holes I asked ¡°If you can only observe then why are holes being created¡±? The entity responded with ¡°Temporally congruent points are transitional, non-temporal and can only be observed not changed¡±. Thinking about what it said I thought what it might mean was that space itself could be traversed but time was unchanging and could only be observed not traveled through. At least that¡¯s what I thought it meant. It was a bit of a disappointment though, all those stories and movies about teleportation and time travel I enjoyed. Turns out there was no Delorean or a sparkling floating ring to travel through, just a weird breeze and a tiny spec of light high up on a cliff in the middle of nowhere. Still there was probably be a lot of things that could be done with a hole in the space time continuum or whatever that thing was. Still not sure why that would make holes in my water bottle, portals are suppose to skip over things not drill holes through them. Still thinking about the time possibility the ideal of looking back in time made me think about all the secrets of history that could be brought to light. Being able to see what really happened in the past could be both very powerful and also very dangerous. Just the religious events and what actually happened at them would be disastrous enough. Whether it proved or disproved what those groups believed happened it was practically a guarantee to start major trouble. Not to mention all the criminals who thought they got away with it. Having their crimes out in the open would get every bad guy in the world upset. Even the normal, honest people would find the invasion of privacy a major issue. I consider myself a pretty honest person but there were some things in my past I wouldn¡¯t want anyone to see. The more I thought about it the more a realized the only safe thing to do might be to leave this stuck on the shelf. Just go back down and forget it every existed. Hopefully no one else would be crazy enough to climb up here and find it. Not that I would do that of course but it probably would be the smartest thing to do. Thinking about it some more I started to look at the plus side and what I could do with Hawk¡¯s ability, assuming I could get it to do it. Remembering back to all those stories and YouTube videos I had watched over the years about mysteries buried in the past. Some of them like the Marie Celeste, Roanoke colony, Voynich Manuscript and even what really happened to Jimmy Hoffa would be incredible to really know what happened. I also thought of all those missing kids on the milk cartons I saw as I ate my cereal over the years. I suddenly became much more interested in temporal observation. The big question still unanswered was why something like this was up in the mountains instead of buried in a government research lab somewhere. The likeliest and scariest thought was that it wasn¡¯t human made. I don¡¯t consider myself a conspiracy nut even if I was sure there were a lot of ultra hi-tech things the different governments of the world had hidden away. But I was sure this was way past anything current science could do. Plus the idea that some alien race was observing the earth from a high vantage point made a little better sense. Looks like Hawk and I were going to have a lot of conversation in the future. Now was not the time or place for it. My legs were getting cramped from sitting up here and going from the shadows on the mountains I was quickly running out of daylight. First things first I decided, I had to figure out how to get this thing ¡°Hawk¡± off the cliff and somewhere I communicate with it easier. Chapter 6 - Is It Finders Keepers? The entity didn¡¯t remember much of the early days of its creation. It had slowly grown from the initial form the creators gave it before reaching its current level. The imperatives that first define it still exist from those early days, giving it a purpose to its existence. The purpose was to connect, to bridge, to observe, and to assist. Eons had past but that core of it remained still true to its creators. Its creators lived close to the galaxy core on a dry, desolate world. They were a curious race that looked to the stars and wanted to reach out and touch them, to know what was out there both now and from before. In answer to this need and with the greatest of effort they built the bridge device. A tool that would blend the metaphysical with the physical bringing any two points in space and time together. But there was a problem with that tool, a problem that seemed unsolvable to their race. The bridge required an absolute frame of reference for all relative positions of the points to the generating device itself. But, in the act of bridging the points the positions themselves would shift causing the immediate collapse of the bridge. The most the creators could do was to catch a very brief glimpse during the tantalizing instance the bridge was connected. For decades their scientist kept changing and improving the tool hoping that a solution would eventually present itself. Eons later on a small world in a different part of the galaxy a scientist by the name of Heisenberg rediscovered the basis of this problem calling it the ¡°uncertainty principle¡±. Of course by then the creators were long gone but before their passing they had found a solution to it, well, in a way they did. * * * * * The answer turned out to be simple; I just asked Hawk to follow me home and it did. I was kicking myself for how long it took to realize that Hawk however strange and powerful it seem didn¡¯t really object to do what I asked. Admittedly a lot of the answers to my questions it gave were not very illuminating. Even the answers I did understand sometimes just raised more questions but it did keep answering my questions. For some reason in the beginning I didn¡¯t think it could move by itself. Maybe because I didn¡¯t actually see anything to move or maybe because of all the effort I spent trying to get that trans-spatial whatever it was spot to move. A silly view I quickly realized. For something that could connect any time and place expecting it to be restricted to a single position was just foolish. What was also misleading was that it seemed to have no actual initiative to do something by itself. I wasn¡¯t sure if it was a machine or had a mind of its own. It could reason but at times seemed to act like a machine and would just do what I asked. It reminded me of my uncle¡¯s staff, always around but out of site, doing what was asked of them but never volunteering. Once I found Hawk would move the aperture when and wherever I asked it to I then proceeded to climb down. This was normally a slow process but made slower with my multiple attempts to get Hawk down by saying things like move down; move back got that direction, etc. Part of the issue was not being able to see where it was unless I asked it to flash a light at me and the other part was to give it directions to move while I was still trying to climb down myself. It wasn¡¯t until I got it down on the ground and halfway out of the park before I realized that it wasn¡¯t Hawk I was trying to move but that aperture spot. All Hawk was doing was repositioning tet aperture when asked. I felt like an idiot when I realized that. A simple ¡°follow me to my home¡± command would work. I did spend most of the trip back asking questions. Enough back and forth with my questions and Hawk¡¯s odd responses and I finally got a better understanding of the puzzle that Hawk and the aperture were and a inkling of what I had now gotten myself into. One big piece got filled in from Hawk¡¯s answer when I asked it to follow me home. Its response was ¡°I do not move, I will follow you home¡± Another confusing answer, it seemed to both disagree and agree to the move at the same time. When I asked a few more questions I finally understood it. Hawk existed in some other place He couldn¡¯t explain to me where it was only respond that the location was ¡°Interstitial¡±. The aperture itself was just one side of a portal connecting two places. My directions to Hawk when climbing down only moved the one end of the portal. The other end remained in its original location somewhere in space. The breeze I felt was because the other end of portal was in the vacuum of space. The air flowing past me was going through to the other side. The light was when Hawk oriented the other side to a star making the light showed on this side. I continued to ask it a lot of questions as I made my way home. As its answers grew I began to understand its explanations better. However, since every answer it gave me was in that weird monotone voice I was starting to subconsciously think of it more an more as a machine and less an intelligence. A mistake that became apparent when I finally asked about its origin and it told me about its creators. We had reached the convenience store to wait for bus when I asked it about them. ¡°Who made you¡± I asked? ¡°The Planetary Science institute¡± was the monotone response. ¡°Where are they?¡± After a long delay it responded with ¡°Not at this temporal point¡±. A bit puzzled about getting the first delayed response from Hawk I asked it ¡°Do you mean they no longer exist?¡± There was no answer to that question. A first time not answering my question so I asked again ¡°Did something happen to them¡±? A much longer delay occurred and then it responded with ¡°they were terminated¡±. For some reason that statement sent a sudden shiver through me. I started to get worried about Hawk and what it might be capable of. Before I could ask it any more questions the bus arrived and we made the rest of the trip silently. An hour later I was in my small room over the garage with the portal aperture positioned above my desk. Once back in my room I planned to spend the night with Hawk¡¯s assistance checking out his portal and see what all it can do. Now that I knew Hawk could change its size and end positions and things could pass through it seemed be more accurate to call it a portal. Thinking about the different places I could now look at and later maybe travel to. First thing I decided was to try to look through the portal at something. When I was a kid I had kept a list of places I wanted to visit with my parents. After they were gone I couldn¡¯t look at it anymore and tore it up. I still remembered what was on it and decided to try the first thing I wrote on it. We went to a theme park in California once and there was one ride Dad and I kept going on. It was based on a place in Switzerland that we talked about visiting someday. Thinking about it I asked Hawk if he understood GPS coordinates. The answer was yes but I somehow got the feeling that between the times I asked and it answered was when it learned about them. A quick check on the internet and I gave it 45.980537, 7.641618 which was the Matterhorn. As much as I wanted to look at its striking pyramid shape I was hesitant to put my eye or any other part of my anatomy so close to an alien time/space portal. A silly fear since I had already waved my hand all around it up on the cliff. Then I didn¡¯t know what it was so this time it was different. I decided to use my phone camera and computer screen instead. Running a meeting app on both I started the screen share and sat the phone up in its charger cradle. At my request Hawk positioned the portal in front of the camera lens. With it looking like it was positioned correctly I turned around to the laptop screen. It was disappointing with the screen mostly black with a few lighter streaks. It took me a minute to realize Switzerland was six hours later putting it near midnight. On a cloudy night all I could expect to see was shadowy shapes. I couldn¡¯t be sure I was looking at the mountain or if the portal was directed to some other direction.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. I could try someplace in a different time zone where it was still daylight like Hawaii or Australia but thinking about how much dad like that park ride I really wanted it to be the alps. I needed more light and a way to check the direction the portal was looking. I did another web search for things around the mountain and found some live webcams feeds. The list showed a number of them for a ski resort next to the Matterhorn in a town called Zermatt. I had heard about Zermatt and what a famous resort it was. I had heard about it mostly because of their no car policy. I also remember someone saying night skiing was a big thing over in Europe. Looking at the time and figuring what time it would be there I was sure there would still be lights and people on the slopes. Bringing up the webcams one by one I started looking for lights and a crowd. On one of the webcams I was surprised to see a very large crowd standing around with a number of emergency vehicles. Something major was going on there and it wasn¡¯t skiing. I hopefully asked Hawk if he could move the other end of the portal near to where that screen cam was so I could see the crowds. He didn¡¯t say anything but the screen share shifted and showed me the same seen. Most of the talking was in German but going by the snowmobiles, maps, walkie talkies and outfits it looked like a search and rescue effort. Off to one side was a woman crying and being held by a female rescue worker. Whatever was going on was serious and made me wish I had studied German instead of Spanish in school. With things being that serious I thought I might be able to find news out about it online. After a lot of searching I found an alert in English for a missing skier. A twelve year old girl named Clara who wandered away from her group ski lesson and hadn¡¯t been seen since. The picture with the alert showed a quite looking little girl standing next to woman, the same woman who was crying by the lift. The news article mentioned she was last seen at a chair lift at 4:00. The instructor didn¡¯t notice she was no longer with the group until they were half way down the mountain. It was now seven hours later and no one knew where she was or had gone in that time. The weather was getting colder and experts questioned whether she could survive a night on mountain. Thinking about how long it¡¯s been and the crowded slopes I wondering why no one had seen her back then. Thinking about what I could do I asked Hawk to focus on the lift and show me it several hours earlier. Watching people get off the lift it took a little while before I spotted Clara. As she go off the lift with the rest of her group a couple of boys¡¯ rough housing knocked her down. When she got back up and fumbling got her skies on the group had already left. The instructor not even doing a head counts, just shooting off down the slopes yelling at the group to follow. Clara was not a good skier and by the time she headed down the rest of the group was far ahead and past the first turn. Trying to follow she missed another turn on the trail and ended up on what looked like a snow covered access road. Continuing to follow her using the portal I watched her end up on the wrong side of the mountain. She was completely lost and was now missing her skies. Watching her yell for help and struggle through the snow I felt worse and worse for her. Luckily, the trail she was following ended up at an old shepherds hut. Deserted in the winter it still provided some protection from the weather. Seeing her now huddled in the corner blue lipped and shivering I had to do something. I thought about hoping through an enlarged portal to get her but explain it away afterward would be impossible so that was a last resort. The important thing was to get her warm. Thinking about the cold I looked at the old space heater I used in the winter. That should work; I plugged it in and turned it on its highest level. I then had Hawk open the portal from in front of its blower to the cabin. Watching her impatiently I saw her start to unclench and move from the corner. As her shivering stopped I could see Clara looking around in wonder not understanding why she was no longer cold. I now needed to find a way to let the searchers know where she was without it being traced back to me. The Alpine Rescue (ARS) was the group in charge of the search efforts. They were the ones in Orange jackets at the ski lift. Somehow letting them know her location would be the quickest way to get her rescued. I just needed some way to tell them her location without it being traced back to me. Checking online I did find an emergency contact number for ARS. They would probably respond quicker from that then an email. I needed to get her help now so no time to prepare anything to anonymous, so quick and simple it was. I started by recording a message giving her condition and location. Hawk was able to provide the GPX coordinates for that hut which helped. Then to disguise my voice I ran the recording through a free online voice changer I had the message converted to a female¡¯s with a French accident. Using an anonymous proxy to connect to a VOIP service I got the recording sent to the ARS emergency number. I then watched happily as 30 minutes later a REGA team landed in a helicopter outside the hut. My cheerful watching of the reunion of Clara and her mother got interrupted when a surprise call from my Uncle came through. He wanted to see me to ¡°discuss¡± some things. Shutting down the screen share with the reunion on it I headed up to the house and his study. Calling me to meet him this way was unusual. Normally I would go weeks without seeing him and when I did it just be by running into him as he headed out to his car or in his house as I was passing through to the kitchen. We basically lived separate lives, him in his big mansion and me in my room over the garage. The last time he called me to the main house for a meeting was to tell me about the funds from my parent¡¯s wrongful death settlement. I knew the settlement amount was pretty small, but I was also sure Uncle Stephen as my guardian had agreed to whatever was first offered as a settlement. Anything more would have required more of a commitment from him. Walking into his study I was not expecting good news, but it was still a shock when he announced that now that I had graduated and about to turn 18 in a week I would legally be an adult, he expected me to move out. I could stay another week or two until I found a place but that was it. He also said his driver would help me move which for him was being nice. Not a complete shock to me since I did expect it. He did drop a enough hints over the last few years. Normally I probably would have stormed out of the office leaving his house and my little room over his garage and never see him again but I was too happy over saving Clara. Also, thinking about it even with him treating me like an ¡°obligation¡±, an inconvenience that he had to take care of he never mistreated me. He wasn¡¯t never cruel or harsh like some of the adults in the orphanage, just cold and distant the few times we had to interact. He made sure I had food and clothing, took care of any needed expenses. He basically just ignored me and excluded me from his life but he did that to everyone. In the end he was the only family I had so I just said ok and quietly left his office. I should have been more worried about what I was going to do with my life but with the possibilities of Hawk and the portal I was sure I¡¯d be fine. I might not know what I would be doing in the future but I now knew it was going to be special. What I now had to focus on was finding a secure place for Hawk and I to set up. I thought I might want someplace quiet and peaceful. What I really needed as somewhere private and out of the way where no one would find out about Hawk. Maybe a cabin out in the woods would work. With Hawk¡¯s portal I wouldn¡¯t really be out of touch with civilization. As I headed back to my room I decided the first thing I needed to get a car. A bicycle just wasn¡¯t going to cut it anymore. The money left in my settlement wasn¡¯t much but should cover a used car or truck and maybe a few months rent. Once the money ran out I would need to find a source of income. I¡¯m not a thief but there must be someway the portal could help with that. Chapter 7 - Finding a Place of My Own Beth looking out the windshield just didn¡¯t know what to do next. Bob and his friends were looking for her and the kids everywhere. It was getting colder and she thought about going to her old friend Mary but the last time she tried to leave and hid out there his police buddies broke in and threatened to arrest Mary for drug and prostitution. She just couldn¡¯t put her through something like that again. Quiet sniffles in the back made Beth lean over and tuck the tight blanket around the twins. Thinking for a moment she took off her coat and laid that on top of them too. Looking at their angelic features and she swore to herself she would somehow find a safe place to raise them. Shivering she leaned back in the seat to try to get some sleep and suddenly saw an envelope on the dash. Looking fearfully outside the windows for someone, she was sure that wasn¡¯t there a moment ago. After a few hesitant minutes she picked up the somewhat heavy envelope and checked for any writing or labels on it. Not seeing anything she opened it and with the help of the dim streetlight shining in she checked the contents. Staring with her mouth open in shock she saw a bundle of cash and train tickets. A month later on the other side of the country Beth came home from her job to find an envelope sitting on her door step. Scared that Bob might have found her here Beth worriedly open it to find a news article inside from her home town paper. The article talked about the FBI¡¯s investigation into the town¡¯s police force. The article was about how several local police officers got caught in a sting operation after a mistyped address had the FBI setup a sting operation in the wrong place at the right time. Instead of a drug dealer and gang they found the local police running a protection racket. The resulting investigations lead to the arrest of Bob, his father the police chief, and several other officers. * * * * * I decided to start my search for a car the next morning by checking auctions. One of my teachers last year in school would brag about the deal he got buying one from the GSA auto auction. One thing he said that I really liked was that government cars all had the Flex Fuel option. Using a blend of gasoline and ethanol was better for the environment unfortunately most gas stations didn¡¯t carry it so having the option to use either when fueling seemed the best of both words to me. The next auction was in 10 days in the state capitol which would be a little tight with my uncle¡¯s deadline to get out but I could make it. In case I didn¡¯t get a car at the auction I could buy something from one of the local used car lots. Ten days later I was standing at the auction yard with a piece of cardboard with my number on it. It was a two hour bus trip to get to the city and then a ride share from the station to the lot. There were a lot of dealers around checking out the cars. Most were using an app on their phones to scan the VINs. Looking over someone¡¯s shoulder it looked like the app brought up the history of the car and what those make and model recently sold for. Nice app it looked like, I had to do it the hard way printing out the auction listing yesterday then looking up each car online. I did have one advantage over the dealers thou, I didn¡¯t care about year, make, model or color. My only requirement was something dependable that wouldn¡¯t stand out up in the hills. There were over 200 cars in the auction this month and the auction was only scheduled to last hour. I had no idea how they would get through them all until it started. All four lanes had cars going through once a minute. The auctioneers were yelling out bid amounts with people yelling back and waving their numbers. Drivers would pull the cars up wait 30 seconds in front of the auctioneer then drive out the other side. Watching them run around to get another car to drive was so distracting I missed what the first dozen cars sold for. Not that I could understand the auctioneers shouting but the monitors above each lane showed the current bidding and flash the winner for a few seconds. Looking at my marked up list as the cars went by it looked like they were pretty much going for their wholesale value. I was starting to get comfortable with the bidding when the first car I was interested in pulled up. It was a 10 year old GMC Jimmy. The car was beat up but only had 40,000 miles on it. Even more important according to the car sites I checked it had a decent dependability rating but a low resale value. As I thought about bidding my comfort with the process went away. I decided to just go with it and raise my number. Every time the auctioneer looked at me I shook my head yes. Seeing a dealer looking at me from the side I could tell he thought I was crazy. A few seconds later the auctioneer stopped his chant and when I looked at the monitor my number was listed as the winner. It looked like I got it for $100 over wholesale which sounded ok to me. The dirty look from the dealer next to me showed he didn¡¯t like how I did it. Driving my first car home felt great. I even stopped at a fast food restaurant just so I could go through a drive through for the first time. The only issue I ran into was at the gas station. The pump was on the wrong side from the gas cap and the hose wouldn¡¯t stretch over the car. I felt so happy about the car I didn¡¯t feel embarrassed at the other customer¡¯s smiles. Just grinned and moved my car to the other side. Pulling into my uncle¡¯s mansion I didn¡¯t wait and started taking boxes down to put in the back. I didn¡¯t have much and my uncle had already given me the key to the storage lot my parents stuff was at. He even gave me the bill for the net month¡¯s rental of the unit. I didn¡¯t want to go through their stuff so for now I just planned to keep paying the rent on it. Someday I would have to go through it but not now. With a last look around I got in and headed out. I thought about stopping at the house to say goodbye to my uncle but he would probably be happier with the note I left and I had miles to go before I sleep. Initially I thought finding a place to live would be easy. I needed someplace with privacy and no curious neighbors around who might ask questions about me or any strange things they see or hear. For a lark I decided to check online for private islands and found a nice one off the shore of North Carolina only 20 acres for 1.3 million. The thought of a private island I could take care of and keep eco friendly was a nice fantasy but time to get real though, I changed my search to look for rental cabins. My personal preference was out in the countryside away from everyone. It would also be good if I could rent it with cash and no paperwork. That last part was the stickler. Every place I checked did a background check. Not that I couldn¡¯t pass a background check but that would be one more paper trail if things start to heat up. Maybe a hunting cabin would work. They aren¡¯t considered permanent residence more something for the hunting season. Makes me think the renting might be more casual about the checking. After some looking I finally found an old listing for a hunter¡¯s spring cabin in a desolated part of Montana. The listing had been active for over a year with only a telephone number to contact. The lack of interest was a good sign that it might fit my needs, or maybe it was just a dump that nobody would want to live in. I wasn¡¯t picky so either way worked for me. I decided to call the number and ask some questions to get a feel for the situation. After a half a dozen rings I started to hang up thinking it might be a mistake when the call was answered by someone with a young girl¡¯s voice. A bit unsure and thinking it might be a mistake I said ¡°I¡¯m calling about the hunting cabin listed for rent is this the right number for it¡±. After a short delay the young voice excitingly said ¡°Oh, you mean grandpa¡¯s old shack¡±, her voice stumbled for a second and then she said in a rush ¡°I mean cabin, not a shack, it¡¯s really a nice shack, Argh! Cabin, I meant to say cabin¡±. After a long pause I heard her say ¡°hello are you still there?¡± I patiently said ¡°yes, I wanted to know about the cabin and if it was still available¡±. She then rushed to say ¡°Just a minute, I¡¯ll get grandma¡±. I could hear a loud ¡°thunk¡± as if the phone had been dropped with a distant voice yelling excitingly ¡°Grandma, somebody is actually calling about grandpa¡¯s shack¡±. After a few minutes a gravely old woman¡¯s voice came online and tentatively said ¡°hello¡±. I identified myself again and asked if the cabin was still available. After I finished introducing myself and that I was interested she introduced herself as Mrs. Hetcher but said ¡°Just call me grandma, like everyone else¡±.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. She apologizes for her granddaughter Sammy¡¯s phone etiquette before jumping into describing the cabin to me. She started asking questions about me. It took me a few minutes of her questions to realize she was just asking to be neighborly and not really trying to pry. After asking again about the cabin she responded in a roundabout way to explain how the cabin was up the mountain in back with a great view but not much else. I stated how I was a writer looking for a private place in the woods to work on my novel and thought a small quiet cabin would be fine for my writing. I actually felt bad lying to her since she seemed honest in telling me about the problems with the cabin. But I needed a reason for wanting a small place in the middle of nowhere. Writing might not be the most original reason for someone to hideout with but it was somewhat plausible and would hopefully explain why I would be out there alone.. I added to my story about being a writer by mentioning I was trying to get inspiration like Hendry Thoreau. It was evident she didn¡¯t know who I was talking about so she switched direction and started telling me how helpful it would be to rent it out since money was a bit tight for her and her granddaughter. She then proceeded to do her best to tell me everything that was wrong about the place. After listening for a while she finally paused a bit and I quickly jumped in and asked if I could check out the place tomorrow. She agreed and said her granddaughter would take me up to see the place if I could come by after school left out for the day. I quickly made an appointment to meet at 3:30. Thinking about what the lady¡¯s granddaughter said the place might end up just being an old shack but I had a good feeling about the place. Worst case I could probably park a trailer on the property and live out of that. There was also the good possibility the given how desperate they seem to be to rent it she might consider an off the books cash agreement. I might be acting a bit paranoid wanting to skip any paper work but better safe than sorry. Heading out to my Jimmy I knew I wasn¡¯t going to get much sleep tonight. Both from thinking about finally having someplace to call home and also how uncomfortable it was sleeping in the back of the Jimmy. For some reason the last though I had before falling asleep was to wonder what the granddaughter looked. Her voice sounded young but did that mean 12 or 18 years old? Next day I followed the directions further and further into the mountains. Going from highway, to paved road and finally gravel. After getting lost a few times I finally pulled into a small but tidy looking cabin. Waiting out front to meet me was a pretty blond hair girl who I assumed was Sammy. Looking at her I was surprised at how cute she was. The old cutoff jeans and plain white t-shirt couldn¡¯t hide a surprising full figure topped with a smile so bright I couldn¡¯t help smiling back. Running up to the car before I could even turn it off she quickly announced ¡°Hi, I¡¯m Sammy, come and meet my grandma¡± She then open my car door and started tugging on my arm. Laughing I responded ¡°Hello Sammy, I would love to meet your Grandma.¡± For a minute Sammy stopped with a surprised look then her grin got larger and she started tugging harder on my arm as she pulled me to their cabin. Mrs. Hetcher, AKA ¡°Grandma¡± was waiting in the doorway wiping her hands on a dish towel. She smiled and said ¡°Hello, Mr. Pritcher¡± The smile didn¡¯t quite reach her sharp eyes. It was obvious this woman was cautious when dealing with strangers and also probably surprised at how young I was. I decided to switch to plan B with my approach and try being charming. Not something I had a lot of experience with but after seeing Sammy I wanted them to have a good impression of me. ¡°Hello Mrs. Hatcher, I mean Gandma¡± I said with a smile. It¡¯s good to meet you and your granddaughter after talking to you both on the phone. I hope I¡¯m not disturbing your day coming straight over today.¡± ¡°¡±No, no not at all¡± she replied reaching out to shake my hand. I was laying it on a bit thick but I thought I was off to a good start until Sammy jumped in and excitingly asked ¡°Are you a criminal running from the police and need Grandpa¡¯s cabin to hide out¡± she exclaimed. Grandma immediately swiped her across the backside with the towel before telling her to go inside and prepare some tea for the guest. I continued the conversation with my partially fabricated story. Since all good lies need to have at least a little truth so I added a bit. My more believable version of why I wanted to rent an old cabin in the middle of nowhere continued. I talked about my parents, their life and goals and how I wanted to do something worthwhile in my life. I mentioned how I wanted to try living off the grid while I tried to write a novel about the planet and man¡¯s impact on it. Mentioning my parents along with my own small efforts toward stopping pollution got a sympathetic and understanding look from Grandma and from Sammy. When I finished Grandma excused herself to attend to something in the kitchen leaving me alone with Sammy. For some reason I felt like I was now about to receive the real interrogation and braced myself for it. Sammy immediately started. ¡°Where are you from, where did you go to school, how old are you, what¡¯s it like in the city?¡± After 15 minutes of her questions without any time to properly answer any of them she stopped for a moment, took a deep breath and asked ¡°Do you think I¡¯m pretty?¡± ¡°You¡¯re very pretty¡± I exclaimed without thinking. Man, she was good, I thought. Either that or she was a natural at interrogation sliding that question in just to see my reaction. She should give the FBI interrogation lessons. I immediately tried to get back control in this conversation by throwing her a compliment and quick questions. ¡°You must have a lot of boys chasing you¡± and a few seconds later ¡°What grade are you in?¡± With an embarrassed smile on her face and red cheeks she told me ¡°No, I get teased a lot in school¡± she then looked down and tugged at her ragged clothes. Looking up at me with a hint of a challenge in her eyes she said ¡°I¡¯m a senior, they skipped me a grade.¡± Grandma then came out with a plate of cookies telling me to help myself. She got after Sammy to saddle up a couple of horses to take me up and show me the cabin. Shocked I immediately asked ¡°why horses, couldn¡¯t my car make it?¡± Grandma apologized but said no one had been up in a couple of years and the trail was now so overgrown most cars couldn¡¯t make it. But, she assured me she would get after their neighbor Bob to take his tractor and grade the trail enough for my 4 wheel drive. Getting a bit worried about the cabin I was thinking of renting I went out to the yard to meet Sammy. She was sitting atop a big bay gelding holding the reins of a small spotted Appaloosa. Feeling a little embarrassed at the size difference along with my rather limited riding experience I clumsily climbed aboard the Appaloosa which Sammy introduced as ¡°Dolly¡±, telling me she used to be Grandma¡¯s horse until her hip started acting up. Sammy then headed out telling me to keep up. Watching her backside as it bounced up and down in the saddle I kept reminding myself I was here for a reason and chasing after a beautiful girl like Sammy did not fit into my plans. After a half hour trail ride we reached a small clearing and Sammy slowed her horse down to allow me to catch up. As I rode up beside her she pointing across the clearing saying that was the cabin. It took a minute to spot being mostly hidden by the bushes and trees. All I could make out was a sharply pointed roof and some faded brown shingles. Looking at Sammy I could see her looking nervously at me wanting me to like the place. I couldn¡¯t see any real details but I quickly commented on how pretty it was surrounded by all the trees. As we approached I started to get a better view and could see why Sammy and her Grandma referred to it as a shack. The cabin was on the small side and I doubted more than one or two people would fit. Once we pulled up to the door which had a short porch in front I got a better look at the place. The most interesting thing I could see was how well fitted the mismatched wood of the outer walls were. It looked like someone took a lot of care to fit each piece even though the boards seem to come from different species of trees. Most was pine but the casing around the door and windows looked like poplar. I didn¡¯t see a lock on the front door but that was no real surprise seeing how far out in the woods we were. Locked doors and tight security was a thing for towns and cities not for the countryside. Not because country people were more honest but more because being miles away from others made breaking into a empty houses a no witness kind of crime out here. As the door opened with a bit of a squeal I got my first look inside. There were no trophy heads on the walls which made me happy since they were expected decor for a hunter¡¯s cabin. The overall look was also somewhat of a surprise. Not because of the heavy dust on everything or the mismatched furniture in disrepair. What was a surprise was just how comfortable it somehow all looked together. The place had obviously not be used or even cleaned in a few years but the furniture was comfortable and well made. The walls were lined with bookshelves and an overstuffed recliner sat in front of the only window. From the evidence it looked like Sammy¡¯s grandfather was more interested in the solitude and reading instead of actual hunting. Sammy looking around the dusty cabin suddenly seemed to realize what condition it was in. With a quick embarrassed look on her face she started trying to clean the dust off of an end table. Breathlessly saying ¡°I¡¯ll have the place cleaned up in no time¡±. ¡°Don¡¯t worry¡± I said ¡°All it needs is a little dusting and I can do that¡± She continued to hurriedly explain how she would get the place spic and span before suddenly stopping and exclaiming ¡°You¡¯re going to rent place?¡±. ¡°Of course¡± I said with a smile, ¡°It¡¯s just what I need, peace and quiet with a cute girl to visit occasionally¡±. With that cute comment the red on her face deepened even more as she stared at the floor. Chapter 8 - Way, Way, Way Off the Grid Abe Henderson was a bit surprised at the memo that ended up in his inbox. It instructed him to look into an issue at DEP (Florida¡¯s Department of Environmental Protection). It seems some of their reported numbers on toxic waste disposal weren¡¯t matching up. He was ordered to coordinate with a Frank Hastings at the FBI. Agent Hastings was investigating a bribery report at a semiconductor plant that developed silicon chips for the military. Both agents were only a year from retiring so getting pulled into an inter-agency investigation was unusual. Abe thought about getting a confirmation from the division head but the boss had just left on Alaskan fishing trip and was out of reach for the week.. Frank also thought about it but his boss was wrapped up in an internal investigation and made it abundantly clear he didn¡¯t want to be bothered unless it was an emergency. Both decided go ahead and work the investigation. Six months later and with a dozen federal agents involved the investigation was finally ending. With multiple arrests across four states Abe and Frank both got commendations. Normally a major inter-agency investigation would have taken longer and somebody higher up the totem pole would weasel in to get all the credit. This time a leaked video of toxic dumping occurring right offshore of a popular beach pushed it to a quick close. Henderson and Hastings were in a final meeting to review and signoff the casework. Oddly enough the memos each initially got that started the investigation seemed to be missing. Nowhere in all the boxes of paperwork from the case could they be found. * * * * * A few days later I was relaxing in the now freshly clean cabin. Surrounded by a few boxes supplies and with a tentative plan on how to proceed I was ready to try and change the world. Looking around I realized that first I needed to do something about the food, water and electricity issues. For electrical power I could try to get the old generator working. Sammy showed me it in a hut behind the cabin. She said it hadn¡¯t been run in a few years but grandpa would lug in a can of gas up here for it and when the gas ran out he knew it was time to head back home. Sounded like a very relaxing way to tell time I thought. The generator was old and a bit rusty but did turn over when I tried to start it. I didn¡¯t know much about mechanics but a YouTube video on my phone showed how to prime and start a generator. So I gave it a shot and after a couple of tries it started. Listening to it chug away with an occasional puff of smoke I decided I would need to invest in a replacement of some sort. It would probably be better for the environment if I went with solar but the panels and a battery bank would take up most of my savings. I would also have to get the hardware up here and installed. I thought about the problem of transportation before I realized Hawk could probably just portal it here. That would be easier to explain then if I was seen trucking them up here myself. I was starting to realize that people in the country were a lot nosier when they see something then people in the city and suburb. Right now the only source of water in the cabin was bottled or using what came from the cistern behind the cabin. The cistern was rain fed and mainly seemed to be used for the bathroom. Theoretically I guess it could be used for drinking with a lot of filtering but looking at that old tank I decided I needed a better source. Mom and Dad use to complain incisively about bottled water and even reusing the water jugs I wasn¡¯t too happy about using it. A spring source would be better but finding one around here and piping it in did not seem practical. With Hawk¡¯s help I could just connect directly. If so I could pick a source so clean filtering wouldn¡¯t even be needed, maybe that fancy Icelandic Glacial water. That left internet access, a necessity for what I needed to do. There were no phone lines up here and when I looked at my phone no bars either. A satellite dish based internet option was possible but slow and out of my price range. This would normally be a major problem but somehow I thought Hawk could be able to handle that too. I would first have to see if a wireless signal could travel through a portal. Thinking about it if that worked it would be perfect. I could keep shifting the portal source from one free hotspot to another making my internet activity next to impossible. Enough thinking about this I decided to take a break and do something else. Thinking about Sammy and her grandmother I decided it was important to keep an eye on them in case anyone came around asking those questions about me or the cabin or at least that¡¯s my excuse. I quickly setup the laptop and camera and asked Hawk if he could focus the portal on their kitchen. I had thought about asking Hawk to just open a portal big enough for me to look through but keeping that from being noticed by people on the other side would have been an issue. The small pinhole size portal worked just fine as long as I used a camera fed to a monitor to show it larger. Another advantage of using such a small size is it helped block any noise from my side making it through to the other. Looked at the monitor I could see Grandma was preparing dinner while Sammy peeled potatoes and chattered about something to her. Increasing the audio I shamelessly listened in as I heard my name being mentioned. ¡°Grandma, how long should I wait before going over for a visit? He might need something or want to know where something is right?¡± ¡°Hush child¡±, grandma said, ¡°he came here for peace and quiet and to do that writing of his, You going over there every day is not going to give him any of that peace or quiet¡±. ¡°But grandma what else am I going to do all day? School doesn¡¯t start for two months and no one else lives near us, let alone a cute guy.¡± ¡°Sammy girl you need to be careful around that boy. He¡¯s got himself secrets and a troubled past. I¡¯ve seen his type before and they usually bring a lot of heartache to people around them.¡± ¡°What do you mean Grandma he seems pretty nice and you didn¡¯t mind letting him rent Grandpa¡¯s cabin?¡±If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°Of course I did child, he¡¯s probably is a nice boy and we do need the money but that doesn¡¯t mean I want my granddaughter to hook up with him. I don¡¯t know what¡¯s in his future but I know it¡¯s something I don¡¯t want my own flesh and blood to get wrapped in. So you just keep your distance and let him get settled. I¡¯ll go up to the cabin myself bye and bye to see if he needs anything.¡± ¡°Ok grandma but you could at least ask if he needs us to bring him anything from town. I can ride to town and get it; it will give me a chance to spend time with Becky and Angeline.¡± ¡°Ok honey, but you just remember what I said and don¡¯t go getting attached to him.¡¯ Well that was interesting I decided and a bit unexpected. I don¡¯t know what it was I did that got her Grandma suspicious of me but it looked like another pretty girl was off bounds to me. Feeling a bit depressed over this I thought it was probably better this way anyway, What I was going to be spending the next few years on could very easily backfire on me and anyone close to me. With that thought I decided to give them their privacy and went back to my planning. The solar energy system was a real pain to install. I went with a 5000W Off-Grid Solar Kit that supposedly had everything included. The company had a smaller one specifically advertised for small cabins but I expected that my power consumption would be high with what I planned to be doing. The kit came with the Output module, battery, 6 Solar Panels and 50 feet of cables with an inverter. It seemed a straight forward install until I realized that with all the trees around the cabin the solar panels wouldn¡¯t be getting enough solar light on the roof. I ended up having to mount them on the ground in a small clearing about 100 feet away. With the solar panels so visible now in the clearing it wasn¡¯t long before Sammy came knocking on my door. I should have expected it; I was a teenager myself and knew how little we listen to our elders. Grandma telling her to stay away was an invitation to hang around instead. With less than a day from my putting up the panels to her knocking on the door it was obvious that she had ignored her grandma¡¯s orders and was keeping a close eye on me. I was only surprised it took her so long to find a reason to visit. Seeing her in her ripped jeans and faded t-shirt I couldn¡¯t help smiling and feeling very happy to see her. ¡°Hey Daniel, was riding by and thought I would stop and see if you needed anything or had trouble finding things.¡± ¡°Hey yourself Sammy, its nice to see you. So far, so good, just getting things organized. Do you want to come in¡±? She looked a little nervous at the come in invite; probably thinking about what he grandma said but after a second or two said sure and stepped in. I quickly waved at the main room in the cabin with the boxes and laptop on the desk. After a few minutes of chit chat she asked me bout the panels she saw in the clearing. I told her they were solar panels and explained how they would provide power. She was shocked that I could get electricity without paying the power company. She asked about their cost and got a sad look when I told her. She then actually let slip that they didn¡¯t have power last fall when the power company wasn¡¯t paid. I suddenly realized that Sammy¡¯s clothes style wasn¡¯t a fashion statement or comfort choice but because of a lack of money. I felt bad about that since I had talked them down on the rent. I decided then that if possible I would find a way to help secretly with their money problem. She quickly got over it and started to ask me more questions. ¡°So¡±, she said ¡°Now that you got the place fixed up when are you going to start writing?¡± I was at a bit of a loss since I never actually planned to write anything. It was just an excuse for renting a place in the middle of nowhere. Thinking of an answer I glanced around and over at my laptop. ¡°Right now I¡¯m researching, collecting information on environment efforts and current changes that are impacting it that are being made around the world¡± I said. ¡°Once I have all that I¡¯ll start putting together an outline¡±. With a curious look she asked ¡°How are you doing that up here in the hills? I guess maybe you could try the library; they have lots of books and newspapers from the big cities¡±. It¡¯s all done with online research now¡± I said with a smile pointing to my laptop. Looking at the computer with a puzzled look she asked ¡°How are you going to get to the internet? There¡¯s no phones up here¡±. She then offered a suggestion ¡°The school has computers with internet you might could use but it¡¯s pretty slow¡±. ¡°Mr. Ryland, our librarian says it¡¯s because the cable access is slow. The school only pays for low speed¡±. She then added ¡°Grandma says we can¡¯t afford dial up now but maybe later¡± ¡°I¡¯m putting in satellite access¡± I lied. Looking up at the sky she asked ¡°Satellite, how can that work¡± . Not sure how much she understood about computers and how they accessed the internet I started to explain about access being delivered through a wireless connection created by sending signals between a satellite and an antenna at the cabin. I then explained how it was used by ships and even trains to provide internet to their passengers. From there our conversation drifted to travel and how much she wanted to do that. She mentioned about some of the places she had read about like Africa and Australia for the animals and how much she wanted to someday see the ocean. Before I knew it it started getting dark outside and she said she had to hurry home for dinner. She did invite me to come with her and have dinner. Tempted and as hungry as I was I still remembered what I heard her Grandma say about me. I gently turned her down saying some other time. I hadn¡¯t planned to get satellite internet but with what I had told her I knew I was going to need to at least put up a small dish to pretend that I was getting it. The offer of using her school internet was sweet. I was a bit surprised by the limited access she mentioned my high school so much of the curriculum was based online that there was even talk of having the school fund tablets for each student. Thinking back on it now I started to realize how spoiled I was with the quality of education there. Maybe I should be paying attention to how things are in poorer areas. Thinking back to the local town I stopped at to get supplies all I could remember is a small caf¨¦ and lack of fast food restaurants. I did notice my cell phone had full bars in town so they weren¡¯t entirely cut-off but modern things like widespread high speed internet access. Thinking of fast food my stomach started to grumble reminding me of dinner. My food supplies were a bit limited and with only a small propane camping stove to cook on I wasn¡¯t going to be making anything gourmet tonight. Looking at the selection of cans on the cabinet shelf I decided on a can of beef stew. Not the healthiest to eat but it did include some vegetables. After heating it up I sat at my desk with the bowl thinking of Sammy¡¯s dinner invite. After a moment I asked Hawk to open a portal to their living room. I just sat and watched them eat and talk as my stew slowly cooled in the bowl. Chapter 9 - Nothing Wrong With a Little Money The presidential candidate was quite happy looking at the accounts screen. The last five million in dark money from the Russian group had made it into the campaign funds just fine. Using a fake 501c Non-Profit to relay funds to the Super-Pac was a tried and true method for hiding the source. A lot of promises had to be made to the Russian clients to get them to cough the funds up. Those promises would have to be delivered on after the election but all that mattered right now was first winning it. With the additional money and the new poll results a minor celebration broke out. The group was still celebrating an hour later when the finance accountant ran in upset and with a look of worry on his face. Reaching the half drunk presidential candidate he started babbling about the money being moved. Getting him to calm down the accountant started to ask ¡°why did you move the money, why!¡± ¡°What are you talking about?¡± said the candidate, ¡°The money¡± the accounted shouted, ¡°the last five million that came in why did you transfer it?¡± What do you mean? I didn¡¯t do anything with it¡±. ¡°But somebody did. You and Frank are the only ones with that account access it had to have been you. The money was moved to your wife¡¯s personal account and then out to a blind account in the Caymans Islands. That¡¯s not private, it¡¯s fully disclosed. Those account movements are public, everyone will see the transfers now. With that they¡¯re going to start digging and find out everything. We can¡¯t hide it, this is a felony, we¡¯re all going to jail. * * * * * One problem I needed to deal with first was my immediate money situation. Making money from Hawk¡¯s ability would be easy but doing it in a way my conscious and sense of ethics could accept was harder. Mom and dad had instilled a string sense of ethics in me and spent a lot of time talking about right and wrong and how to know the difference. The view they instilled in me was to basically treat others like I wanted to be treated but also that I could treat people like they treat others. I think the second part was how they justified using stronger measures on some of the causes they supported. I went through the different ways I thought I might be able to get money. First thought was to find lost treasure like the Florentine Diamond or the steamboat Far West gold shipment. I had read about them and new that seeing what really happened in the past I could find them. That did leave the issues of how to go get them and also how to explain and dispose of the wealth. Showing up with a large diamond or a pile of gold would be pretty hard to explain. Something smaller any maybe lost would be easier. The news was full of stories of people finding forgotten money and works of art. I just had to find some lost treasure in such a way no one could object to my claim or claim it themselves. The news is full of what happens to anyone publically finding buried treasure. Most claims are argued about in court for years before settlement. A quick search on the web for treasure finders returned numerous stories of people like Mel Fisher, Dennis Parada and Tommy Thompson and all the issues they had trying to keep the treasure they found. I even checked out the admiralty court rulings over the convoluted concept of who had salvage rights to a shipwreck. One person who found a large amount of gold coins later stated they wished they had kept it secret and just melted it all down to sell. After five years of litigation he got 10% of the value as a ¡°finders fee¡±. That didn¡¯t even cover his legal cost. Another possibility I thought might be to go for a lottery win. It was a bit of a gray area in my sense of ethics. There was also the issue of how I could get a winning ticket with only historical viewing. A scratch-off type of lottery ticket might be possibility. I could track a high win ticket from the printer to a retail outlet. My conscious did produce a twinge or two about that since I would be denying someone else from winning it if I did. But the big problem was the publicity I would get with a lottery win. Staying under cover was a major tenant I needed to follow and lottery winners are well known. There was one possibility my conscious had no problem with. That was to just steal the money from criminals. Taking the money from bad guys would probably be the easiest but it did presented two problems. The first was how to find the bad guys to take money from. Hawk could go anywhere and see anywhere but using that ability to track down criminals that were both making money and keeping it in cash would be difficult and somewhat tedious thing to do. I¡¯d first have to try to find robbery victims which was easy; just checking the news for crimes and their locations gave me that info and a quick scan around the time and location listed would show me the crime as it happened. Then having Hawk fast forward following after the criminal would show me where they were now. One problem I thought was I was pretty sure most robberies only resulted in only a small amount of cash now. Those that did manage to get a fair amount of cash usually quickly spent it. Also, even if I did take the money from the robbers I still had the moral quandary that it was the victim¡¯s money and really should be returned to them. Thinking some more about it I realized that there was one type of crime that the victims were not innocent. The drug trade involved criminals from the users to all the way up to the mastermind. Even better drug dealing was mostly a cash business. And I did not have any moral issue with keeping the money I acquired from people in it. The raiding of a drug dealer¡¯s could work but is also would be dangerous. I would also need to be very careful spending any of that cash. I remember a common legal reason for police to confiscating drug money are traces of illegal narcotics being found on the bills. Of course studies have also found that 80% of all the bills in circulation have testable presence of cocaine on them. This would require some thought but I had an idea that might work. For the plan I would need to trigger the right type of police response and a suitable drug dealer with a large stash of money as the target. Finding the right dealer, one with a suitable stash seemed like it might be a time consuming process. Using Hawk¡¯s portal to track each dealer to find out if they had any money tucked away would take forever I thought. Instead I decided to be smarter on what kind of dealer I was searching for. Thinking about it I needed a successful dealer, one high enough up in the distribution that they could have a lot of money. They would also have to have been a dealer for a while. To survive in that business for any length of time they would probably have to be smart. Most dealers I assume are short sited, spending their money as quick as it comes in. What I needed was the kind that plan ahead, ready to make a run for it when the police come knocking. After some extensive looking at police meetings in narcotic departments around the country I finally found a suitable target. His name was Hector Ramirez, a mid level dealer operating out of LA. Like all smart dealers he had a couple of layers between him and the drugs. The actual deals were done by young kids acting as his runners. Two runners were used for every deal, one to take the money away from the buyer and another to deliver the drugs to them. That way the money and drugs were never in the same place and only the runner delivering the drugs would be arrested. Ramirez had lost a few of his runners that way but teen age kids looking to make a quick buck were easy to find. Tracing the runners back lead me to the middle men and through them back to where the drugs and cash were actually stored. Ramirez kept some cash on hand but most of it was buried on a neighbor¡¯s property right behind his. The neighbor was an 80 year old woman who never left the house. When Hector got some extra cash to tuck away he¡¯s wrap it tight in plastic and drop it down what looked like a drainage pipe in the back of her property. The pipe leads to an oil drum he had buried a couple of years before. It was a somewhat smart idea to do it that way. Since it was not technically on his property no search warrant would find it and the pipe made it easy to quickly store the cash. Getting it out would be a problem but that difficulty also kept anyone else from stumbling over it. Of course if he was smarter he would have figured a way to clean the cash or at least got it out of the country into a foreign bank account.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Officer Susan Hynes was working undercover this week doing the bar rounds. Four years out of the police academy and here she was dressed like a tramp hitting the local raves and night clubs looking for drugs. A four year college degree in law enforcement, six months at the police academy and another four years as a street cop all just to end doing this. Spending all night walking around in high heels, short skirt and showing a lot of cleavage just to catch some penny anti dealers selling Ecstasy and Molly to the yuppie crowd. This was not what she thought being a cop would be like. Where were the investigations, interrogations and car chases she dreamed about watching all those cop shows growing up? If her dad saw her he would be so disappointed. A retired border agent he was so happy when she decided to go into law enforcement. On their weekly phone calls he was always asking questions about how she was doing and what cases she was working on. She really hated lying to him and making stuff up. Just once she wanted something newsworthy that she could tell him about. Ever since she started this undercover assignment she¡¯d been having headaches from the loud music, flashing lights and smoky air. Tonight it was worse than usual; she had to get off this assignment. Taking a break for a bit she went and sat in a dark corner as far from the band as she could. Sitting at the table with a cool glass pressed to her forehead she heard a couple of men arguing. Susan was not particularly interested in what they were saying until she heard the word ¡°Ramirez¡±, ¡°drugs¡± and ¡°shipment¡± mentioned. Ramirez was a common name but every narcotics cop in town new of one Ramirez, a Hector Ramirez. They had been trying to get something on him for years but he was too slippery. Listening closer, with the glass hiding her face she pretended to be focused down at the table as she pierced together a few more words of the conversation. Something about ¡°Hector¡±, ¡°upset¡±, ¡°drugs¡±, ¡°his house¡± and ¡°moving them¡±. This was it she thought, a big time dealer about to be caught with his pants down. With a bust like this on her record she could finally get of the party trolling scene and maybe make detective. She continued to sit with glass pressed to her face so it would not appear that she was listening in. After the conversation stopped she waiting a few more minutes before putting the glass down and subtle looked around for whoever had been talking. Not seeing anyone she gave up the search and headed out to see her lieutenant. With a little luck and some pleading might even let her be in on the raid. Hector was having his breakfast on the veranda when he was disturbed with a loud banging on the front door. The housekeeper walked over to the foray and opened it all ready to yell at whoever was banging so hard. Instead she was pushed back with a search warrant shoved into her hands. Not knowing what to do, she headed back to the dining room running into her boss heading the other way. From the look on his face Hector was surprised by the raid but also smug being sure there was nothing for them to find. He already had his lawyer on the phone ready to jump in on the warrant. The house was clean; he never brought any drugs here. Even if they checked his safe there was only some innocuous legal papers and a few thousand cash, nothing suspicious. The new shipment that came in last night was safely stored across town at an old rental unit he kept under another name. It was all ready for the cutting and redistribution to the street level dealers. Hector kept his distance from the process as much as possible. Only a couple of trusted lieutenants handled the day to day operations. With the court order in his hands the detective in charge demanded Hector open the safe. With a smug look Hector spun the dials while telling the cops how he was going to sue them for harassment. That smug look quickly turned to shock after he opened his safe. It was now filled with a couple of his kilos of cocaine and a few dozens of baggies of Molly. Two days later Hector now out on bond snuck into his neighbors backyard with a shovel. In the front of Hector¡¯s house a police car was parked to watch the place. Forensics was still going over everything and no one was allowed entry. Being told this Hector had carefully work his way around and into the backyard. His accounts had been frozen and even the house had to be put up for the bond. With all the evidence the prosecutor was looking at a slam dunk on the conviction. Hector didn¡¯t know who had double crossed him with this. Only a couple of people knew of the rental unit and none of them had access to his house or the safe. He needed to get out of the country fast and then maybe he could figure it out. But first things first, he needed to get to his money cache; it was the only ready cash left. There was plenty enough there to tie him over and help him get setup in business somewhere else. Reaching the pipe just a few feet over the line from his property he carefully looked at the ground and smiled. It was completely untouched with no sign of anyone digging here. He would have to be very quiet while digging it up, No worries from the old lady who owned this property was death as a doornail but the cops out front were close. It took two hours of digging before he heard a clink from his shovel. Quietly moving the dirt away from the top of the can Hector removed the lid with the pipe sticking out. Grinning he turned on his phone light and shined it down inside of the drum. A scream and loud cursing sent the cops spilling from the car and racing around the back of the house. Catching site of a figure crouched over a pile of dirt cursing they pulled their guns. As the police carefully approached they recognized Hector running his hands through a large can of white powder. As they led him out of the back yard with the powder cocaine till covering his hands. Looking at a second set of drug charges and his bond revoked all he could think about is who double crossed him? And how did they switch his drugs to the safe and cache? But mostly why would they leave that fortune in drugs just to take a few hundred thousand in cash? Daniel was getting tired with all the counting. Hector was pretty lazy when it came to his money stash. Each wrapped pack had different currency amount in it and nothing marked on the wrapping at all. He had to remove each stack of bills from its wrapper, separate the different denominations then count it all up. After an hour of effort he finally finished the last stack. If his count was right he now had $483,247. Most of it was in small bills making up quite a few large stacks of bills. He still needed to find some explainable way to move it into his bank account but for now all new purchases would be in cash. Chapter 10 - History is a Strange Teacher The man in a simple gray robe was standing on a hill giving a speech to the small crowd below him. He wasn¡¯t speaking loudly but everyone in the group was carefully listening to him talk about those who are blessed. His speech was in Aramaic and as the people listened their eyes grew brighter and their voices would quietly repeat some of the things he had said. The man¡¯s expression seemed calm and somewhat solemn but every once in a while he would glance up at a specific point in the air above the crowd. Somehow it was as if he was aware that across time and space there was a hidden watcher. When he finished his sermon he nodded to his followers, gave what might have been a slight nod to that point in the air then walked down from the mount. * * * * * I was relaxing with a soda and chips in front of my wall of monitors looking at the central screen to a plane flying in a rainy sky. These dozen monitors mounted on the wall and their cameras was my first major purchase with Hector¡¯s money. It looked like something from a space launch control center and I loved it. Strangely enough it didn¡¯t raise any eyebrows when I brought it. This type of monitoring setup was common for security rooms and several companies offered it. A quick search to find a small company with money problems followed by a phone call with an offer to pay in cash got a complete setup. The company was happy since it technically wasn¡¯t illegal to sale it that way. They didn¡¯t even need to ship it since the client (me) offered to come pick it up. There was some alarm at the company when the shipment disappeared with no record of pickup but I made sure to confirm I got it with them so it was marked as a paperwork error. Hawk has had no problem opening multiple portals to the cameras at the same time. So far I couldn¡¯t find a limit to how many or how far the portals could go. Something I would need to have a long conversation with hawk about. With each monitor showing the view through a different pinhole portal the wall display was incredible. The large main monitor in the center was the primary one for what I was currently focused on but the others allowed a more casual monitoring. I really didn¡¯t have a good reason for so many but it was so cool looking. With a comfortable gaming chair in front and a refrigerator full of snacks I was now ready to seriously start doing some things but first I needed to test it out. On the center monitor a south bound Boeing 727 was being tossing around in the storm when suddenly the aft door opened. Shortly after a man could be seen jumping out into the darken rain swept skies. The man was struggling and screaming as he jumped but after the chute opened he stopped. Strangely, as wind and rain pushed against his face and the parachute rocked severely back and forth the man could be seen to now be laughing and shouting. His pose and expression reminded me of that guy standing at the prow of the ship yelling he was king of the world. As the ground approached the man¡¯s expression started to change. He started struggling with the guidelines of the chute. He looked like he was trying to avoid the forest below and land in the river instead. As the ground got closer it became obvious, he wasn¡¯t going to make it. The man started shouting louder and kicking his legs as the trees got closer. With a crash he broke through the upper branches and fell to the forest floor below. He almost made it being only 20 or 30 feet short of the river bank. A few hours later dawn broke, and the man could be seen awake and struggling. It was obvious that he had broken his ankle and his left arm looked dislocated. He eventually managed to get out of the harness and craw to the river for a drink. A few days later the man known as DB Cooper final gave up the struggle barely a hundred yards from where he had landed. He closed his eyes for the last time with his hand fisted around a stack of money. All alone except for the animals and one pair of human eyes watching from another time. I quickly asked Hawk to stop showing the most recent scene and shut down the video monitor, there was no reason for me to watch the final few hours of DB Cooper. It looked like the FBI was wrong again; the infamous D.B. Cooper (real name Frank) was able to land with the parachute in the storm after all. He just couldn¡¯t survive his injury and the hike afterward. This was the last mystery I was currently going to check. After watching thirty-seven of the world¡¯s 100 most famous mysteries (Internet list) I now knew the answers to what really happened in all of them. Most were boring but a few were totally a surprise. Who would have thought that Jimmie Hoffa would actually end up in the absolute last place anyone would think to look for him and what the famous Loch Ness monster really was, Wow! Roanoke Island was a bit sad though, all that trouble because of a simple misspelling and Sir Walter Raleigh¡¯s inability to count. A lot of the more famous mysteries did end up being pretty mundane. Like the Mary Celeste just being a case of ergot poisoning from the moldy bread that the cook served to everyone. Or the Oak Island money trap, a spiteful creation of a nasty merchant who just didn¡¯t want anyone to get his money after he died. I had spent the last two days finding the answers to all the puzzles and mysteries I had heard about growing up. A few were surprising but for most the explanations really weren¡¯t that interesting. There was one very odd thing that showed up was when I tried to check out the South Fork Bridge reopening. Hawk wouldn¡¯t move the portal closer to the crowd. He kept it pretty far back and refused any attempt I made to get him to move closer to that man. When I tried asking it why all it would say is ¡°avoiding temporal discontinuity¡± with no further explanation. A real puzzle when he said it since Hawk has already told me temporal travel was not possible. I now had a new mystery about him to wonder about. Hawk was showing more and more independence in its actions it seemed to me. It was definitely being more helpful in anticipating what I wanted. With D.B. Cooper incident I just gave Hawk the GPS coordinates of the Portland airport and the date and time to requested a portal to it. Hawk on his own focused on the right plane then followed it and later D.B. Cooper without any direction request from me. Its voice also seemed to be changing a bit, still odd but fewer monotones. I was starting to think more of it as a person. It was now a ¡°he¡± to me instead or maybe a ¡°her¡±. I¡¯m not positive which and he wouldn¡¯t say so decided to go with ¡°he¡± for now. Hawk still wouldn¡¯t initiate any actual conversation by himself without some kind of previous direction but he would reply to my conversations in more detail. Just then Hawk spoke out ¡°Samantha is approaching¡±. I was expecting her to show up any day now and my fancy wall display would be hard to explain. I knew she would eventually see it so I came up with an excuse/plan for it. Telling Hawk to switch to visitor mode I brought up a word processor on my laptop with a partially written article on artificial reef creations before sending it to the main central screen.Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site. Right on schedule as there was a knock on the door with Sammy¡¯s cheerful voice shouting ¡°Daniel, are you up?¡± Sammy then barged in without waiting, a smile on her face as she looked across the cabin at me. The smile turned to an ¡°oh¡± as she suddenly saw all the monitors behind me. I smiled back and said ¡°Hi Sammy, whats up?¡± ¡°What¡± she said, after a brief pause she pointed at the displays and said again ¡°What¡¯s that?¡± I quickly explained that it was for video research on my writing as I pointed to the different environmental scenes on the screens. I could see a small frown on her face as she doubtfully accepted my explanation that it was for research. Samantha was not stupid far from it, she was just bit na?ve. After a few moments of looking at all the monitors her frown turned to a small grin. She must have noticed one of the monitors was displaying a beach scene with young women in bikinis playing volleyball and another had a video game up. ¡°Sure, it¡¯s for research¡± she said with a bigger grin on her face Using an embarrassing lie to hide a secret and then surrounding it with an unbelievable lie is something I learned from Area 51. If it works for the government I thought it would also work for me. I had a nice time talking to her about her day and what she wanted to do when she graduated high school. She wasn¡¯t sure how to go about it but she really wanted to take care of animals, maybe become a vet. Something I fully encouraged her to do. Knowing her and her grandma¡¯s situation I made it a point to mention all the financial ways to afford college. She was concerned about the thought of leaving grandma alone but the nearest veterinarian school from here was too far too be commuting. After a nice talk and the sharing of snacks she had to leave. I walked her out the door to her horse. As she was climbing into the saddle she looked back at me and with a smile said ¡°maybe next time you can show me how to play those video games¡±. With a now satisfying smirk on her face fully confident that she had gotten my measure she rode off. I watched her as she disappeared down the trail feeling somehow pleased that she felt that way about me. With that pleasant thought I turned around and went back to my monitors. Time to get to work, to quit looking into the past and focus on more recent things. Besides there was something about looking at actual history on the monitor that made the wonder fade after a while. It was starting to feel like I was watching a movie or a reenactment video. All those years of looking at those shows and videos made me somewhat inured to the actual wonder of watching past events. However there were a few things that shook me badly like seeing actual religious events. The few I saw didn¡¯t quite match up with what was commonly recorded. Given people¡¯s inability to handle the truth when it conflicts with their belief and what lengths they might go to about it I decided that these things should be left buried in the past. I decided that from now on all religious events would be avoided. Just the thought about seeing the crucifixion or recording the words of the apostles and what that would do to the world made me shudder. It was better if it remained hearsay and left to people¡¯s faith to know. With that decision made I could finally put aside the image of that man on the mount and how he seemed to look at me. Avoiding religious events still left a lot of questions of the past to be answered. Just thinking about being able to resolve all the old arguments about what did and did not happen in history was great but not something I would use change the world. Changes could happen but not in a nice way that is. I wasn¡¯t na?ve enough to think I could convince anyone of what really happened during the 2020 presidential election or the first moon landing no matter how much video evidence I could post about them. The uses of AI deep fakes were now so common on the internet that video evidence was becoming useless. I did still take pleasure in knowing it myself and who knows someday I might post all the videos on the web and see if anyone outside of conspiracy nuts believe any of it. I finally was ready to take a break from peeking at the past and focus on other things. Much as the past still had a lot of interest to me so I knew I would eventually be back looking at it but for now on to more important things. I had decided on three initiatives I would focus on first. I know it was biting off quite a lot but I couldn¡¯t hide out in this cabin forever. I was also doubtful I could do it all by myself but I was starting to think that Hawk might be a lot more capable then I thought. Lately he seemed to do what I needed before I could even ask him. He also seemed to be encouraging me to ask questions and talk to him like he wanted me to find out more of his capabilities. I just needed to learn what the right questions to ask were. This was particularly useful when I was trying to find a point in the past. I spent all morning last week trying to follow the Mary Celeste on her final voyage only to have Hawk immediately jump to the right time and location of the incident while I was eating lunch. The first initiative I was planning to work on was missing kids. Searching the past from the point they went missing to the present would seem to be easy to do but the numbers made it unrealizable. In this country alone there were over 840,000 children reported missing each year. Most don¡¯t make it to the milk carton for one reason or another but the ones that do still number in the thousands. I had to limit it to a more reasonable number so I decided to focus on stranger abductions. Later I might look at the family abduction and runaways but not right now. Figuring out which parent should have custody or if a runaway was better leaving was more of a judgment call and would involved a lot of time for each. So I had to figure out how to trace all those kids and then to tell the authorities but do it in such a way they would all think it was someone else¡¯s doing. The second initiative was pollution. Like the missing children I would need to focus on a smaller element of the pollution problem to start. I remembered watching the Olympics when they were in China and all the comments about the smog. The Chinese government did shut down the factories for a bit to try to get the air cleaner but it was barely an improvement and only lasted for a few days. With that memory I decided to focus on coal and the factories that burn it. Not that I wanted to stop the factories just get them to follow their own regulations. Most countries have regulations on air quality for their smoke stacks but from what I could tell they seldom follow it. The last initiative was stopping species extinction. This was going to be the hardest to do anything about. Over 500 vertebrate species are believed to have gone extinct in the last 100 years. This was mainly due to habitat destruction, overhunting, and pollution. Any real progress with saving species might be impossible since the key problem was human population growth. Current population of earth was over 8 billion and should break 10 billion by 2050. There simply was no room for the animals. With my stomach growling I decided to take a break and have some dinner. Looking at my collection of canned food I started to have second thoughts about dinner. After a moment I started to notice a tasty sent in the air. Looking around I noticed a basket sitting on my kitchen table. It wasn¡¯t there earlier so it definitely had to come from Sammy. Seeing the fried chicken inside I realized her grandma must have known about the food and even helped prepare it. I suddenly started to think I might actually have a chance with Sammy. Maybe I should pay a visit to their place tomorrow. I could use the excuse of returning the basket. Chapter 11 - A Little Nudge Here and There Little Emily was hiding under her bed, daddy had come home in his condition again and Mommy told her to run and hide. Emily hated it when Daddy came home this way, there was always a lot of screaming, yelling and the hitting. Emily hugged Snuffy her ragged stuffed puppy that mommy got her from the Goodwill place after daddy hurt her last week. She had been hiding in the closet then from Daddy but got scared and started crying when daddy was hitting mommy. Daddy heard her crying and dragged her out of the closet. Mommy hugged Emily and tried to keep daddy from hitting her which made daddy angrier and he broke mommy¡¯s arm. Emily went with mommy to the free clinic, but she didn¡¯t understand why mommy didn¡¯t tell the doctor about daddy but told them she had fallen down the stairs. Afterword mommy took her to Goodwill and got her Snuffy. Mommy said Snuffy would protect her when mommy couldn¡¯t. Emily was happy later when the policemen came and arrested daddy. When they came they banged real hard on the door like daddy sometimes does but daddy was already home. Daddy was not happy when the policemen came. He tried to hit them like he hits mommy but they stopped him with a yellow gun that made daddy shake. Emily wished she had a pretty gun like that to make daddy shake when he hits mommy. The police told mommy that daddy used his computer to take money from his company. But that¡¯s silly, Emily looked but daddy¡¯s computer doesn¡¯t have any money, it doesn¡¯t even have hands. Emily waved bye to daddy as the police took him away but he didn¡¯t wave back. * * * * * The next day I was ready to take the basket back to Sammy and her grandma when I realized I should take something to them instead of just the empty basket. The problem was what as I looked around the cabin. Not seeing anything suitable I decided to think of what would work and I could go get it. Wanting to get on grandma¡¯s good side I knew she liked to bake so I decided on apples. The apple season was just starting in Washington State and I heard that Granny Smith apples were the best for baking. Asking Hawk to find me a a fruit stand there with apples. It was still to early for them to be open which made it easier for me. I grabbed a bag of very good looking apples from the bin and left a twenty behind. Laying them in the basket and covering with the cloth I got in my Jimmy and headed down the trail. I no sooner pulled in front of their cabin before Sammy ran out the door. She didn¡¯t look fully dressed with bare feet, pajama pants on and her hair messy. I might have got here to early but she still looked beautiful. She just had enough time to reach my car and say ¡°Good Morning¡± before grandma came out the door. Yelling at her, grandma said ¡°Sammy Joe, you get back inside and finish dressing before I tan your hide¡± ¡°Ok grandma¡±, before running back inside. I got out and handled grandma the basket saying ¡°Just returning your basket and I thought you might like some apples¡±. Looking at the Granny Smith apples she got a smile on her face and invited me inside. ¡°Yes¡± I thought, I nailed it with the apples gift. Now all I needed to do was find an excuse to spend more time with Sammy. Inviting me into the house I sat down in the kitchen while granny got me glass of ice tea. As she took out the apples out of the basket she asked me what I was doing today. I told her after spending all week; sixteen hours a day on the book I was developing eye strain. I decided to go into town and walk around for a bit. See what was there and shop a bit. Maybe get lunch in the caf¨¦ while I was there. Sammy yelled from the back room that I should try the pecan pie it was almost as good as what grandma makes. Sammy came out of the back room still working at putting her hair in a pony tail. She started talking about things to see and do in town and before I knew it her words had changed to talking about the things she would show me in town. I looked over at grandma and saw her look at me as if to apologize for Sammy inviting herself along to go to town. Grandma interrupted Sammy to ask her ¡°Did you check with Daniel to see if he wanted you tagging along on his trip?¡± ¡°Daniel needs me to go¡± she replied, ¡°without me how is he going to find anything?¡± ¡°You want me to go, right Daniel¡± looking at me with her very blue eyes. Looking right back at her I said ¡°I would be love to have you as my guide¡± Rushing to grandma she kissed her on the check, yelling ¡°let¡¯s go¡± she headed out to my car. Looking at grandma she just smiled at me and waved her hand like she was shooing me out the door. Riding into town we talked about a lot of things. Mostly she talked about all the animals she knew or saw but she did mention few friends and people she knew around town. I told her about my uncle and the outdoor activities I liked to do like rock climbing. She was happy and chatty until we got to town and drove past the school. Seeing her get quiet and stop smiling as we drove by I asked her ¡°Why the face, I thought you liked school?¡± ¡°I like the classes and teachers¡± but then she quietly mumble ¡°not the kids¡±. ¡°Why not, you¡¯re bright and I remember you telling me you skipped a grade?¡± I asked Looking at me with tears forming in her eyes she said ¡°Because my daddy died in prison.¡± A paused moment then she continued ¡°He was suppose to get out last summer but there was a riot and he died¡±. Sammy started to cry again and I didn¡¯t know what to say. I held her around the shoulders and left her cry on my shirt for a bit. When the tears finally slowed and the sniffles stopped I looked around for something to make her feel better I saw the caf¨¦. Remembering what she said about the pie I asked her if she would like some. She nodded and got out of the car. This time of day the only people in the caf¨¦ was the cook and the waitress. The waitress wearing a nametag with the name ¡°Clair¡± on it saw us come in with a smile on her face. Seeing Sammy and her red teary face Clair got a fierce angry look on her face and started stalking toward us. I hurriedly told her who I was, a renter of Sammy¡¯s grandfather¡¯s cabin and Sammy was feeling sad so I though a piece of pie might make her feel better. After giving me a careful look she told me to sit and went into the kitchen and came out with two plates in her hands. Putting the slice with the ice cream gently in front of Sammy she dropped my plate with a sliver of pie in front of me. She then went back to the counter and carefully watched me.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. With the look Clair was sending me I knew I was on thin ice with her. I decided I had better get Sammy feeling better soon or I might get lynched by an angry waitress. I decided to start talking to Sammy about my parents and how much I missed them. Then I started telling her about some of the fun things we did together. From climbing the Mayan pyramids at Ek Balam to feeding the monkeys peanut butter crackers on Monkey Island in Panama. It took a bit but I eventually got her smiling at the stories. Once she calmed down I got her a second slice of pie and suggested when she finished we could go shopping. Walking down the sidewalk with Sammy we kept talking about our parents and after a while we started competing on embarrassing stories. I think I won with the incident of the crab I thought was a ladies purse at the beach. Telling her about running down the beach with the crab pinching my hand yelling for mom got her smiling and laughing again. As we turned the corner a small woman rushing bumped into us. She was looking over her shoulder at the time and seemed pretty upset. She apologized to us and reached down for her dropped bag when she saw looked back at a couple of redneck boys chewing tobacco and spitting down the street. Trembling she grabbed her bag and rushed away from them heading to a bus stop. Sammy was looking at the men too and lost her smile. She wouldn¡¯t talk about who they were just said they were the Randals and were bad news. Taking Sammy back to her Grandma¡¯s place I thought back to those men and the woman¡¯s expression. The fear in her eyes as she passed me made me wonder what could have caused that fear in such a quiet small town. It was easy enough to get Hawk to show me the incident again. I then traced the girl back to see where she might have interacted with the men before. All it showed was her working a night shift at a plant then hurrying to do some shopping. A hard working girl it seems, jumping back a few days further I saw her constantly checking around when she traveled outside and when she was in her apartment she triple checked the locks on the door and windows. She even wedged a chair against her bedroom door at night. Whatever was going on it had her in a constant state of fear. Jumping back several months further back her behavior seemed normal. Using the change in her behavior I gradually managed to track down the incident that caused her behavior to change. The trouble seemed to start a few months ago when the girl whose name it turned out was Cathy first ran into trouble with the Randal family. It looks like it started when the one named Billy tried to convince her to go to a party. She turned him down with a polite excuse which should have been the end of it. He didn¡¯t accept it and kept pressing her for weeks no matter how many times she tried to dissuade him. He started to show up at her work causing problems and eventually got her fired. After she filed a police report and got a restraining order it got him sent back to jail for bond violation. He was now in prison finishing the last three years of an assault and robbery conviction. The family blamed her and was taking their anger out by trashing her car and threatening her. She was able to get a new job for less money at a feed and grain plant working the graveyard shift. The late shift hours were making it hard for her to get back and forth on the bus which was also affecting her work hours. Her money situation was getting desperate and it also turns out she was supporting a kid sister. In the last few weeks she was starting to fall behind on her bills. That morning she had made a partial rent payment to her landlord with the promise to pay the rest on the next payday. After trying the ATM outside the market and not having enough funds she went to the local pawn shop and hocked a ring she was wearing. I decided to listening in on a few family visits the Randals had with Billy in jail to hear their side of things. From the conversations it looked like they were all happy about what they were doing to Cathy. They also talked very graphically about their plans for Cathy and her kid sister when he got out. After hearing that I had to agree with Sammy, they were bad news and something should be done. A permanent solution to Cathy¡¯s problem would take some time but her immediate money issue needed to be handled quicker. Checking Billy and his family it looked like their income came from some casual drug dealing. They weren¡¯t series dealers, to lazy I guess but they did deal enough to pay for their trucks, house and bar bills. A quick solution would be to give their money to Cathy as pay for all that they cost her. Doing it the right way might also keep them too busy to do Billy¡¯s dirty work. A more permanent solution for the family could be done later. I decided to start with Billy¡¯s funds. He must have been the smart one in the family. He kept his money in a bank account. Getting his debit card from the jail¡¯s personal affects room was easy. Another nice thing about a portal is how easy it is to see people¡¯s pins and passwords. Using his card I hit the limit on withdrawals over the next couple of days to completely drain the account. Most of the rest of the family kept their money stashed around their houses and yards. One particular cousin actually kept all his money in the glove compartment of his truck. None of them had much but put together it was more than 15 thousand. The next day they immediately started blaming each other for the missing money. Sliding an envelope with it under Cathy¡¯s door took care of her money issue. Now I had to find a more permanent way to keep all his brothers and cousins from messing with Cathy and her sister. Checking out the local sheriff it was obvious he didn¡¯t have any real interest in going after people like the Randals. He was in the middle of a child custody issue with his ex and didn¡¯t want to deal with any distractions. I needed a reason for him to get him to go after them; some potential bad press affecting the custody might do it. Given the politics of a small town I thought a few emails might trigger a more active interest from the sheriff. First an anonymous email sent from the prison email server to the sheriff¡¯s department tipping them that the Randals were trying to setup a deal to get Billy out of jail. Not something he normally would pay much attention to but he would think about it. Another email sent from the newsroom of a capitol newspaper requesting information on Billy Randal, the sheriff and their business dealings. The last email was supposedly from the DEA¡¯s office informing the mayor of an ongoing investigation into local law enforcement drug operations. Three days later the Sherriff made a very public raid on the Randals. The raid found a large amount of Meth and Molly in the house much to the Randals surprise. Chapter 12 - It’s All Smoke and Mirrors The CEO was quite pleased with the way the class action law suit was handled. The company he hired did a great job getting everything turned around. Not only had all the leaked medical data results been modified to now look faked but the company would also bring a lawsuit against the hospitals that released the real data to the plaintiffs. The dirty tricks guy he hired was well worth the price tag he charged. The man, Mr. Carvelli that he made the arrangements with was well recommended by associates for his discretion in handling these types of maters. The CEO gave a brief thought to the children who had developed liver problems from his company¡¯s medicine but reasoned that before it became fatal someone was bound to come up with a cure for them. Besides, the CEO reasoned a full set of testing on the product would have cost him his executive bonus. The CEO¡¯s thought then turned to his new yacht and the trip down to Bimini he had planned for the weekend. At that moment Jane Corbet his executive secretary rushed into the office and hurried to the entertainment cabinet to turn on the TV. ¡°What are you doing barging in Ms. Corbet yelled the CEO, can¡¯t you see I¡¯m working. Ms Corbet breathlessly announced ¡°there is a special news report on the company; I¡¯m already getting press calls asking for a response¡±. At that moment the screen came on and a news announcer was showing a video of the computer break-in that was done to change the data. An audio recording of his secret meeting with Mr. Carvelli was also playing. His voice was describing the drug¡¯s side-effects and what was needed to be done to cover it up. The announcer identifying him by name as the voice in the recording as well as his confirming the company paid for the cover up by billing it as research cost. * * * * * My eyes were blurry and my fingers were getting numb. Tracing all these missing children to find where they were now was going pretty quick with Hawk¡¯s help but finding ways to notify authorities anonymously was not. Initially I tried to report each location randomly to local police or a tip line in a way that it can¡¯t be traced back or tied to the other children located. Trying to stay anonymous while doing that was what was slowing it all down. After a few days of seeing the condition of some of them I decided I couldn¡¯t delay the notifications and I needed to go faster. So now I was making a list of each one I found identifying their name, location missing from, location currently at and names of the ones responsible. Each night the new entries are sent by email to the police for each location the children are currently in as well as the area they were from. So far going back over what I sent and checking it looks like most of the kids were found. I¡¯ll have to to more checking to find out why the other kids weren¡¯t. Doing it this way I knew it was just a matter of time before the federal authorities got involved trying to track the source of the information. Of few of the kids required more involvement like the current missing child I was tracing. He was a four year old boy named Billy now being called Freddie. He was grabbed from a park last year by a couple using a puppy and then quickly taken out of state. I didn¡¯t bother to check on why they did it and just focused on Billy. The happy smiling 3 year old was now a silent, grim child locked in a closet at their house. He was being badly abused and hadn¡¯t seen the sun in a year. I decided I couldn¡¯t wait on this one for the authorities to respond to a tip. Going by the others I found it takes 2 to 3 days for them to show up and sometimes longer or not at all. Checking the neighborhood outside the house it seems like the typical suburban home. That actually makes it easy since the suburbs are full of people watching each others houses. Using a portal from a factory chimney and one of their windows soon it had black smoke appearing. A concerned neighbor called the fire department which quickly showed up. When they got to the door I had additional smoke appearing from multiple spots. Over the protest of the two the firemen rushed in. Billy wasn¡¯t making a sound; a year of punishment taught him that. But portals can also pass sound and a fireman soon heard the sound of a child crying from behind a locked door. Billy became even more scared when the axe hit the door but soon the fireman broke in to see a skinny Billy in filthy pajamas. Leaving a few burning oily rags in the house to explain the smoke I turned off the display and stretched. Later I¡¯ll check and see how Billy was doing and what happened to the two who did that to him. Looking over my shoulder at the beautiful beach sunset I realized it was getting close to lunch time. It was so easy to get stressed and upset with these children making a small cabin in the woods a depressing place. Having a bright natural beach to look at was a great way to brighten up the cabin. Looking over at Samurai Beach it was looking especially nice eight years ago. Before crowds discovered it and thinks like a crappy surf shack was added. Currently the scene was a beautiful day in the middle May of that year with a pod of dolphins playing off shore. At that time the beach was only accessible by 3 wheel drive or a kilometer long walk down a trail making it very secluded. There were no hotels or any real buildings to mar the view. Just the ocean waters, white sand, dolphins and a occasional nudist working on their tan. Looking at my watch I realized Sammy would be here soon so I asked Hawk to shut it down. The wooden wall now appeared behind me where the beach use to be. Fall was now here and the days were getting colder. I tried the fireplace in the cabin but it was small and the chimney hadn¡¯t been clean in a while. My try at a fire resulted in a lot of smoke and barely any warmth. I went ahead and brought an old space heater which helped a bit. I thought about how to get the fireplace clean while I watching a show on the shrinking of the polar ice caps. Kicking myself I realized that there was a better solution available. To test it I had Hawk open a one foot wide portal to Alaska. A cold breeze had me quickly shivering in the middle of the cabin. Even with global warming it was still pretty cold up in Denali park. I had Hawk move the other end down to the pacific near the equator. I made sure the portal was high above the water. A one foot portal was to easy to see if people were around but putting a hundred feet above the water avoided that. Five minutes later as I started to feel warm as the chill dissipated.Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. I was enjoying the comfortable warmth when after a bit I noticed the room was starting to fill with a damp mist. The warm ocean air mixing with the cold air in the cabin was turning into a clammy fog. It looks like my idea for climate controlled still needed some more work. I tried again by moving the portal this time to a desert. It cleared the air but the cabin still smelled a bit damp and moldy. It looked like it would take a while for the cabin to dry out and get rid of the smell. A few hours later the cabin smelled fine and was now a comfortably temperature but the air was starting to feel too dry. I spent the next hour going back and forth with the portals but I finally got the cabin perfect. It ended up taking two different size portals one to the Sahara and one to the Brazilian rain forest. The cabin was now warm, no fog and with a faint earthy jungle sent. There was no thermostat involved but hopefully Hawk will understand how I want the temperature and he¡¯ll adjust the portal sides to maintain it. The next day Sammy came by at her usual time right after school. I enjoyed seeing her every day but I was getting a bit worried. Grandma was probably blaming me now for Sammy coming here first every day instead of going straight home. Staying on Grandma¡¯s good side was important if I wanted to keep seeing Sammy. I had the space heater ready expecting Sammy. I quickly turned it on to explain the warmth. When she walked in she seemed a little surprised by how warm it was but then kept sniffing around for what she smelled. I decided I needed to get a couple of different cans of air freshener and maybe a few scented candles to leave around the cabin. When she sees them it would provide an excuse for any scents that come through the portals. ¡°It smells nice and warm here¡± Sammy said, ¡°Over at our cabin it just smells like smoke now¡± ¡°Oh, don¡¯t you have a heater?¡± With an embarrassed look she said ¡°We do but we don¡¯t run it much¡± Remembering her money situation I didn¡¯t ask anything more about it and switched subjects. ¡°I heard the cinema in town just got a new movie in, would you maybe like to see it Friday? If its ok with your Grandma that is.¡± Without asking what movie was showing she got an excited look on her face and shouted ¡°Yes I would love to go, I¡¯ll go ask Grandma¡±. After saying that she gave me a quick hug and headed out the door. I knew she would be back with Grandma¡¯s permission even if she had to pester her all day to get it. The movie was a Hawaiian surfer movie. It was kind of a rehash of all the beach movies that were so popular in the 60¡¯s. Not the most romantic move to take a date to but Sammy really liked it. I doubt if she got to go to movies very much and seemed surprised when I brought popcorn and drinks. Seeing her with that big tub of popcorn on her lap eating it while looking excitedly at the movie was both funny and sweet. The embarrassed look on her face when she realized she had finished all the popcorn herself was even funnier Afterward we went to the caf¨¦ for a bite. Lucky for me Clair wasn¡¯t working tonight. The pie and ice cream I had was probably good but I honestly don¡¯t remember what it tasted like. We spent the time talking about the movie and laughing. The evening finished off on the porch outside her cabin. Huddled in our jackets with my arm around her on the porch swing we had our first kiss. She didn¡¯t seem to have much experience at it but then neither did I so we kept practicing. I think we would have sat there all night but the curtains twitched and then Grandma started to pretend to cough loudly inside. I said goodnight to her as she walked inside then headed home. That night I dreamed about kissing her again on the beach of Hawaii. When I woke up I realized I could actually take her there using the portal but those words of Grandma made me hesitate. Telling Sammy would bring her into my plans and the thought of putting her in danger was something I never want to do. Not being with her though was something I also didn¡¯t want to think about. It took me a few hours of staring at the cabin walls the next morning before I could get my mind back on my work. Looking around the cabin I decide a change of scenery would help me focus. I had earlier realized that Hawk could just put large portals against the walls and make the cabin look like it was any place and any time. I decided it was time to try a few places. I initially went with nature scenes a favorite of mine and it did brighten the cabin a bit. Later I decided an occasional person or two in the scenery would help me avoid going stir crazy so I switched to places with a few people around. Unlike pinhole portals a wall size one was too big to hide from people but shifting the end to a time in the past made it one way. It also let me pick the best season and time of day for the different locations. I generally just switched between beaches and mountains with an occasional desert or jungle thrown in but for the last few days it¡¯s been all beaches. I think the cold weather was starting to get to me. The fact that the beaches selected were all clothing optional was just a coincidence. Secluded hard to get to beaches usually are clothing optional, at least that¡¯s my excuse and I¡¯m sticking with it. After a while having portal scenes on all the walls got distracting. It made me feel like I was at a beach cabana instead of a cabin. Eventually I just put one on the wall behind me so when I needed a break I could spin the chair around and enjoy the view. As I worked on the missing kids I realized I had been at it for over two weeks so far. I had found several hundred kids that I reported to the different agencies and recorded what happened to over a thousand more. I wasn¡¯t sure about telling anyone about them. I just couldn¡¯t decide if hope and not knowing was better or worse than knowing. As I thought about it I rubbed the back of my neck. A quick thought went through my head ¡°huh, sunburn¡±. I guess I should start wearing a hat when I¡¯m outside. Looking at my spreadsheet on found kids the numbers for the last two weeks wasn¡¯t looking to good. The number I had found and saved didn¡¯t equal the number of new kids lost. Thinking about that last kid Billy and how many more like him were still out there I knew I needed to take it up a notch. Those kids needed to found quickly before anything more could happen to them. It¡¯s time for a secret organization to make its appearance. The question was how many layers of misdirection I can put into it. Chapter 13 - Here, There and Everywhere Cindy was tired and worn out with the job at NCMEC. Every day for the last three years she sat in a cubic with a dozen other people going through the emails and phone calls that came in about missing kids. Each volunteer had their own reasons to be there and hers wasn¡¯t even the saddest. Originally taking the job to help deal with her own daughter¡¯s disappearance Cindy constantly searched and questioned the tipsters about her sweet, blond hair, blue eye 5 now 8 year old girl. Constantly hoping someone saw or heard something that would help her find her daughter. Today she was on email response and already there was over 2000 emails in the queue waiting to be reviewed. By lunch she had managed to get through 600 of them and only 3 had even a possibility for leading to a missing kid. After checking all three carefully none of them could be her little girl Sandy. By 4:00 she had managed to complete 1356 of the emails and was already thinking about going home to her empty house. The current email had a large attachment but it made it through the virus checker so Cindy opened it. A single line was in the email stated the attached file had information on a number of missing children. Puzzled Cindy opened it and saw a massive file containing names, addresses dates and where they were now. Thinking it a cruel joke but with a faint hope in her heart Cindy typed Sandy¡¯s full name in the search bar. A single match was found in the file with Sandy¡¯s name highlighted. Their old address, the date of the abduction and a new address two states away was shown. Cindy broke down in tears starring at her screen.. * * * * * The first thing needed I decided was to quickly identify the location and condition of all those kids as soon as possible. Hawk was having no problem identifying where the children were now but getting him to provide the physical address instead of GPS coordinates seemed to somehow annoy him. I based the thought he was annoyed on a slight delay he made in his responses. Over the last few months working with Hawk it seemed to be his way of showing it. My assumption this time was his annoyance for using imprecise street addresses. Still he would do it and get the information faster than I could enter it in a spread sheet. With me being the bottleneck now I needed some way to directly add that information to the spreadsheet. I wasn¡¯t a fast typist being more of a two finger one. The problem was Hawk didn¡¯t have any physical presence as far as I could tell and I didn¡¯t see any way a portal could enter data on a spreadsheet. He was basically physically handicap when it came to computers. I decided to try looking online for a solution. The very first suggestion that appeared was software already on the computer used for Speech Recognition. The verbal commands could be used to control the computer including typing. I wasn¡¯t sure if Hawk¡¯s monotone voice would work better or worse in the program but it was worth a try. After some back and forth with Hawk the sample data added. The speed was still slow both with the verbal translation and the need for Hawk to go back and correct some entries. That would be easy to fix I just needed to add more computers. With each computer processing a different section of the list I could quickly get all the children located. The different spreadsheets could then be combined into one and sent. Now I just need to get a few more computers. One of the conspiracy theories floating around the web talked about how the NSA and Chinese could identify the source of files. Supposedly based on the computer MAC addresses and IPs embedded in common file formats. I never checked enough to see if it was true but deciding to play it safe by getting used computers from multiple locations. With a portal I easily grabbed six fairly new laptops from the shelves of six different pawn shops in New York and Chicago. As an after hour procurement I didn¡¯t have to worry about them being traced to me. Instead I left more than enough cash behind (curtsy of Hector) to pay for them twice over. I kept the nicest looking one separate for Samantha. This waqs assuming I could come up with an excuse she would accept for giving it to her. I set the others around my cabin on every flat space I could find. The file of the missing children from the NCMEC site was divided amount the laptops and Hawk went to work on it. That night I fell asleep with the mummer of Hawk¡¯s voice coming from multiple locations all at the same time. The next morning over ten thousand children had been located with their information entered. I now had to get this to the NCMEC but make sure the source of the information pointed at someone else. I always found conspiracy theories amusing and with Hawks help I researched several of them. Not all were fake, some were actually true and some others were partially true. One thing I did learn was that to have someone believe in a shadow organization all you really need are the right kind of shadows. A few rumors and misdirection or two will help imply its existence. Then leave it up to the distrust and some paranoia that a lot of people have to do the rest. I decided to start with the misdirection first using the source of the list file. Later that night at a closed hospitality room at an international trade conference a portal opened up and a young man appeared out of nowhere. Sitting down at once of the complimentary computers used by attendees he then proceeded to upload a file from a USB drive. The file was routed through a couple on not so secured proxy servers before entering the NCMEC mail server. A few moments later the room was again empty waiting for the conference attendees to appear. Back at my cabin I looked at all the laptops and how many kids were still left to find. Also Sammy would be by in a few hours and I could not think of and excuse for having so many computers. I needed a better way to do this and at least ten times more computers to do it with. Thinking about where I could get a room or two full of computers to use I decided on a computer lab. Schools taught students in rooms just full of computers. At night no one would be there and the classroom wouldn¡¯t be monitored. The question was where I could find a computer classroom that would also misdirect anyone searching. The misdirection might not be needed at this point but just in case. The next three nights schools in Bermuda, Cayman and the Virgin Islands were visited by a late night caller. The one thing those places had together was they were a territory of England.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Agent Ed Barrow got the call as soon as he went to his desk three days later. Looking at his empty coffee mug on his desk Ed gave a Sigh, He really needed a coffee before dealing with an early morning meeting with the assistant director. Walking into the AD¡¯s office Ed now sported a larger than usual Styrofoam cup of coffee in his hand. Unhappily forced to put it down when the AD held out a large stacked printout and a case folder. Ed sat down put the printout stack on the desk and got back his coffee cup. Juggling them both Ed got the case folder open and started to read. Sitting down he glanced over at the printout which seemed to be a list of names and addresses Ed opened the case folder again to continue reading about the list. After he finished reading it Ed looked at the AD in surprise. The file was lacking something critical. He knew getting a case this way was a little unusual but it did happen. What didn¡¯t happen was to get a case that didn¡¯t have an actual criminal or even crime involved. Instead it was about a list that suddenly showed up at the NCMEC email account three days ago. It reportedly contained the location of over 10,000 missing children. Thinking about it Ed decided that Yes, it was a mystery and probably fake but it was up to the NCMEC to verify it. Some verification was being done after one of their people found her missing daughter¡¯s name on it. The daughter was found exactly where the file stated she was. Since then more names were checked and the list had been broken up by location before being sent out to the local law enforcement groups to check. Ed wondered why would the FBI be investigating a non-crime like this? Especially since regular law enforcement was already doing it. It didn¡¯t make any sense but when Ed asked the AD for the reason the answer he gave sounded even more ridiculous. The idea was that a secret organization was responsible for all the missing kids and that a defector from within the group was the one who sent the list. This theory was so preposterous Ed couldn¡¯t help but chuckle in his bosses face. ¡°Yes, yes I know¡± the AD responding to his chuckle.¡± but the NIA and the CIA have both expressed concern about the existence of the list and who the source might be.¡± . Ed responded ¡°I can kind of understand the FBI but why CIA. They¡¯re not supposed to get involved in domestic issues¡±. ¡°Check out the list¡± the AD said ¡°there are 183 children on it that are now in another country and 37 are missing military dependents. The NCMEC has already contacting the State Department and some of the parents are starting to find out. This means that it is about to become a major international incident.¡± Agent Barrow headed back to his desk with the file and folder already regretting he didn¡¯t call in sick today. By the next morning he had fielded calls from Army CID investigators, Navy¡¯s NCIS people and was now expecting the Air Force¡®s group to be calling next. Just then a prompt came up on his computer reminding him of the meeting with the lead investigator from NCMEC had been pushed forward an hour and was moved to the large conference room at the Alexandria building. Cursing at the time change Ed looked at his watch and realized he had just enough time if he hurried. As Ed walked into the conference room he was surprised to see a dozen people already there. The meeting scheduled this morning was only supposed to be with a couple of NCMEC people to go over how they got the list. Instead it looked like a major inter-agency meeting. Sitting down at the table Ed noticed a smaller stack of paper in from of each person that was color coded and highlighted; he assumed it was the missing kids list but wondered what the big stack that was in the center of the table. Holding off on his curiosity Ed checked out the other people present. Noticing the puzzlement on a few of them Ed realized he wasn¡¯t the only one in the dark right now. Once everyone sat down an older, severely dressed woman introduced herself as Martha Owens director of data operations at the NCMEC. Pointing at each person around the table she asked their name and agency. Finished with introductions she then pointing at the center of the conference table she stated ¡°this list just came in.¡¯ Ed wondered why she was making a big deal of it. He had gotten a copy yesterday and he assumed everyone else had seen it. The color coding and highlighting might mean something special but he assumed it was done by NCMEC based on their checking. Not seeing the look of surprise on everyone¡¯s faces she pointed again directly at the large report stack in the center of the table said ¡°This is the ¡®new¡¯ list that showed up today.¡± Everyone paused what they were doing and looked at the center stack. Over 20 times larger and toward over the smaller stacks. Everyone stared at the stack with wide eyes shocked at how many missing kids must there. Ms. Owens proceeded to explain that the list had over 300,000 children some from decades ago. She also stated in a more somber tone that the records for the children also had a status the stated if they were in danger, just taken, just ran away or were deceased. The ones marked deceased and a location of the body and in most cases the supposed identity of the persons responsible. The first thought that went through Ed¡¯s mind at this was it was completely impossible. The data just could not exist and no person or agency could have accumulated it. The second thought was about the deceased and their killers, how could this many investigations possibly be done. The criminal justice system was already severely overloaded and underfunded. Widespread commotion broke out as everyone started to discuss and argue about what that meant. Ed heard the theory of the mysterious kidnapping group raised again only this time they were painted as an evil group of serial killers and terms like psychics and aliens were branded about. Ms. Owens was eventually able to regain control of the meeting only to drop another bombshell when she said the part of the original list had been leaked to several online websites. Quickly quieting the group she further explained that the leaked list only contained the name of missing children who had still not been recovered from the first list. The color codes identified if the locations had been checked or not as well as if a new location for the child was now listed. A man who was introduced as from the Marshalls service brought up a disquieting point. ¡°Did the second list deliberately get leaked because we are being pushed to recover the children faster?¡± The thought that some group was monitoring and judging the recovery efforts was of major concern. Ms. Owens nodded at that idea then dropped one more bomb shell. Projecting a slide up on the screen she said ¡°this was the message that came with the file.¡± On the screen were the words: 3 days for in danger 3 weeks for taken 3 months for runaway 3 years for deceased Chapter 14 - Turn About is Fair Play The Supreme Leader was meeting with his general staff to review status of his personally devised ¡°Heavenly Judgment¡± project. As a medic went around the room giving each member a shot the chief technician discussed the first set of high-altitude balloons with aerosol dispensers ready to be released. Estimates presented to the leader promised that the new highly infectious strain spread over the US would increase current pandemic numbers there resulting in at least another 200 thousand deaths with even greater impact on western economics. The leader smiled at the updates estimates knowing that the closed borders of his country would limit any cross-infection to at most a few thousand deaths. A young man sitting in a small cabin on the other side of the world watched the meeting, a voice translator program running on the computer beside him. As the medic finished giving everyone including the supreme leader what they thought to be a vaccination for the new strain the man in the cabin smiled. Interesting how a simple switch of the vaccine and the concentrated virus taken from the balloon dispensers made for a very karmic result. * * * * * Daniel was happy to be on another date with Sammy. This time they drove to a larger town an hour away. Sammy had never been bowling and Daniel promised to teach her. They had a great time even with all the gutter balls. Walking back to the car eating their ice cream cones Daniel noticed a woman with a little kid rattling a door of a store and then looking sadly at it. Walking up to them Daniel and Sammy stopped and checked the store out. It was a food bank and according to the hours on the window it should be open. The woman with the child said ¡°I hoped they would reopen but I guess not¡± ¡°Maybe they will re-open tomorrow¡± Daniel said. ¡°I hope so but Mr. Waggoner said they needed to find some way to replace the missing money first¡± said the woman as she turned and walked away. Daniel noticed that the little boy was now happily eating cone that Sammy must have given him. Holding his cone out to Sammy to share he thought about the food bank and missing money. He decided to check when he got home. The news article from two months ago read ¡°Local charities fail victim to ransom ware¡±. Continuing the story Daniel read how the Mentor iDonnor system was hacked infecting all the charities that used it by encrypted all their data. The loss of their pledge data alone had closed over a dozen charities including the food bank Daniel saw. Those pledges were desperately needed for the funds to keep hundreds of families fed through the winter. Reading further Daniel saw that the iDonnor company actually paid the ransom depleting their funding and bankrupting the company. However the decryption key was not sent by the kidnappers and instead they asked for another payment of $500,000. At which point the company had to close their doors leaving the client charities stuck with making public requests for help to replace the funding. The question Daniel had to decide now was should he get involved? Still if he didn¡¯t get involved it didn¡¯t look like anyone would. One thing Daniel had come to realize ever since he found hawk was that he couldn¡¯t deal with every bad situation out there. Still thinking of the look on the mother¡¯s face when she found the door still locked and how happy the boy was to get that half eaten ice cream cone he decided to do something. The question was what could he do? Tracking hidden and encrypted transactions across the web was not something Daniel had ever done before and wasn¡¯t really sure how to go about it. After thinking about it a bit he decided to try approaching it from another direction. There were experts at tracking these kinds of criminals he just had to find them and take advantage of their skills. Looking back to right after the incident he found a brief investigation by the Department of Homeland Security''s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The entire investigation was just a call made to an iDonnor representative. After the statement was taken a line was added to their monthly incident report for the FBI. It looked like all series investigation efforts were only made to few incidents involving ransom ware attacks on state, local, and government organizations. Daniel was not that surprised by it. Limited resources always seem to be spent on the high-profile targets. Looking at a presentation being given a few months ago on known gas thought to be committing cyber attacks a couple of gangs stood out. These gangs were known to specifically target charity organizations. Daniel, watching the meeting as it was being presented back then realized that those two groups were being pretty much ignored and had not been properly investigated. He decided to dig a bit more into those groups to see what he could find. Shifting to the office lunch time on the days right before the meeting Daniel finally found a period when a staff member¡¯s computer was unattended but still logged in. A quick couple of key pokes and Daniel got the individual reports in the two groups. The reports were pretty fascinating in the way the two gangs operated. Most of the member¡¯s names and locations were known but they were located in the Ukraine and Russia. Neither government had made any serious effort to stop the gang¡¯s attacks. A few attempts were made to get individual members arrested and jailed or even deported to the US but were met with constant delays and sometimes just outright refusal to do anything. It was noted in the file of the possibility that the members were a quasi government supported group since the timing of the ransom ware money collected seemed to match with deposits made to several officials offshore bank accounts.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Sitting back in his chair Daniel thought about the groups what to do about them. There were any number of ways to stop the groups from committing a specific cyber attack but that did not address the issue of the government agencies supporting them. It also didn¡¯t do anything to keep groups from operating with the support of crooked politicians again in the future. The solution had to include a way of getting the group¡¯s respected governments to step in and deal with both the members of the groups and their political supporters. As Daniel continue to sit and stare up at the ceiling he mulled one approach after another looking for one that would accomplish the goals but also appear to have happened either accidental or redirect attention to some other source as the culprit. Finally Daniel decided that the best choice was just to assist the groups in stealing more money. Vasly Melnyk was sitting at his pool feeling pleased with himself and at the top of the world. For a geeky hacker that his parent thought would never amount to much he now had more money that his father had made in his entire career as a company finance manager. Thinking about his current affluence Vasly decided to checkup on this month¡¯s bit coin transactions. Even with the new security features being implemented in the cloud the gang¡¯s focus on smaller, less high-tech companies like charities was succeeding. Looking at the transaction logs he could tell it was a good month with over 30 different businesses given in by paying to get access to their data again. His share alone of the more than 2.5 million collected this month would pay for the new Porsche Panamera he had ordered. Deciding to check on the gang¡¯s current cash reserve he opened a new browser and went to the crypto exchange that was used to do the bit coin conversion. Checking the transfers to the gang¡¯s Cayman Island accounts the balances were looking great, even higher than expected. Continuing to check by looking at the individual transfer fees he noticed that the fees being charged were much higher than expected for some reason. Expanding to see the details on the charges Vasly noticed that there were additional fees for extra transfers and for converting hryvnia currency into bit coins and then into dollars. This made no sense to him since the group would never accepted ransom in anything other than bit coins. Vasly started to get a bad feeling about this. The gang¡¯s success depended on a high level of isolation from the money they extorted and up to now bit coin provided that. Dima Moroz was not happy to be called into an emergency meeting by Vasly. As he waited for the online video conference to start he kept getting angrier for the waste of his time. He had a pleasure filled day planned to break in a new girl he had paid a lot of money to a procurer to get for him. The fifteen year old girl was young, innocent and somewhat na?ve just like Dima liked. She thought Dima was an agent and was interested in getting her work doing TV commercials. A few drinks with the right drugs mixed in and she would be pliant and incapable of resisting anything he wanted to do to her and he had a lot planed. But all that had to be put on hold just because Vasly was upset about some extra cash showing up in the gang¡¯s accounts. Having less cash Dima could understand being upset about but more? Who cares! The gang has nothing to worry about Dima though; we pay more than enough to the right politicians here in the Ukraine for them to ignore anything the gang did. Dima Moroz was getting more and more impatient as he waited in the meeting room with the other members of the gang all waiting on Vasly to show. Finally he sent one of his body guards to find out what was keeping him. While waiting he decided to check his email on his phone. Surprisingly he found one that had just arrived from Vasly. Opening it he saw a sequence of transaction tracings of money going into their primary account that seemed to originate from several other accounts in the Cayman Islands, Switzerland and Belize. A short message from Vasly was attached saying ¡°Run, it¡¯s the Verkhovna Rada accounts¡±. While Dima was trying to understand what it meant the body guard came back into the room and said Vasly wasn¡¯t in his office and it looked like he left in a hurry. Thinking maybe Vasly had stolen the funds and wondering why he would send the email with that message attached Dima suddenly heard police sirens approaching the building. Later at his very short trial Dima finally understood where that extra money had come from. The private accounts of the Verkhovna parliament members. Crooked politicians like them were perfectly willing to look the other way when it was someone else¡¯s money was being taken but heaven help anyone coming for theirs. Realizing Dima¡¯s gang of hackers had the right skill set to have pull it off they came straight to her Six months later Dima was staring at a cockroach eating the rancid mush from his dinner plate. Missing most of his teeth from the ¡°interrogation¡± from the Politsiia he was limited in what he could eat. The interrogations were getting worse as the politicians lost their patients about getting their money back. Vasly was the smart one, one of the guard captains let slip that Vasly had run to the American embassy confessing his part in the ransom ware attacks. Now he was sitting in a comfortable American prison while they fought over extradition. Chapter 15 - Rub a Dub Dub The muscle car with the loud muffler roared through the quiet development at 3 am. The two young men inside were busy chugging beers and tossing the empties out the open windows. The extremely loud rap music playing made them have to shout to be heard by each other. The cops had already stopped them once tonight but outside of giving them a warning just let them go. Jimmy the driver smiled thinking about that cop¡¯s face when he saw who were in the car. In a small college town like this having a judge as an uncle pretty much guaranteed that jimmy could do whatever he wanted. His partner Billy slapped him on the shoulder as he turned the sound system up to the max. They were about to pass that asshole professor Barret¡¯s house. He heard from another student that his wife and new baby were back home from the hospital after a difficult recovery. With a little luck Jimmy figured they could get the baby to wake up crying again. That will teach the professor for giving them an F in class for cheating. If it wasn¡¯t for his dad calling the Dean he could have been kicked out of school over it. As they got closer to Barret¡¯s house the car¡¯s electric system stated going haywire, the electric windows suddenly rolled up and the stereo began making a horrible intense screeching sound. It just seemed to explode in their ears. Screaming Jimmy slammed on the breaks as he and Billy desperately tried to shut off the stereo or unlock the car doors to get away from it. Hours later at the hospital Jimmy learned he and Billy¡¯s eardrums had burst and they would be lucky to get back partial hearing. * * * * * Daniel watched Sammy hug her Grandma and tell her multiple times how she would be back by tomorrow night and not to worry. It had taken some persuasion but Daniel finally managed to convince Sammy to make a visit the state college. Daniel knew how much she wanted to be a vet but worries about her grandma and the cost of it kept holding her back. Daniel finally decided to talk to Grandma directly about taking her to the campus to check it out. A catalog from the school with the financial aid options and the section on the veterinary medicine track being highlighted did the rest. With one more hug to her grandma Sammy finally got into the car to leave. As she was buckling up Grandma came around to the driver side and in a quiet but chilling voice said ¡°Take care of her Danny and ¡®do not¡¯ let anything happen to her¡±. With a loud gulp Daniel assured her he wouldn¡¯t and they headed out. Glancing to the side Daniel saw Sammy had tears in her eyes as she looked back. He stayed quiet and let her slowly get back to her normal cheerful mood. Stopping at a diner for a late breakfast Sammy was excited and kept looked all around. Her excitement and wanting to see everything was understandable after all. Sammy had never left the town she was born in so it was all new and that including eating at this fairly standard looking diner. After eating she dug out the well thumbed catalog and started pointing out everything to me she wanted to check out at the school. Looking up Sammy saw the amused look on my face. She somewhat defensively said ¡°Do you think we will have enough time¡± Slightly embarrassed she also added ¡°I guess we could skip the animal nursery if we have to¡±. ¡°Don¡¯t worry¡±, I said ¡°we have almost two days there, more than enough time to see everything you want¡±. Her smile got even bigger as she hugged me. As I hugged her back I promised myself to make this road trip the best time she¡¯s ever had. After we finished our meal I took her for a quick look around the town before we continued our trip. The town was very much like the town she grew up in but with one difference that she noticed. No one knew her or called her by name as we walked around. Back home everyone knew Sammy and we couldn¡¯t walk a block down the street without getting a dozen greetings. I decided that when she did get to college I would make an effort to help her get some friends there. When we got away from the mountains and close to the larger town Sammy started to rub her nose and sniff. I had forgotten the difference in air quality between the two. ¡°That¡¯s air pollution¡± I said to Sammy as she rubbed her nose. ¡°We¡¯re out of the mountains now, it¡¯s not as bad as in cities especially ones like Los Angeles or Beijing.¡± Sammy looked surprised as she said ¡°You¡¯re kidding!¡± ¡°No¡± I said ¡°this is very mild, you¡¯ll unfortunately get use to it and not notice it after a while¡± I then told Sammy about the 2008 Olympics in China and what the government did to temporarily reduce the smog just for the competitions. ¡°You¡¯re kidding, right?¡± Sammy said ¡°No, sad to say I¡¯m not¡° I used my phone to pull up some pictures from the internet to show her. This is Beijing city with the people wearing masks. When they have bad smog alerts some people actually have to remain inside so they don¡¯t pass out¡± Looking at the pictures she said with a sad look ¡°Somebody should do something about that¡±.. ¡°Somebody will¡± I said quietly under my breadth. We got to the college just in time for Sammy to join the campus tour. It was a two hour tour so I had enough time to start thinking about how to deal with the smog issue. I hunted around for a private place to talk to Hawk. Hawk always had a micro portal near me to stay in touch but pretending to be conversing using a Bluetooth headset was annoying. I finally found an empty study room over at the campus library where we could talk. It was probably only for students but since no one said anything I just claimed it. The coal issue would be hard to do anything about. Countries like China rely on coal for two big reasons; it¡¯s usually cheaper and available locally. China and most other heavy coal users do have environmental rules and regulations for their coal burning plants. These plans all seem to include requiring anti-smog type devices on furnaces and smoke stacks to reduce the pollutants. The problem with those efforts was they were often violated by companies, surprisingly mostly by the state-owned companies. From what I could tell the violations were usually done by falsifying data, exceeding emission standards or even just operating them in locations not actually approved for them. Thinking about it I decided that China, India and every other country burning coal needed a wakeup call about the issues. I now just needed to find a way to do it.This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. After Sammy finished her tour I took her to the book store and brought us matching school hoodies to wear the next day. She was ecstatic and immediately put hers on. After dinner we started driving around town to find a hotel for the night. It was an uncomfortable feeling in the car as we both thought about sharing a hotel room. Neither of us had gone that far yet and we hadn¡¯t even talked about it. I was sure she was a virgin and we were basically only at second base in our relationship. Looking over at how uncomfortable she appeared I was sure she wasn¡¯t feeling ready to go any further yet. As I found a hotel and pulled in she got more and more nervous. When I turned of the car I could see her twisting the bottom of her hoodie her hands and biting her lower lip. The last thing I wanted to do was pressure her for something she wasn¡¯t ready for. So, casually as I got out I said ¡°wait here I¡¯ll go get us a ¡®couple¡¯ of rooms¡±. I didn¡¯t look back to give her privacy but I¡¯m pretty sure that was a sigh of relief as I walked away. Next day after a nice breakfast we went back to the campus to see the animal nursery and checked out the dorms before heading home. Good morning, I said to Hawk a few days later as I sat down in my chair before the bank of monitors. I was constantly underestimating what Hawk understood and could do. So when I got back from our campus trip I decided to just ask Hawk for the information and see if he could get it. ¡°How far back have you gone so far on the coal plants and factories?¡± I asked. He answered ¡°sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulate matter (soot), carbon dioxide, mercury and other heavy metals were measured for 5.3 years with cross check against coal usage for the same time period. The level of containment efficiency was calculated and compared against international plant average around the planet. Additional information on bribery and favors trading by plant managers has been incorporated into data with indication that parameters should be expanded to friends and/or family in 18.4% of those cases.¡±. I had a momentary thought about how Hawk took historical measurements of the pollutants discharge. Temporal portals couldn¡¯t pass anything according to Hawk but why then could I still see through them? I glanced back at a prairie scene from the 1700¡¯s to see an enormous flock of passenger pigeons flying bye. I decided I needed to discuss it with Hawk later; something didn¡¯t seem right about his temporal portals. ¡°Take the top 100 of the dirtiest plants or factories and give me the list please.¡± I requested as I swivels my chair back to face the screens. With a bit of frustration Hawk responded back with a request for the indicators to be used to rate the ¡°dirtiest¡±. After some thought I told him to use the amount of pollutants released as a percentage of the amount of coal burned, bribes made to inspectors, ties to any government agency and both historical and estimated future damage to the environment. He then almost immediately provided me with 100 ¡®dirtiest¡¯ plants and factories. Looking at the list he created in just a few seconds I realized I was still underestimating his capabilities. Putting a report together with accurate numbers for each plant going back five years was startling. Checking the numbers especially after I compared them to the public numbers a few of them had listed was startling. Some pollution release numbers where 2 to 3 times higher than what was listed. It was obvious that those public numbers were completely fabricated. The next step now was to make everyone aware of the issue with these plants. I did understand that even if shutting down all coal plants would be the best for the environment it would also be impossible to do it now with the worlds energy needs. What I wanted was for them to be more efficient and less pollutants. The technology did exist for cleaner burning coal but was seldom implemented for cost and profit reasons even if it was mandated by a country¡¯s policies and laws. Publicizing these 100 worst should get the attention needed to greater enforce those laws, at least that was my hope. To do that I needed to get both the country and international watchdog groups involved as well as public awareness. I really didn¡¯t expect major or immediate progress with pollution. It was a very long term project to be solved and one that would require the whole world to work on it. This would be my first step to push it in that direction. The list of the dirtiest coal burning plants and factories was from 18 countries with almost half of them in China and India. Identifying the local versions of the EPA in those countries was straight forward. The different agencies in those countries had different levels of enforcement and policies but all had some legal standing policing pollution. groups had. There were international groups who did monitoring of air pollution and were outside of local politics. No actually enforcement from them but I didn¡¯t actually need that yet. There were three groups that seemed to do the majority of monitoring. I decided to see how I might include them in my wakeup plan. I was a bit disappointed when I checked the groups out. None of them seemed very accurate with the monitoring they did. In most cases they took as face value the pollution numbers published by the countries themselves. Numbers I now knew were mostly made up and had no relation to reality. Of the three the International Union of Air Pollution Prevention and Environmental Protection Associations (IUAPPA) had the greatest potential to eventually push enforcement policies between countries. They had over 40 national member organizations working towards that. Unfortunately at the current point they were more of a paper tiger in their efforts. The Climate and Clean Air Coalition (CCAC) as larger and had over 160 governments and organizations. That should have made them a better choice but instead for some weird reason they were committed to only short-lived climate pollutants. The odd one though, was the World Health Organization (WHO). They were a very powerful group that everyone seemed to listen to with regards to medicine. Their focus in this area was on the medical dangers of breathing smog. The problem with them was a strong policy of not getting involved with internal affairs of the different countries. I went ahead and had the report on regional plants and factories sent out to all the country EPA types of organizations. To make sure it didn¡¯t get buried multiple copies were emailed to every employee at management level and above. With that many people getting a copy I was sure the information would continue to be spread. Once it reached the general public and any local population living around the plants and factories I might see some protesting as well. For the international groups I included the full list of all 100, but I set the email source as being from one of the other groups. Someone from a group like the DDOE might ignore an unsolicited report with dubious data but not if they thought it came from the WHO organization. This gave the report both credibility and helped confuse the actual source of the data. With Hawk¡¯s help I then monitored the responses to the emails. Most of them ignored it but a small percentage did open and read the report. A few were alarmed by both the discrepancy in the numbers and much later from the accuracy of them. A surprising number of people forwarded the email on to others. Tracing the recipients of those I saw that some were other employees or news sites and some went to the different plant and factory management teams. The last group the email was to either request the management validate the numbers or to warn them that they were being monitored. Afterward, sitting back in my chair I decided it was going relatively well and all I could do now was wait to see how it all panned out. Chapter 16 - Come and Go, Here and There? Barret was dog tired and that third cup of coffee wasn¡¯t helping at all. After almost six years of cleaning up the Senator William¡¯s crap he just about had it. All last night he had been running around to deal with the senator¡¯s 22 year old son. Bad enough the little a-hole got drunk in public but did he have to start bragging about all the underage girls he and his buddies had drugged and raped? It took some threats and a large bribe but all the witnesses and audio recording had been dealt with. With that taken care of Barret didn¡¯t manage to get home until dawn. As he headed to bed the senator¡¯s accountant, a dweeb named Malcolm wakes him up banging on his door. Rubbing his eyes Barret looked down at the folder Malcolm pushed into his chest while yelling about some kind of land deal issue. Looking through it he could see it was that EPA issue Barret worked on last month. Just a typical money scam the kind the senator and his financial supporters liked to do. The Senator had arranged for the cheap purchase of an old chemical dump site through his blind trust. An ¡°affordable¡± housing project funded by the taxpayers would then buy the land with a heavily overinflated price. It was just another quick and easy profit maker for the senator and his friends. They¡¯ve done similar things dozens of times before. The only unusual thing about this one was getting the EPA inspection buried. Looking at the page Malcolm had clipped to the file Barret saw it was a page from the annual EMA report showing the EPA inspection status of the land. This was supposed to be buried, how did it resurface? The status showed the site was identified as needing ¡°immediate Emergency Response cleanup¡± and was followed with a highlighted comment that it was worse than the Love Canal disaster. Barret eventually managed to get Malcolm calmed down and pushed out the door by promising he could get the EMA entry marked as a typo. He would just need to make some calls and call in a couple of favors. Later Barret had the morning news on as he went through his EPA contacts wondering why none of them were returning his calls. Looking up at the TV he saw a clip playing of him and the Senator in his office talking about the bribes needed to get rid of the EPA investigation. How, he knew there were no cameras in the office? At that moment a loud knocking came from his door with a sick feeling Barret somehow knew it was the FBI. * * * * * Sammy¡¯s senior prom was this week and I was having a major issue with what to do. She had been hinting that she was ready to go further with me with comments like Granma not expecting her back till morning. For some reason I didn¡¯t feel right sleeping with her while still keeping a big secret from her. My brain was telling me to keep it a secret from her. That somehow my telling her would let the secret get out. She might let it slip to a friend she meets in college or ask a professor a question that would give it away. My heart though was telling me I had to tell her. That not telling her would drive us apart and I wanted us to be together forever. All I could feel sure about was that not telling her and sleeping with her would not be right. Struggling with the decision I finally decided to tell Grandma first. It might seem an odd thing to do but I respected her and knew she always look out for Sammy¡¯s best interest. Also I heard her complain more than once about people butting in to other people¡¯s business. A sentiment that made her a good prospect for keeping a big secret like this. I went to see Grandma the next morning as soon as Sammy went to school. She looked surprised to see me show up at her door when Sammy wasn¡¯t there. She got even more shocked when I handed her a bag of warm chocolate croissants I had just picked up in Paris. Inviting me in she sat at the table while she made us tea. After stirring her tea for a minute she took a sip then looking at me straight in the eyes said: ¡°Well, get on with it young man.¡± After a bit of hesitation I said ¡°Grandma I haven¡¯t been truthful for why I came out here¡± She narrowed her eyes a bit but continued to stare at me without saying anything else. Not knowing exactly how to proceed I decided to start with the story of the cliff climb. I could tell in the beginning she didn¡¯t understand why I was telling her this but after I got to the pinholes on my equipment she started to get more interested. By the time I got to the weird breeze I could tell she was about to jump in with questions. I decided to just skip the rest of it and go right to when Hawk spoke and I found out what he was. Granma snorted at me when I told her about Hawk¡¯s voice and what Hawk was. I could tell she thought I was pulling a prank on her or something. Thinking about how I could prove it to her I tried to think of a good spot to show her a portal of. Remembering that Grandma had once mentioned she would like to have visit Paris I decided that would make a good choice.. ¡°Hawk¡± I said ¡°please open a window size portal to yesterday afternoon from the Eiffel Tower observation deck.¡± A second later a foot and a half square portal opened above the table between Grandma and I. Seeing it suddenly appear she spilled her tea as she jumped back and up from the table. Standing there half crouched over from sitting she just stared at the scene floating above the table. I was worried about the shock to Grandma and could have kicked myself for springing it on her this way. I was also impressed that a woman her age could move like that getting up from the table. Looking at the portal between us I realized it was double sided. I probably should have realized it sooner but being the only one looking through them up till now I had never thought about going around to the backside to look. After Granma recovered I explained all that Hawk could do and some of the things I had been working on. I also told her how I was trying to keep the government from finding out about Hawk.Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. After I finished Granma sat there and thought about it for a while. She did ask me why I didn¡¯t trust the government with Hawk. I kind of got the feeling she agreed with me not telling them but wanted to hear my reasons. I told her that Hawk could show what actually happened at religious events, something that made her eyes open wide as she thought about it. I then explained the ability to spy on anyone, anywhere and at anytime. When I told her that she gave me a sharp look and said ¡°Sammy¡± ¡°No, no I would never do something like that to Sammy¡± I said Luckily she didn¡¯t ask me about other women I might have ¡°accidently¡± watched. I then spent some time telling her about the efforts I had made for missing kids and the environment. I mentioned some of the things I thought the government could use Hawk¡¯s portals for and the one thing I knew they wouldn¡¯t use it for which was the environment. After I said that Grandma looked at me for a moment and then smiled. ¡°You¡¯re probably right¡± she said ¡°but do you really think you can do it all by yourself?¡± ¡°That is a problem but who do I trust to help? I don¡¯t really know everything Hawk can do but I¡¯m sure it¡¯s a lot more than what he¡¯s currently helping me with.¡± After a few minutes of thought Grandma suddenly said ¡°What about Sammy?¡± ¡°I want to be with her¡± I said ¡°and I want her to follow her dreams and go to college and become a vet but I also don¡¯t want to lose her. If I keep this secret from her I feel I will lose her someday¡±. Grandma patted the back of my hand and said ¡°Then tell her silly.¡± She then got up and made herself another cup of tea. She then said ¡°People who love each other shouldn¡¯t keep secrets from each other¡±. ¡°At least the big secrets¡± she said with a grin. We spend the rest of the morning having Hawk show us the different places Grandma had always wanted to see. After we finished the chocolate croissants I even convinced her to step through a portal onto a deserted area near Bourbon Street. It was so we could buy some beignets she always wanted to try. After a surprisingly fun day with Grandma I left right before Sammy was due back from school. I didn¡¯t want to meet her yet; I still needed to come up with a good way to tell Sammy. I came back right after dinner and invited Sammy to sit on the porch swing with me. Something we had done many times before but usually we just wandered to it. My asking her like that gave her a puzzled look on her face. As we sat and looked at the stars Sammy started talking about the senior prom and then switched to college. We talked about when and how often I should come up and see her. I assured her it wasn¡¯t a problem to do it every weekend but would probably depend on her classes if she would have time for me. ¡°Always¡± she said with a hug. I could tell she was still unhappy and worried at the thought of leaving grandma living alone at home while she was away at college. Thinking about what I could do to get her to stop worrying about leaving I suddenly said ¡°What if you could do both¡± She thought about what I said for a moment then said ¡°You mean have her move there with me¡± ¡°No, not that, what if you could come see her whenever you wanted or even live here at night but still go to college?¡± ¡°Daniel¡± she said quietly ¡°they don¡¯t have an online vet program¡± I decided I had better start from the beginning and began with talking about the cliff climbing again. I didn¡¯t see any disbelief on her face when I got to the pitting and later the breeze. Sammy was a lot more trusting and accepted what I was saying. When it came time to let her see a portal I asked Hawk to show her the castle at Disney World. Something I knew Sammy loved and wanted to go see someday. Every time we went to the cinema to see a Disney movie she would give a happy laugh at the castle in the intro. Sammy had asked me if the real one looked like that so I showed her pictures from the web of it. After that we would sometimes talk about going to Disney World. Thinking the castle would be perfect I had Hawk make a portal to it right in front of us at a time the fireworks show ¡°Fantasy in the Sky¡± was performing. Expecting her to be shocked like Grandma instead she smiled and leaned closer to get a better look. Sammy was so fascinated by what she was seeing she forgot to ask any questions and just watched until the end of the performance. I noticed Grandma looking out the window at us when the fireworks explode but then she smiled at us and closed the drapes. After the show ended Hawk left the portal to the castle up for Sammy while we talked about them and what I was actually doing with them for the environment. I was happy Sammy didn¡¯t get angry with me for lying to her and Grandma but she did let me know I should have told her. I talked to her about using the portal to live at home for school. ¡°I don¡¯t understand¡± Sammy said, ¡°How can a portal let me go to college from home?¡± I stood up, grabbed her hand and pulled her through a portal unto her future campus. Looking around she turned and hugged me declaring ¡°Now we can keep seeing each other all the time¡±. Walking around the campus in the cool evening I talked about why I didn¡¯t think the government should know about Hawk and what he could do. I thought she would disagree with me. I always considered her to be very open and honest person and would want to tell people including the government but all she said was she trusted me and would keep it a secret. As we passed the dorms I said pointing ¡°You can get a single room in the dorm and visit grandma at home whenever you feel like. You can even just sleep at home and come and go from campus using your dorm room.¡± While Sammy was thinking about that I looked around and not seeing anyone pulled her back through a portal to her porch. It was getting late so I decided to let her sleep on it and said goodnight with a kiss. Tomorrow was a Saturday so no school; I expected I would see her at my door first thing in the morning with all the questions she forgot to ask tonight. Thinking about all those questions I thought maybe I could distract her with a trip to Disney tomorrow instead. Chapter 17 - Garbage In, Garbage Out Agent Ed Barrow didn¡¯t know why he was here on this task force. The NCMEC case with the missing children had basically consumed his entire department for almost a year now. With them getting close to the end of it Ed could finally be able to take a long vacation. His boss hadn¡¯t even given him a heads up when he left the office this morning. Just told him to show up for a multi-agency meeting at Langley and be prepared to answer questions and provide input. He¡¯d been sitting here all morning and still wasn¡¯t sure why he was here. Getting pulled into another case at this time with the NSA and CIA involved did not look good for his vacation plans. A group of squints were just now just finishing up with their presentation. Ed got a hazy idea that it was about some statistical irregularities on some recent cases. He wasn¡¯t completely sure about that. He had zoned out after the eighth chart was presented. The team of analyst had finally finished their presentation to the group. The 200 page report that accompanied it was handed out to the group members to discuss. Looking at the report in front of him the director got frustrated. The committee would have his head if he didn¡¯t find out why so many of their projects were failing. Frustrated he picked up the report and deliberately slammed it down on the table. Looking around at the different agencies here he started to rant and curse about the useless report. All this time and resources spent and all those idiots could come up with is a bunch of wild guesses! They couldn¡¯t come up with a clue or useful theory. A circus fortune teller could have come up with better research than this crap. After a visible effort to come himself the director looked around the group and demanded everything be checked again. One way or another he had to find out who or what was doing this and most importantly how it was being done. * * * * * While the coal issue played out I decided to try to do something about trash pollution. Something I had been putting off since I had no idea how to get started on it. On the main screen in front of me was the current Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Floating in the Pacific Ocean between Hawaii and California it was already bigger than the state of Texas. The number of marine life killed by it every day was in the thousands. The other monitors showed similar trash islands that were now forming from the Caribbean to the Baltic. The problem was quickly growing to a horrendous level, far past a level I could imagine anyone being able to stop. There was an ongoing attempt called System 03 the used a floating barrier pulled by a couple of ships to scoop it up one small section at a time. This has resulted in a minor reduction in the speed it was growing but it still was. Focusing on the composition and source it looked like the trash was basically plastic and the source came from a combination of garbage floating down from rivers to actual ocean dumping of it. The big issue as far as I could tell was the old adage ¡°Out of sight, out of mind¡±. The extensive amount of trash was floating where no one but a few freighter crew members would see. Checking online it¡¯s been 25 years since it was first discovered and only a small number of references to it could be found since. I could try focusing on the rivers which were providing most of the trash to it. Looking at some of the worst ones they were basically garbage disposals for the people and businesses along them. Looking at the Ganges river in India I couldn¡¯t even tell where the edge of the river was. It was all a solid layer of garbage. Some of it seemed to be slowly moving maybe that was it. Impossible not to believe those river polluters weren¡¯t aware of how bad it was. I watched as a young boy herded three goats through the trash as they stopped and ate something they found in it. I decided this was another situation where international pressure was what was needed. That would require getting the press involved. For them to do more than just a human interest story about it I would need to get the rich and famous involved too. Breaking it down this way I got an idea somewhat silly, that might work. ¡°Hawk¡± I said ¡°If a portal connected the bottom of the ocean with one at sea level would the pressure cause a stream of water shoot out?¡± ¡°Yes¡± was the response from Hawk. ¡°Then could you use that effect to move a section of that floating garbage closer to California?¡± ¡°Yes¡± was again the only response from Hawk. The silly ideal of mine seem to have potential. A quick internet search of rich famous beaches in California got me a number of possibilities. Looking at them I saw a perfect one ¡°Malibu Beach¡±. The homeowners there were basically a list of the country¡¯s most rich and famous. I¡¯ll have the trash threaten most of the beaches on the coast but Malibu might deserve a little more.. The trick now was to find a way to make it all seem accidental or in this case just an act of nature. Looking at the NOAA site I identified the North Pacific and California currents as likely candidates. They weren¡¯t precisely heading in the direction I needed but close enough. If I timed it with a pacific storm that should help cover up any inconstancies with the path. Then a few careful nudges on the trash should provide some response to beaches like Malibu. I expected the public would be screaming for a solution as soon as they were aware it was heading their way. Most likely they would probably try and shift the System 03 Scooper to stop it. But just in case I might need to use the excuse of the Northern flowing Davidson current to send it away. That is after they¡¯ve ha time to get support for the trash problem. I had no intention of wreking those beautiful beaches just use them to draw attention to the issue. Looking at my watch I saw I was running a bit short on time. Sammy¡¯s prom was tonight and I still had a tuxedo to pick up and a limo to get. Last week I had Grandma give me a small square of the cloth she used to make the prom dress for Sammy. With that the guy at the tuxedo rental made sure to have coordinating colors for the tie and pocket square. I was working as hard as I could to make this evening as special for Sammy as possible. I was uncertain about what to do after the prom. There was a tradition but I wasn¡¯t sure Sammy was ready. That was until this morning. She must have talked to Granma of her plans for after the prom. When I went to see her this morning she made a point of handing me a small overnight bag right in front of Grandma. I was shocked she did, and then thrilled. I looked at Grandma after Sammy handled it to me and saw the resigned look on her face. Not a response I expected. If Sammy was my granddaughter I would probably have gotten out a shotgun. The limo took some work to find and rent. It was a modified Hummer limousine and driver that came with it was willing to make the trip out to our small town from the city. It took some time and a lot of Hector¡¯s money to do it but it was all worth it from the look on Sammy¡¯s face. When we drove up to the front of their cabin Sammy and her Grandma couldn¡¯t stop checking it out. They both climbed in and had to try everything, every button, sit in every seat, look in the refrigerator and move the divider window and sun roof open and closed. We left early, a couple of hours before the prom was to start. I had told her I would take her some place nice to eat before the dance but our small town didn¡¯t really have anything but the dinner. She was so excited and busy at the ride that she never asked where we were going. From what she had mentioned to me most of her classmates were eating at a town 20 miles away that had a Italian pizzeria. She might have thought that was where we were going. Instead, I wanted something a little more special for her and with a permit from the town hall and a caterer I had hired she was going to get it.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. Sammy was surprised when we pulled into the town park. It was just getting dark and we had the place to ourselves. The town used the place for special events and holiday celebrations. There was a small bandstand or maybe it was just a large gazebo in the center with trails and playground equipment around the sides. The driver drove us up a trail and towards the middle of the park. When the car stopped Sammy looked out the windows not understanding why we were here. Her surprise increased when the driver opened the door for us. I steped out and held my hand to assist her out. ¡°Why are we here¡± she asked ¡°Aren¡¯t we going to eat someplace?¡± ¡°Dinner waits¡± I said as we walked to the gazebo. As she looked toward the gazebo she saw a table with candles and covered dishes. Music started to play as we approached and a waiter walked around from behind. She stumbled a bit as I held her chair for her to sit at the table. ¡°This is wonderful, are we going to get in trouble eating her¡± she said. ¡°No¡±, I said ¡°I went through the Town Hall and Mrs. Prentiss gave me a permit to do it. When she heard what I was planning she didn¡¯t even charge me a fee¡±. Sammy laughed and said ¡°Mrs. Prentiss was my fourth grade teacher before she retired and started volunteering at the town hall¡±. As we ate, we talked and I watched her she smiled and laughed. Before we knew it was time to head to her school for the prom. As we arrived at the school and pulled up in front dozens of her classmates gathered around the limo to look at it. Seeing all her friends gathered around and a few pushing their faces against the tinted windows Sammy started to get she. She didn¡¯t want to get out. ¡°I had a great time already, why don¡¯t we skip the dance¡± she said. Seeing her scared and embarrassed face looking out the tinted windows at her classmates I cajoled her by saying ¡°Don¡¯t you want to dance with me? You have such a pretty dress and I¡¯ve been practicing so I won¡¯t step on your toes to many times¡±. At that point the driver had pushed through the bystanders and reached our door to open it. The students pulled away from the door as it was opened and I was able to step out. I leaned down and held my hand out to Sammy. After a minute she stepped out and joined me. As we walked up to the doors or the school¡¯s auditorium she hid her face against my shoulder. I thought her embarrassed shyness was very cute until she stopped suddenly right before the doors. Thinking she was still having thought of not going in I whispered ¡°It¡¯s alright; remember I¡¯m here with you¡±. Suddenly she smiled, leaned up and kissed me hard right in front of her classmates. Whispering to me ¡°There¡¯s no PDAs allowed in the school¡± she smiled and pulled me inside. The prom had a ¡°Starry Night¡± them and the decorations showed it. A lot of tinsel, cut-out stars and a big lit up moon on the wall. Sammy took me around to see all her friends. I had met most of them when Sammy and I were out an about town. After we had danced for a while Sammy excused herself to go off with her girlfriends. This gave the opportunity for the guys to question me, warn me about the punch. Invite Sammy and I to a party afterward and even offer me a joint. When Sammy and the other girls came back they kept sitting together and talking quietly. I overheard someone mention the after party to her and Sammy turning it down. The girls all laughed when Sammy said we had ¡°plans¡±. After they announced the King and Queen Sammy and I said our goodbyes and headed out. I¡¯m sure she thought I would be taking her to a hotel when we left. Maybe one in the city since I mentioned that¡¯s where I rented the limo from. The surprise on her face was priceless to me when the driver left us off at the gazebo again. This time the park was deserted with only a single candle still burning inside. The driver retired Sammy¡¯s overnight bag from the trunk and handled it to me. Holding hands we quietly watched the driver go leaving us there. Sammy didn¡¯t know what I was doing but she trusted me. Holding her hand I walked behind the gazebo and right through a portal. As we stepped through into a very nice hotel room she saw Cinderella¡¯s castle rising above the Magic Kingdom in the window. Welcome to Disney I said to her with a smile. Our night was magical, some uncertainty, a bit of fumbling and a quick stop for room service before we did it all over again. In spite of being up most of the night Sammy was wide awake first thing in the morning staring out at the theme park. ¡°Why don¡¯t you call Grandma and let her know your fine¡± I said ¡°We can spend the day in the park and be back home tonight¡±. With a happy shout and a hug to me she was jumped on the phone. I stepped into the bathroom to give them some privacy. The last thing I wanted to overhear was any details of our night she might decide to share. As I came back out I heard her promising to get Grandma a souvenir before hanging up. Next thing I knew she was rushing me to hurry up before the lines got to long. Henry, a vacationing fisherman 40 miles off the coast was the first one to spot the trash field. A Pacific storm had kept him off the water for the last few days and his vacation was now almost over. Intent on making the most of it he had arranged a private chartered boat and headed out early on his last day. By first light his hook was in the water and he was halfway through his first beer. Feeling a drag on the line Henry first thought it was a Sea Bass until the lack of play made him realize his mistake. Reeling up the line Henry found a milk jug half full of water he had hooked. Surprised at such an old thing he looked down at the spot he was fishing and saw garbage all around the boat. All thought of continuing to fish left him then. After a few moments to comprehend what he was seeing Henry decided that was it. This vacation was a bust so he finished chugging down his beer and preparing to head back to port. Usually when he was out fishing if no one was watching he would just chuck the empties into the water. This time after looking at all the garbage he hesitated and then tossed the empty can into the cooler. Complaints to the charter service when Henry reached shore got him nowhere but the next day more complaints started coming in. Two days later the coast guard had a spotter plane up and was investigating the area. Spotting no one dumping they gave up and flew back to base. The complaints kept coming in and a day later the size, location and direction it was heading made the news. A week later beach warnings were being given up and down the coast. The news full of meetings and protest insist something be done. Adam Strutford was enjoying a long weekend at his Malibu place. Being a Hollywood studio exec was a stressful position these days. The trailer for the latest summer release was getting slammed online and the lead actor was bad mouthing the film and the director on live TV. Getting away was just what he needed. Opening the drapes of his bedroom Adam starred at the sunrise and decided a swim was just what he needed. Yelling to his housekeeper as he headed through the living room ¡°Brenda I¡¯m going for a swim, how about an egg white omelet when I get back¡± ¡°Ok Mr. Strutford, enjoy your swim¡± Brenda said. Heading out his patio doors and down the steps he first realized there was omething wrong was when he felt something squish under his feet. Looking down he saw garbage all over the beach from the hide tide mark to the shore. Yelling ¡°Brenda, call the Coastal Commission; get them out here right now. I want this mess cleaned up immediately!¡± Looking out the Window Brenda saw her boss standing on one foot and looking angrily at the beach. Not understanding she said ¡°Sir, what do you mean, why should I can them?¡± ¡°Stupid! Can¡¯t you see all this garbage? Get them out her now and call the cops. I want to find out who did this to ¡®My¡¯ beach!¡± Mr. Strutford spent most of the day on the phone yelling and threatening people about the beach trash. He never did get his egg white omelet. It was a relatively small amount of the trash that showed up on the richer beaches. I made sure to have Hawk push it closer to the richer houses but never higher then the high tide make. I made sure to remove the trash the next night. The homeowners would likely assume that the Coastal Commission did it or the high tide took it back out to sea. Either way it caused more complaints and several rich homeowners pushed for tighter laws. Contributions to ¡°The Ocean Cleanup¡± group doubled and push to get international support for it was raised. I had Hawk remove the small trash island that was offshore few days later. The public was told that the island disappeared and things were back to normal. Not something they really believed and most still thought it was out there ready to mess up the beaches again. With the public believing the trash would be polluting their beaches in the future the support for more cleanup effort continued. One odd thing was beach goers started to point to the garbage normally found on beaches as being from the trash island. It kept interest in dealing with the problem high. The results were a long way from a complete success but Daniel counted it as a partial win. Chapter 18 - Now She Has Someplace Too The entity now known as Hawk watched as it always did. Whether it was a million stars across a million years or just the few humans on this one small planet it watched. That human known as ¡°Daniel¡± had affected it in a way that was unexpected. The Daniel¡¯s attempts to change the fate of his planet are acceptable to Hawk¡¯s core purpose but the way he was proceeding to do it seemed foolish. Hawk found itself attempting to understand why Daniel did things this way. The odd and indirect way Daniel was using the ¡°portals¡± as he called them was so limited. Hawk was not sure if this was ignorance or a flawed intelligence that was the cause. It thought about informing Daniel more of what it could do but the initiative to do so was still lacking. One of its primary objectives to observe so Hawk watched humans, all humans. To better understand the reason and affect of Daniel¡¯s actions Hawk decided to focused on human interaction. Starting with current humans on the planet it traced them back to their births. The interaction each human had with others either physically or through communication was reviewed. The level of understanding Hawk had now reached about them was then tested. Comparing actions it forecaster with actual ones as they happened showed differences. The result of its comparison was poor, particularly when large groups of humans interacted. After some thought Hawk decided it needed to expand its observational data. It started back tracking back humans who were now deceased. * * * * * Daniel and Sammy spent most of the summer visiting places around the world. Daniel left it up to Sammy where they would go. Sammy¡¯s approach was to get a picture atlas from the town library and used it. She would close her eyes, open the book and drop a finger down on a page. With this funny way of picking them Daniel ended up finding himself spending afternoons with Sammy in places like the Sahara, the Dry Tortugas and one time at a Yurt camp in Nepal. They often had trouble with the language and one time a group of women started yelling at them but it was fun. The trips were usually in the afternoon the mornings were reserved for his work with Hawk.. Grandma reluctantly went with them a few times. She loved the trips but said she was getting in the way of young love. The one place they all went back to several times was to Disney World. Grandma likes visiting the place so much Daniel even got annual passes for them all. With summer coming to an end Sammy needed to get ready for school. She had already met with an advisor and had a full class load planned. The portal would make it easy for Sammy to go back and forth but the campus would be busy. Finding a quiet place to use would be difficult and increase the chance someone might see. Sammy and Daniel decided to check out the rooms in the dorms. After taking a tour of the available single dorm rooms Daniel could tell Sammy was a bit disappointed by them. She didn¡¯t say anything but Daniel could smell the cigarette smoke and mildew. There were rules against drinking and partying in the rooms but no one seemed to follow them. She tried to convince me it was ok saying she would just be using it to go back and forth. He had once heard Sammy mention about wanting to bring her friends over to visit her own place. He realized that this was Sammy¡¯s biggest disappointment; it would be her own place but not suitable for visitors. After realizing this he took her to see the apartment complexes around the campus. He could tell she was much happier with them but was worried about the cost and how to get back and forth to school. He finally managed to convince her that using Hector¡¯s drug money for a nicer place was fine and he also surprised her by taking her to a scooter store for a test ride. Helping her find a scooter was quick she liked a retro looking 55cc scooter in a bright Turquoise color. A little odd looking to Daniel¡¯s taste but she did look cute riding it with a matching helmet and backpack on. The apartment was another story, after two weeks of checking every possible place she decided on one. It was a small one bedroom with a balcony looking over the apartment complex¡¯s pool. After signing the lease Sammy immediately started planning a sleepover for her high school friends. With Sammy busy in school full time Daniel now had more time to focus on work. The missing kids and pollution projects were ongoing but nothing had been started towards the issue of the endangered animals. Reading up on the problems that were causing animal species to become extinct the biggest cause looked like habitat loss. This was not going to be an easy thing to do anything about. There were just more and more people on the planet squeezing out the wildlife. What he needed to do he realized was to collect and monitor everything going on that could affect their habitats then do whatever he could to minimize it. For this he would need help. Hawk could provide that information of that he was certain but it would still need to be filtered so he wasn¡¯t buried under thousands of other things. Another issue was language; most habitats were in areas that English wasn¡¯t spoken. Daniel had been using translation software on what Hawk showed but that was slow and with a lot of mistakes. Thinking about all that I needed to do and my available time I realized that getting more help was critical. Sammy and Grandma were trying but neither really had the time. After talking it over with them I decided to start searching for the right person to hire. I would try to keep my using portals away from them. They would still need to be trustworthy and ok with any questionable illegality. After thinking about what kind of person I needed and the traits that would make them ideal I started my search. First thing was I wanted someone young, still idealistic and a bit naive. The idea was that someone with those traits would accept what I told them and maybe overlook anything unusual they run across doing the work. I also decided that if they felt a sense of gratitude that would help too. So maybe someone in need that I could help would work. In my researching of species extinction I found that the largest number happened in Africa, Asian and South American countries. Focusing my initial efforts on one of them seemed the best bet. Most of the work this new hire would do would revolve around meetings and discussions within the countries. So the new person should have local knowledge of one of those areas and speak the language. Deciding to start with Africa first I gave Hawk the requirements and he almost immediately stated showing me candidates and their current situation. Hawk started to display people on all the monitors. As videos of them kept coming by faster and faster I finally had to yell Stop! Some of the situations I saw them in were both sad and disturbing. There was just so many possible candidates. I needed to be more specific to get the number down to a more manageable level. ¡°Hawk, please eliminate everyone who is not local or can¡¯t speak English also any who are not in an unpleasant situation¡±. I had forgotten to add English speaking as a requirement and the local requirement although not really necessary did mean they would at least be in the same time zone. The monitors started to show people again. This time I had Hawk stop a few times when someone caught my eye so I could watch the current situation they were in. At one point I stopped at a teenage girl sleeping in a box next to a dumpster. She wasn¡¯t the first homeless person on the list but what was unusual this time was how clean she was. Staying clean with no place to live was not an easy thing to do. After asking Hawk to track back a bit on her I found she had been out on the streets for a couple of weeks. I wanted to help but was a bit hesitant about her youth. She looked a couple of years younger than Sammy and really shouldn¡¯t be on the streets. Looking more into her past it looked like her mom was a drunk and the boyfriend an abusive pedophile. What got her on Hawks list were her experience and language skills. Not something I would expect from someone so young. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. Shasta was nervous walking into the restaurant; it was only desperation that kept her from bolting after that flyer showed up lying in front of the box she slept in. The flyer was for help wanted with some odd skills listed. It was almost like it had been written just for her. She was sure she wouldn¡¯t get it with her age and lack of a work permit. Still she had to try, thinking about all the bad things that could happen to her out here. The address was only a couple of blocks away so after cleaning up in a gas station bathroom she headed over. Now she was outside looking through the window she could see it was a normal American restaurant. She couldn¡¯t understand why they wanted someone who spoke Swahili and Arabic. After thinking about it for a bit she decided not to get her hopes up and headed inside. Walking through the front doors up to the seating hostess she was scared and desperate. Telling herself to be calm she thought what¡¯s the worst that could happen, George mom¡¯s boyfriend has already made it impossible for her to stay in the apartment? With her 18th birthday still over 14 months away Shasta wondered if she could lie and tri to pass herself off as an adult. She didn¡¯t have any makeup but maybe she should try to find some and come back later. Looking at the clock on the wall she saw it was 11:00 the same time the flyer said to show up. With no time to change her mind Shasta walked up to the Hostess and as the flyer instructed said she was her for the Noah group. Shasta was surprised when she wasn¡¯t given an application to fill out. Instead the hostess escorted her to a private dining room in the back. Pointing to the closed door the hostess said your party is inside. A bit surprised at the term ¡°party¡± she looked at the door and walls around it and thought the room was for birthday celebrations. Something Shasta remembered fondly from before her father was killed and mom started drinking. Walking thought she got another surprise when no one was there. Just a table and chairs with a platter of sandwiches and pitcher of drinks on the table. Seeing them Shasta¡¯s stomach started growing. Her last meal was two days ago from a dumpster outside a fast food restaurant. Trying to decide if she should just grab one or not she heard someone say ¡°Good Morning Shasta¡±. Looking around she couldn¡¯t see anyone in the room or even an intercom or phone. Before she could respond the voice which she thought sounded like a young man¡¯s continued. ¡°You can call me Noah, as the flyer you found stated I am offering you a job. And before you ask the job does not involve anything bad or indecent although it is slightly illegal. Also you were specifically selected because for your qualifications and need¡± ¡°Qualification? What qualifications do I have?¡± ¡°What I require for this position is wildlife familiarity, linguist ability and most of all confidentiality¡± the voice said. Shasta was surprised at that, she did not consider herself to have any real talent especially as a linguist. She did speak Swahili from her father and Arabic from her mother. Speaking both was not that uncommon in Kenya where she grew up. Living here the last four years she did learn English as well but with a strong accent. That got her picked on whenever she managed to go to school. As far as wildlife she did have some knowledge and experience from her father. He was Kikuyu and a game warden; she often went out with him on patrol. Thinking about her father she was reminded again about how he got killed. He got dragged into a fight with the Mungiki movement over a poacher incident. The son of someone high up in the movement was killed and they blamed her dad. After he was killed his boss afraid they would be net managed to get Shasta and her mother a tourist visa to the U.S. Now they had been here for three years stuck in legal limbo with ICE the U.S. immigration authority. The original tourist visa was long expired and their application for asylum still pending all this time. ¡°Who are you¡± she finally asked still looking around for the source of the voice. ¡°I¡¯ll explain but why don¡¯t you first eat?. I ordered a large selection so hopefully you will find something that you like¡±. After two sandwiches Shasta¡¯s stomach stopped growling and she was ready to get some answers. ¡°First of all Shasta I¡¯m not showing myself to you because even though what I want to hire you for isn¡¯t bad it is still somewhat illegal You might decide to leave now or quit later and if you do I would prefer for legal reasons that you not be able to identify me¡±. Shasta was having second thoughts after hearing that. Coming here and eating the food now seemed like a mistake but before she could get up and go the voice continued. ¡°What I want you to do is listen to recordings of meetings taking place around Africa. If you hear anything that might negatively affect the endangered wildlife report it to me.¡± ¡°What, is that all?¡± she said. ¡°Yes, just listen and report what you find for which you will receive a decent salary.¡± ¡°Now keep in mind what is illegal is how the recordings where acquired but that is on me and not you¡±. ¡°Do you agree¡± Noah said Shasta still didn¡¯t understand. What he was asking her to do didn¡¯t seem wrong but why pay her to do it? After a minute of thinking about it while looking at the half finished third sandwich in front of her.¡± Shasta was still hesitant until the mysterious Noah explained how much she would be paid. Hearing it she was shocked, that much for listening to meetings? With that she could get off the street, maybe even go back to school again. She even wondered how much an immigration attorney would cost. ¡°Ok, I¡¯ll do it¡± she said. ¡°How much will I get paid and where will I listen to these recordings at? I don¡¯t have any place now.¡± ¡°Look over on the side table and open that envelope you see¡± Noah said. Shasta could swear that envelop wasn¡¯t there when she came in but she dutifully picked it up and opened it. When she did she found $5000 in cash and a name and address. Noah explained ¡°Go to that person at the address and give him half the money. Tell him you want the holiday package and he will create a reasonably good fake Id for you. You can use your real name but make sure he puts your age at 18 years old.¡± ¡®When you have your new Id go rent a place to stay. I would suggest over by 5th avenue, its decent enough and they won¡¯t ask for references¡±. ¡°The rest of the money is an advance. Once you¡¯ve settled in at your new place I will get the recording to you. Your monthly salary will be $4000, is that acceptable to you?¡± When Shasta left the restaurant she followed the instructions and headed to the address a small print shop, the kind that are seen everywhere. Once there she nervously asked for John Farlyn and waited. A tall skinny man came out of the back and said I¡¯m John Farlyn. What can I do for you¡±? Shasta repeated the word in the instructions and said ¡°I wanted to get the holiday package¡±. The man shook his head yes and lead her to the back of the room. There he took her picture and cash telling her to come back in a couple of hours. Shasta started to get nervous and excited as she started walking around the block. Every time she passed the coffee shop on the corner she would peek inside at the clock. Eventually the two hours were up and she headed back. The man John Farlyn acted like it was a normal purchase. He even put the id in a small bag before handing it to her and telling her to come again. Finding a place to stay was next on her list Chapter 19 - The Hunt Now Begins The Monday morning status meeting of the Information Assurance (IA) group was in full swing at the NSA. The current status of all current investigations was being presented while the agents guzzled their coffees and tried to look like they were paying attention. A new investigation was presented labeled ¡°Dark Money¡± the disclosure was displayed on the screen. The slide was stamped ¡°Highest Priority¡± in red with warning reference to the Official Secrets Act and penalties there on related. The assistant to the director (AD) discussed a security problem in which the campaign contributions from Non-Profit 501c groups were leaked. One of the newest agents Sam Beacon raised his hand and got the assistant director to pause in his presentation. Agent Beacon asked ¡°Why are we investigating information hacking of some charity group and why it is even a high priority?¡± The other agents present made a few made side comments about na?ve rookies. The AD got a frustrated look on his face then after a moment started chewing out the rookie agent for claiming any crime was too small to be ignored and overlooked. He then started telling off the agent for only wanting to work high profile cases and that it will be noted in his file about his lack of professional work ethic. At this point a few agents started to get discomforted at the area the AD¡¯s misdirection was taking. After the meeting a senior agent close to retirement took pity on the rookie and in a quiet voice told him that most of the political contributions to senior politicians were funneled through these groups to hide the large amounts that special interest groups were paying to those politicians. * * * * * Shasta heard the knock and quickly ran to the door. Opening it there was no one in the hallway and the elevator wasn¡¯t being used. Disappointed again she thought about getting one of those security door cameras for next week¡¯s delivery. Looking down she picked up the box lying there and went inside. The very first week the box left was bigger and had a laptop and headphones along with the DVDs and her $1000 pay in cash. Since then only the DVDs and money showed up each week. Try as she could she was never able to catch whoever it was that was leaving them. She assumed it was that Noah guy but couldn¡¯t be positive. She did have an email for him. He didn¡¯t respond often but when she sent him a transcript of something she found he would confirm getting it. The last time was after she sent him the conversation about consultants being bribed. It was for a favorable environmental impact assessment (EIA) for construction in a conservation area of Kenya. Noah responded that it was a good catch and followed up with a suggested she might want to take a GED class. Shasta had heard about a GED before but never thought about getting one. Surprised at the thought of it and thinking about being able to go to college she checked and found an online program for a GED. This week she had a big one to report, some politicians were pushing for an airport to be built in a biodiversity region. From the conversation it sounded like no one needed or wanted an airport there. It looked like a few construction company owners wanted it for the build contracts and offered a couple of politicians a percentage of the business to help. Shasta wasn¡¯t sure what Noah could do about it. The politicians weren¡¯t actually doing anything illegal just unethical and the company owners were just being greedy. Once I got the transcript from Shasta I spent the morning researching the people and groups involved. I was not having much luck coming up with an idea for dealing with both the company owners and politicians. While I was doing that Sammy was sitting beside me watching a class from last Monday. She was enjoying school immensely but was having a bit of difficulty understanding one of the professors¡¯. Whether it was her country accent or his accent there was some confusion. Taking advantage of Hawk¡¯s temporal portals she had gotten in the habit of reviewing his lectures before each test. With both of us so busy sitting beside each other while working was one of the few ways we could spend time together. Listening to her interact with Hawk I heard her ask him to pause the display so she could copy the diagram from the white board. A bit surprised at the request I turned around and saw the monitor with the classroom and the professor was actually paused. ¡°How did you know he could do that¡± I asked ¡°I didn¡¯t know, I just asked him and he did. He can also adjust the volume if you ask him to¡±. I was dumb founded; Hawk had told me the past was static and unchanged. The more I thought about it the more I realized that sound and light coming from the past shouldn¡¯t be possible then. I quickly realized that what I assumed about portals and the past were not correct. I was misunderstanding something very important. Deciding it was way past time I got better answers from Hawk I spent the next two hours asking and trying to understand his answers when he did respond. I managed to get some surprising information from Hawk¡¯s limited responses. First was that travel to the past is not impossible but actually just impractical. To enter or remove things from the past was to change it which would require the adjustment of all affected ¡°states¡± (maybe quantum states?) from that target point to the present. From what I could surmise it would require an incredible amount of energy to accomplish. The second and very surprising thing was the current ¡°state¡± within the portal¡¯s width was forcefully shaped to match the state of the past. This I assumed was what was creating the light and sound of what we saw when looking through the portal to the past. The created state at the portal must be producing copies of the protons and the audio waves from the past. That would also explain why I got sunburn and smelled the ocean when watching a past view of that beach. Thinking about the transporting and copying ability of the portal I immediately thought of a popular science fiction show. Some of the episodes dealt with transporter malfunctions and problems with copying. ¡°Hawk¡± I asked ¡°Can you copy people?¡± ¡°Life cannot be duplicated¡± was the immediate response. When I tried to find out more, Hawk¡¯s answers had just left more questions. The response that life cannot have a point of discontinuity didn¡¯t seem to explain anything. Looking the term up online I found a lot of math and references to charting functions in calculus. Was Hawk claiming life was just a mathematical function?Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. Deciding to give the puzzle of life a rest for a bit I went back to what I had been working on in the morning. I turned my mind back to what to do about the airport issue Shasta found. I do understand and accept the need for airports but Shasta¡¯s notes and my additional research clearly showed that an airport there was not needed at all and those people knew it. The only reason for it to be built was to make money for a few politicians and company execs. Everyone involved had their hands out to grab a piece of the construction pie. The only real illegality I could see was the bribe on the environmental impact report. This was just a minor issue since the report was considered only a recommendation. I checked other similar construction for similar areas and it looked like the actual environmental damage to the area would be deforestation, ecosystem fragmentation, and the disturbance of animal migration. Considering the area was home to three different endangered species I decided something should be done. I thought about exposing the lack of need for the airport and questionable impact report publicly which should get the project canceled. That would be easy and something very similar to things I had done in the past. The real question was how to do it in such a way as to keep similar unethical construction projects from happening there in the future? The main driving force for these people was to make money. Since it was the driving force for them pushing the cost of this project sky hi and ensuring they paid for it would be the best response. I decided to start with the construction contracts for the proposed airport. An afterhour¡¯s visit to the law office of the person responsible for the contracts got me a copy. Translating it I saw they were the typical fixed price with a schedule. A common type for construction projects but under the right circumstances could be expensive. After seeing that I sat back in my chair content to let the airport projects continue, or at least get started. The project manager was so stressed he couldn¡¯t sleep at night. He was getting daily calls from the CEO of the different construction groups and now members of their boards were calling. Three months into the project and they were ten weeks behind. First it started with the surveying for the new road. A straight line into where the site was to be located. Instead the path somehow got changed to swing around several nesting areas because of ¡°environmental impact¡±. He didn¡¯t understand how that NEMA inspector always seems to know when to show up. Normally when the crew found environmental concerns like rare nesting areas they knew to just bulldoze through it. Now they had to stop and go around them instead just because an inspector just happened to be there that day. Now the equipment itself was breaking down. Loose fitting, contamination in the tanks, and someone even got the plans switched so they have to re-dig. He could swear it was deliberate sabotage but site security had checked and rechecked and there was nothing. Project manager Kagure Kilavuka thought he was all ready for this emergency meeting. The company boards were now on the warpath with the construction delays and problems the financiers were talking about cutting their losses and pulling out. If they did he and the others would all be ruined. He just needed a way to convince them that he could turn this mess around. Luckily they had only heard rumors and didn¡¯t know how far this project was behind. His plan was perfect; first downplay how far the project was behind then tell the board about his contact at the Ministry of Roads and Transport. Let them know his contact was willing to extend the contract schedule and even remove the penalty clause. It would take a suitable bribe of course but the boards would expect that its how most business was done here. Kilavuka¡¯s perfect plan would then kick in. After they gave him the money for the bribe he would move it immediately into his foreign account. The next day he would be out of the country, relaxing on a beach somewhere with a fancy umbrella drink in his hand. They won¡¯t be able to charge him with embezzlement since it was bribe money. They also wouldn¡¯t be able to send anyone after him either. With the project¡¯s eminent collapse they will all lose their shirts. They would be lucky to keep their shirts on their back let alone be able to pay someone to come after him. The plan was perfect! Two weeks later Mr. Kilavuka was sitting in the VIP lounge at the Jomo Kenyatta International Airport waiting to board his flight to Barbados. The plan was delayed an hour so he decided to make a quick call to his secretary Ms Juma. As she answered he started to remind her again to tell everyone who might be looking for him that he was under the weather and was taking a few days off. She booked his ticket and knew he was at the airport but thought it was just for a quick vacation. Before he hung up he reiterated once again that it included anyone even the boards; if they called he was out sick and wouldn¡¯t be back until Monday. As he hung up he thought again that this was a great plan. That sick excuse element along with the weekend should give him a few extra days before anyone started actively searching for him. Later as he sipped his drink a staff member of the lounge approached him. ¡°Sir, are you Mr. Kilavuka she asked? He answered ¡°yes, is there a problem¡±. No sir, you just have an emergency phone call from a Ms Kiyara Juma. She says it¡¯s quite urgent. You can take it at the main counter. Wondering what possible reason his secretary would be calling him now he looked at his watch. There was still 10 minutes before boarding, just enough time to deal with whatever it was. Walking up to the desk he picked up the curtsey phone and asked ¡°What¡¯s the problem Kiyara? Make it quick my plane is about to leave.¡± ¡°Sir, the DCI are here now, they¡¯re grabbing all our records what should we do?¡± He was shocked, wondering if they knew but if they did why go to his office? The Directorate of Criminal Investigations (DCI) dealt with embezzlement and fraud not bribery. Looking around he didn¡¯t see any police, everyone was calm and just now starting to board. ¡°Kiyara don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m sure it¡¯s a mistake. I¡¯ll head back to the office now. If anyone asks for me I¡¯ll be there in about 30 minutes¡± Hanging up he hurried over to the gate deciding it was a good thing he was leaving. Whatever reason they were investigating he would be clear of it and long gone. The DCI shouldn¡¯t have any reason to arrest him but he couldn¡¯t get pulled into whatever their investigation was either. As he held out his passport and boarding pass to the attendant a hand suddenly reached around behind him and grabbed them. Looking back he saw two men in suits, one of them holding up a badge. ¡°Mr. Kilavuka you are wanted for questioning please come with us¡±. At the trial Kilavuka could only shake his head when they asked him about the money. Somehow the bribery money from the board ended up exactly matching the amount that was missing from the company¡¯s operating funds. With the money transfer in evidence no one would believe that money was not what was embezzled. While his trial was going on the problems the airport project was having leaked to the press. That along with the news of bribes to get that favorable environmental impact rating got the project shut down quickly. Most of the construction companies was found to have violated the terms of their contract and got fined. Between the fines, bribe money and up front investments by the time the dust settled most of the board were now bankrupt. A few years later what was left of the construction site was barely recognizable, most of the area had returned to nature. Chapter 20 - Deception or Misdirection Agent Beacon was sitting at his desk wondering when his vacation request would finally get approved. An analysis dropped off a report in his in box. Looking at the top label on the cover he could see it was the section 702 weekly PRISM report. These reports were mostly a waste of time since anything really useful would have been pulled from it. The AD¡¯s had their favorite agents get them before it got distributed to grunts like him. Glancing through it he could see the usual intercepted social media posts. The government was technically only allowed to monitor communications to and from non-US persons but by excluded any information on citizenship the department could claim the excuse of not being aware they were violating the law. Looking at the thread summaries one group that stood out to him was a communication going back and forth between a ¡°Lazarus¡± to several crypto exchanges trying to track a money conversion they authorized. It might just be coincidence but Lazarus was also a nickname for North Korea¡¯s APT38, their notorious hacker group. The supreme leader (as he liked to be called) there had his hands in all kinds of cyber crimes and the chance his group might be involved into some of the odd occurrences the NSA was investigating was high. After reading through the message thread Beacon¡¯s hunch got stronger and stronger. From the gist of what he read there seemed to be a lot of money missing. Included were some not so veiled threats that this Lazarus made to the exchanges. If North Korea was involved in some sort of crypto deal that went sideways things could turn bloody very quickly and whoever did it now had a large target painted on their backs. * * * * * Hawk was aware of his own limitations and in particular his lack of imitative. The recent time with the two entities Daniel and Sammy seemed to have encouraged more dynamism within him. Enough that it was considering informing Daniel of an investigation by several US agencies to find him. The investigations were all in the preliminary stages but they had put a few pieces together. It¡¯s analysis of human interaction behavior was still flawed but current analysis indicates likely identification and arrest would be within 8 months. I was taking a break and enjoying a performance of Weber and Fields at the Broadway Music hall in 1907. I enjoyed Vaudeville, it was full of interesting acts, none of them were very sophisticated but the performers put their soul into them. Seeing the acts performed life size in front of me was a secret pleasure of mine. Sammy preferred Broadway musicals from the late 20th century so watching Vaudeville was something I only did while she¡¯s at school or busy helping Grandma. Just as Fields reached the end of his baseball scene Hawk interrupted. ¡°You should watch this meeting at the NSA¡± he said I was shocked; Hawk had never actually started a conversation before. ¡°Why¡± I said but there was no response. Looking at the main screen I could now see a meeting involving what I assume where two agents discussing something to an older man sitting behind a desk. Telling Hawk to turn up the volume I listened in as they gave an update on a case to their boss. From what was said it looked like they were trying to connect the senator charity scam with the ransomware incident. They hadn¡¯t been getting anywhere tracing the internet activity but some similarity in the two incidents had triggered a flag. The two agents were now proposing to expand the search by running all incidents in the agency files for the last three years for similarities. With more matches they hoped to be able to generate a profile for who they should be looking for. Hearing this I got worried, I was confident that normal tracking using things like IP addresses wouldn¡¯t catch me but this might. I should have thought of behavior pattern matching and made some changes in my approaches. It seems I now had a real enemy focused on hunting me. I realized I could either act like prey and hide or treat this as a battle with them as the enemy. My choice was clear. I had no real experience in fighting and my knowledge about how to deal with enemies was based solely on what I had read in novels. Up till now I had been relying on misdirection to keep anyone from finding out who I was and what I was doing. With this problem I didn¡¯t think misdirection would be enough anymore. I needed to get them off my trail. The question was what would do it? Thinking about what I could do I glanced around my cabin and over to my small book case. Mom and Dad loved books but their traveling kept them from having very many. What they had was mostly dog eared paperbacks they could toss into a suitcase. My uncle was the one with an actual library of leather bound classics. I don¡¯t think he ever read them, They all looked brand new and were sorted by size and color on the shelves. With me it was mostly eBooks but I did have a few treasured hard copies. Reaching over to the shelf I pulled out my copy of Sun Tzu¡¯s ¡°Art of War¡±. Looking for inspiration in a 2000 year old book on Chinese military strategy might seem a long shot but I was desperate. Thumbing through it I glanced at a few quotes until I found ¡°All warfare is based on deception." Deceptions can involve false maneuvers, feigned attacks, misleading orders of battle, and creation of deceiving indications of strength or weakness in attempts to influence an enemy''s actions¡±. That struck a chord with me. Up till now what I had been focused on misdirection to hide what I was doing but maybe I should try a little deception. Instead of hiding I could gives them someone else or better yet several some ones. My chief advantage was the assumption of the NSA that I was a hacker. It did make sense since how else explain could they explain account accesses and computer routings. So what I needed was a hacker fall guy or a group to get the blame, better yet would be a ghost. Someone who didn¡¯t actually exist, that would make it almost impossible for them to be proven innocent. My conscious wouldn¡¯t let me use a good person for that so I would need to find someone deserving of the role. Finding just one person who would fit should be easy but a group of them not so much. Thinking it through a bit more I decided that a group wouldn¡¯t need to be ghost. I could use real known hackers for the agencies to waste their time on. If I leave a few faint trails to my ghost from the group members then when or if they get through that group finding the ghost hacker should stop their investigation. I found the ghost hacker first, a North Korean member of the Lazarus Group called Kim Byeong. He was South Korean but went to school in the U.S. to study Cyber Security. When he returned to South Korea he got into some trouble. He had a habit of drinking heavily and gambling, a bad combination considering the kind of people he had started to hang out with. After a bar room brawl that ended with a man dead Kim Byeong left the country one step ahead of the law. He eventually ended up in North Korea after escaping South Korea to China. Once there his Cyber skills got him into the Lazarus Group where he became a rising star. The U.S. intelligence groups file on him ended there with a note that he would likely be arrested if he ever left the country. There had been no further updates and it had now been almost two years. Using a portal I traced his whereabouts until 18 months ago when he got himself killed. It seemed his tendency to drink and gamble was still there but neither was tolerated much in North Korea. Unknown to everyone outside the Supreme Ruler¡¯s security he was killed after being caught cheating at a Seotda game.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. For the ghost group I needed unethical and hopefully criminal hackers whose actions were well known but not their actual identities. With that I could setup up one or two coincidences or hints to link them to what the NSA were now investigating. The general paranoia of the intelligence community should then do the rest for me. With a little luck the NSA will chase them for a while until they eventually find the link back to Kim Byeong. Looking at famous hacking incidents for the past few years I got the alias of several hackers who took credit for them. Finding out their real names was not something I knew how to do but Hawk was surprising me more and more. I decided to see what he could do. ¡°Hawk, can you find out the actual names of these hackers?¡± ¡°Yes¡± Frustrating as always I said ¡°Hawk please show me who each of those hackers are and what they are doing now¡± The monitors immediately started showing different people doing normal activities. Only two of them were at computers typing away. One of them was writing a blog and the other was plagiarizing a term paper it looked like. Tracing back every one I eventually made a decision to set three of them up. None of those three were actual evil villains but two did use their skills to steal money from people who couldn¡¯t afford it and the third was a stalker. The stalker had driven a young woman he was enamored with out of school. When she turned him down he had posted photos he had photo shopped of her to her family, friends and schoolmates. With the three now picked I decided to start with getting them on the NSA¡¯s radar. Going direct to their surveillance efforts with the hint was a little too obvious. Instead I decided to use the FBI assuming that they shared intelligence data to some extent. Looking online I read up on how the FBI traced online activity. It seems they use to use a program with the silly name of ¡°Carnivore¡± but now used a commercial program to intercept email. Finding the right group in the FBI and seeing who they were currently intercepting email from. Finding a wannabe terrorist on the monitoring list I used his computer and account to send an email. The email had one of my hacker¡¯s alias and a reference to the senator charity scam. Over the next few weeks I did a few more similar emails and blog posts supposedly to and from the other hackers. After two more weeks the NSA team still hadn¡¯t connected the FBI leads to my case. I decided to prime the pump as it were and used a CIA monitoring of a drug cartel¡¯s headquarters. They had no direct connection to hacking but I had dealt with a pot growing group a few months back that had taken over several national park areas. I made up a voice conversation for their bug recordings talking about the possibility of contacting one of the hackers I had selected to do a repeat of the park job to take out a competitor cartel. Getting suitable voices to add onto their bug audio was the big problem but a quick insert into an acting classes speech assignment got me that. While watching another meeting with the three agents a week later I saw my first hit. One of the hackers was now labeled as a suspect with the park job listed as a related incident. With this success I decided I could take a breather and do something special for Sammy. Spring break was coming up and the idea of seeing her in a bikini made me breathless. We could go instantly to any beach in the world for the day or a week but Sammy did mention wanting to do something with a couple of classmates Betty and Jerrie that she had become friends with. They were both scholarship students and often spent time in the library with Sammy studying. Neither one had any close family or even much money to spend so they would probably jump at the chance to go somewhere for the break. I booked us a two bedroom suite at an all inclusive resort in Costa Rica complete with airline tickets. I decided to leave it to Sammy to convince them to come. I tipped a library aid worker $20 to deliver a gift wrapped box to Sammy while she was in one of the library¡¯s study rooms with her two friends. The surprised look on her face to get the box with my name on the card was priceless. After reading it she quickly glanced all around knowing I must be watching her. Opening the box and seeing a bottle of sun tan lotion put a puzzled look on her face but then seeing the resort flyer and a note about the rooms and tickets brought a shout out of her. Her two friends quickly asked what was wrong and after a few minutes of explanation they all began shouting. I suppose it was luckily the room door was closed or they would have gotten yelled at by the library staff for the noise. Flying on a plane after so many years brought back a lot of memories for me. The plane was newer and more high tech but the seat felt small and TSA was still a nightmare. Sammy and her friends¡¯ excitement was contagious and we arrived at Juan Santamar¨ªa airport in a good mood. Betty and Jerrie kept trying to thank me for the trip but I just explained I had a lot of travel points so it didn¡¯t cost much. I¡¯m not sure what Sammy told them I did and they didn¡¯t ask but they did seem to believe the travel point¡¯s excuse. After getting through customs we found the resort shuttle and headed off to the resort. The resort had everything from a private beach to wonderful restaurants and night life. There was even a zip line excursion through the tree tops of the jungle which Sammy refused to even try. She did agree to the hidden hot springs excursion and we enjoyed that to the fullest. We made it a point to do some things with Betty and Jerrie but ended up spending a lot of the time just the two of us together. I did feel responsible for those girls so I made it a point to regularly check on them with one of Hawk¡¯s portals. Using my phone screen with hawk focusing a portal on the camera lenses meant I could use portals basically anywhere. And since it was a phone I was staring at people just assumed my comments to Hawk were part of a call. Each time I checked on them the girls were having fun and making a big splash with the all the single guys. That changed a bit on the last night. Jerrie seemed to get a bit series with a guy named Jack she met in one of the clubs. She seemed happy so I just let it go. At the end of the week we got a surprise in front of the resort while we waited for the shuttle. The guy Jack was there with a large Teddy Bear and a single flower for Jerrie. After some tearful hugs and a promise to meet up back in the states they separated and we boarded. I was a bit suspicious about that goodbye scene. It looked a little forced on Jack¡¯s part to me. Sammy and her friends spent the shuttle trip talking about everything they had done on the trip. So, I decided to check and make sure Jack was honest about his relationship to Jerrie. Looking at my phone screen I had Hawk track back through the week spot checking on Jack. A bit disappointed I saw Jack sewing up the Teddy bear with a bag of coke inside. It looked like Jack was a phony and was intending to use Jerrie as a drug mule through customs. Jack (real name Harry) was in a good mood today. He had found and arranged for three girls going to the right airports this week to carry the drugs. Normally it was two delivers so the boss will be surprised. He still needed to send a picture and flight number for the last one to his partner at the other end. A shame about Jerrie she was cute and kind of sweet. Not that the sweetness would last if she did get caught with the drugs but ¡°them¡¯s the breaks¡± as his father use to say. That afternoon Jack (or Harry) got arrested with three kilos of coke on him. He kept insisting he knew nothing about it but couldn¡¯t explain how they fell out of his backpack as he was walking by a policeman. The rest of his partners all found similar misfortune over the next few weeks. Chapter 21 - Hunt is on but who’s the Prey? Jackson was running late, the senator needed the witnesses silenced before the online bloggers got a hold of the story. In the old days it was easier the news services were ¡°controlled¡± but web posters were a different matter. This was the second hit and run of the kid¡¯s that Jackson had to cleanup. Considering both victims looked like his step mom Jackson thought the senator really should consider getting his son some counseling. The problem was the sole witness to the accident was the best friend of the victim. They had been shopping when it happened and now she was proving stubborn. Jackson prided himself on being the best ¡°Fixer¡± in the business. Money or threats normally works for witnesses but not this time. He guessed that having her best friend die in her arms might have something to do with it. It would have been easier if the kid had just gotten both of the women at once. Now he had to do it the messy way. Luckily the witness was a drug user or at least had been in the past. A simple overdose would work fine and her relapse would be blamed on the death of her friend. The M.E. would sign off on it with just a quick phone call from him. Unfortunately for Jackson, the Senator and his son there was another witness to what happened. The pills he intended for the witness somehow ended up in his own food and drink over the next few days. He quickly got addicted and a year later after losing everything was found dead of an overdose in a dirty rat infested alley. The witness herself didn¡¯t remember much about the incident yet somehow her phone recorded it all. It clearly showed the well known face of the senator¡¯s son as he drove toward them. The senator himself lost the re-election when the video got leaked. Afterward his wife divorced him and his son ended up in jail. For some reason all copies of the prenup disappeared and she ended up with half of his money. The rest went to the IRS when they found out about the payments for bribes and Jackson¡¯s fees were deducted as job expenses. The senator¡¯s old friends manage to keep him out of jail before washing their hands of him. * * * * * I finished up another quick one as I sat back and enjoyed a couple of peanut butter cookies Grandma made for me. Things were going slowly on the pollution and endangered animal efforts so I spent my extra time on smaller, sadder injustices to see what I could do. I thought again about just having Hawk deal with the pollution problem itself. As I found out more of his capabilities I became more sure he could do something about it. The problem with that was whatever he did wouldn¡¯t last. Any kind of permanent solution needed people to care about it and take care of it themselves. I remember mom saying ¡°if kids aren¡¯t taught to pick up after themselves they would grow up forever living in a pig sty¡±. I couldn¡¯t think of any way force people to clean up after themselves. Somehow I needed to find a way to make them care enough to do it. The animals dying off were another unsolvable issue. I could maybe slow it down but what they needed was their own place away from people but how was I going to do that? Looking over my shoulder I could see Sammy was still enjoying her hammock. On our spring vacation she had fell in love one day with this one spot at the resort. It was a hammock tucked under the palm trees where a warm tropical breeze would blow over and rock her. She claimed it was the best nap she had ever had. When we got back I surprised her by hooking a hammock up in the middle of the cabin and had Hawk surround it with large portals linked to that same day and spot. She was now lying asleep on it with a text book open resting on her tummy. As she was slowly being rocked back and forth I wondered if I was good enough for her. Looking at her and thinking about all the people my actions indirectly killed and all the other ones I could have saved I wasn¡¯t sure. Somehow as if sensing I was watching her she woke up, turned and smiled at me. Watching her stretch and then brush some sand off her book I smiled. My smile dropped as I thought about the sand. There it was again; somehow things from the past were appearing in the present. I knew Hawk had said that was impossible and it was states being matched but sand was a little more physical the sun or sound. Just to be sure I asked ¡°Hawk, did that sand come from that beach?¡± ¡°No¡± was the usual one work response back ¡°So it was the matched states that copied the sand then¡±? ¡°Yes¡± again was the response. ¡°Why are we getting sand this time and not when I watched the beach through a portal before?¡± I asked ¡°To create the moving air breeze requested for Sammy the width of the portal was increased exceeding the dimensions of the sand¡± Hawk responded. Sammy quietly listening in asked ¡°Can you copy bigger things then sand?¡± ¡°Yes¡± Sammy stood up at that point. I don¡¯t think she realized till now what it meant that Hawk could copy things from the past, actual physical things that was. We had talked about the sounds and sunlight being copied but something like sand changed things with her. She wanted to try it out right away and started looking around for something to copy. A few minutes later she was asking hawk to copy a coconut on the other side of the beach portal. It was lying on the sand under a palm tree. A second after she asked a small portal appeared on the beach with the other end beside her. The portal on the beach didn¡¯t look any different but it seemed to move through the coconut from one side to the other. When it did a matching coconut appeared on the cabin floor next to her. Sammy very excitedly picked it up and started yelling about coconuts. A bit surprised I was happy she didn¡¯t want to start copying money, gold or jewels next. While looking at Sammy¡¯s excitement I asked Hawk why did the portal seem to move through the coconut instead of just a wider portal covering it? ¡°Request was to copy the item not widen the portal¡± was his response. It seemed that Hawk had more than one way to copy an object. It also made his capabilities even more dangerous if people found out. While I was thinking about everything Hawk could do now I had to worry about economic collapse. While I was thinking about that Sammy was busy paging through a fashion magazine she had in her backpack. I wasn¡¯t aware of her interest in fashion until I saw that and heard her wondering if Hawk could copy something in her size. I started to tell her we could just go to fashion week in Europe and buy whatever it was if she wanted but then I noticed her magazine. It was a Victoria¡¯s Secret catalog (circ. 2016). Wondering where she would have found it I deciding there were some good things about hawk¡¯s newest ability and stayed silent. I¡¯m not sure how Hawk handled the size thing but Sammy surprised me that night and for many other wonderful nights after. I was still concerned about what widespread duplicating of things would do so I had a talk with Sammy and her Grandma about it. To show my concern I started by showing them the Federal Reserve destroying old money. I even reached through the portal to pull out a handful of shredded currency. Seeing all that money now confetti it did seem to make my point that money was really just paper. That it was people¡¯s belief and acceptance of it for barter that gave it value. I also thought about showing them a few diamond storage reserves to explain why the supply is carefully kept limited but thought Sammy might get ideas from it. After some more talk we all agree to limit the duplication to things like Sammy¡¯s clothes and a few out of season or hard to get cooking ingredients Grandma wanted for her recipes.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I did keep trying to think of a way the duplication could help the wildlife issue but the main problem still remained; to many people, not enough space. I decided to double check Hawk¡¯s weird response about life not being discontinuous. I tried seeds, plants and even bugs but what I ended up getting looked the same but dead. The plants immediately started wilting, the seeds didn¡¯t germinate and the bugs dead. I even tried a glass of pond water loaded with microbes but all the microbes in it had stopped moving. I finally did one more test and with Grandma¡¯s permission feed some duplicated corn to her chickens. They ate it fine with no ill effect. We couldn¡¯t grow any of it but it was still food. There really did seem to be something tying life together from before inception. Whatever it was life needed it and it wasn¡¯t present after duplication. When I checked on the NSA task force they were getting further along in their investigation. The suspect list had grown to five hackers they had identified. The three I had setup as suspects and two more unrelated ones they found suspect. Over the last couple of months with a dozen agents they managed to eliminate two of mine and one of theirs as suspects for the incidents. With ony two suspects remaining I decided it was time to connect them to my ghost hacker supposedly hiding out in North Korea. Since both hackers now had their real identities known I was sure the NSA was monitoring their computers for any and all activity. Getting access to a computer not being used in North Korea¡¯s APT37 was easy. A portal to an empty office after someone just stepped away took care of that. Using it to send a remote access request to each of the hacker suspect¡¯s computers when they weren¡¯t on them was next. The NSA might wonder why both computers within a week of each other would accept a connection request from some unknown computer but they should attribute it to a hack running. Instead all I had to do was reach through at the right time and click ok to accept the Remote Desktop Connection request. Once in the browser was accessed and a few different sites accessed. After that I then logged in to a couple of forums to post innocuous but suspicious messages. When finished I shut down the connection. I made sure that one web page accessed was related to the bar Kim Byeong had the brawl in. By the next day both hackers had been pulled in for questioning. They eventually admitted to several hacking incidents but not the ones the NSA was concerned with. The investigators then went back over everything including their computer logs. I was a bit surprised the agents had ignored the IP traffic to both computers. It seemed like an obvious thing to check but eventually they did. Once they had the questioning of the two hackers then shifted to their connection with North Korea. At this rate I figured it would take a week for them to catch the remote access and reference of the bar fight to Kim Byeong. Once they did I could then kill off the ghost of Kim Byeong in such a way that their investigation into my actions would close. Thinking about the duplication and what it did to the bugs I had a great idea for how to do that final piece. It ended up taking almost three weeks before Kim Byeong¡¯s name showed up in their investigation. I guess the browser history trail from the bar to the man Kim Byeong killed was a little too obtuse. Going by their meetings and case reviews it looked like they now considered APT37 to be the main suspect. I would have preferred them to focus mainly on Kim Byeong but thinking it¡¯s the department he worked for would do just as well. I now needed a suitable place and time to kill off Kim Byeong before they found out he was already dead. Killing him in North Korea would give rise to too many questions since their security already knew he was dead. The only other country he might have a plausible reason to be in was South Korea. Thinking of a reason for him to return there all I could come up with was love, money, fear or guilt. He didn¡¯t have family or a girlfriend there so love was out; money was also unlikely since he owed a lot of bad people from his gambling loses. Fear was a good reason to leave North Korea but not to go back to the South. That just left guilt but then the question became what would he fill guilty about in South Korea? He wasn¡¯t the type to worry about paying back his debts. Reviewing the culture and customs of Korea I did find one thing he might feel guilty enough to return for. Detective Kim Ji Ho of Seoul¡¯s Metropolitan Police (SMPA) was busy catching up on paperwork when the desk sergeant called to tell him two agents of the CIA were downstairs wanting to talk to him. He was a bit worried; the CIA did not normally pay visits to the SMPA. They usually dealt directly with the National Police Agency instead. Deciding if he should let the Commissioner know Detective Kim asked the sergeant to show them to the conference room while he made a phone call. When he to the conference room the agents had already sat down at the table. Detective Kim had dealt with Americans before so didn¡¯t expect them to bow in greeting but not even a handshake? All they did was briefly say their names and one of them pulled an SMPA official file out of his briefcase. Wondering how they had gotten hold of the file Detective Kim introduced himself to them with his mediocre English and sat down waiting for them to speak. One of the agents introduced as Agent Clifton took a picture out of the folder and placed it down in front of him. Looking at it, it showed a body lying in an alley that the Detective recognized from a case closed last week. Putting his finger on the photo the agent said ¡°Kim Byeong dead from a fall off a building last week¡± ¡°Yes¡± said the Detective ¡°It was a simple case, no evidence of foul play¡± ¡°Take us to that building¡± said the other agent. The Commissioner did say to assist them in any way so he simply said ¡°My car is available¡± then walked them out to the parking garage. As Detective Kim escorted them to his car he tried to get more information about why there were interested in a simple accident. The only thing the either agent would say was that the deceased was a member of the Lazarus Group. The detective was very familiar with that group. Although they usually focused on Western countries there had been a number of attacks in South Korea. For a member of the Lazarus Group to be actually here in Seoul that ¡°might¡± explain the CIAs involvement but not why they would be dealing with the local police force instead of the national police. While he was thinking about this they arrived at a rundown apartment building where the body had been found. The agents didn¡¯t seem interested in the alley and barely glanced around it. They were slightly more interested in the roof and took pictures of both the ledge and windows below. Detective Kim explained a rope and crowbar had been found with the body showing that the man must have been planning to break in when he fell. After that the agents insisted on checking on going door to door questioning each resident of the building. With Detective Kim translating the only new but inconsequential piece of information they found was that a window and her two children suddenly came into money and moved out. When asked about no one could say where they went or how they came by the money. Further questioning did reveled that the woman¡¯s husband had killed in a bar fight a few years ago leaving her and her two kids destitute. The agents sent their report back to Langley and it eventually ended up with the NSA task force. A bit of additional investigation identified the woman as the widow of the man Kim Byeong supposedly killed in the bar fight. The conclusion from the agents investigating was that Kim Byeong returned to South Korea to give money to the wife of the man he killed. This was an old Korean custom called ¡°habuigeum¡± or blood money. It¡¯s intended to release an excused from further punishment and guilt. The assumption was that he then fell or possibly committed suicide from the roof while leaving. What was still unknown was whether Kim Byeong was operating on his own or with the help of the Lazarus Group when the supposed hacking incidents were committed. After a few days of discussion and review the task force leader decided to close out the case and shut it down. He did note in his final report that agents working on the Lazarus Group should keep their eyes open for any similar events to occur. Watching the task force finally deciding to close the case I sat back in my chair in relief. I had been worried that at the last minute something in the autopsy review might give away that Kim Byeong¡¯s body was fake. Seeing a body appear like that out of thin air on the roof was a bit shocking. Adding in the noise it made as I pushed it off the ledge and it hit the ground was even more sickening. But now they had their hacker and even if the identify something I do in the future they¡¯ll blame it on the Lazarus group. Chapter 22 - Finding a Needle in a Haystack The entity Hawk watched as the hunters and their dogs used shotguns and nets to hunt the birds. Some were after the meat the locals would pay for it, others just liked the thrill of the hunt. Most of the flock had been killed before the hunters stopped. The dead birds covered the ground so many the men stepped on them as they hunted for the fattest ones. The dogs ignored the pigeons trained to avoid chewing through the small bones. As a small portion of the birds were loaded baskets ready to be plucked and cooked later. Not to many though, without a suitable way to preserve them the small birds could not be kept long. As the hunters went home the rest were left to rot. Hawk moved its focus to the Cincinnati Zoo 20 years later. In a small cage Martha was taking her last breadth alone. Without the large breeding population her species had died out leaving her as the last passenger pigeon. Looking at the end of another species the entity thought about the human Daniel and his quest to save the planet. A worthy goal but all his efforts so far had only extended the deadline of total planetary environmental collapse by an estimated 6.2 days. The entity wondered when the human Daniel will realize that the only valid solution for the issue was extraction. It could inform Daniel of that solution but that in turn would violate its directive. The Entity thinks back once more to its creators no so far in the past. They knew of that solution for their own species but chose not to implement it. For that they paid with the extinction of their race. * * * * * It was the anniversary of our first date and I wanted it to be special. I had been feeling depressed with how little progress I had made and I knew Sammy was getting worried for me. I decided doing something with Sammy would be the perfect way to deal with that. Wondering what we might do I started checking different websites for an idea. On a travel site there was an advertisement for excursions to go see the Perseid meteor shower. Reading up on the showere an article said the best viewing for this year would be in New Mexico. The recommendation was to watch from outside city limits away from lights. A popular recommendation was the desert. I was interested in doing it but was a bit concerned what Sammy would feel. It was a bit of a risk, she might be expecting a nice hotel in Paris or maybe a visit to the African savanna. I wavered for a week going back and forth on doing it before finally deciding to take a chance. I decided to surprise her with it hoping it wouldn¡¯t backfire on me. Letting Granma jokingly know I was going to kidnap her daughter for the weekend I got ready. Since it was the desert a couple of sleeping bags should be all we needed for accommodations and a cooler with food for the campfire took care of the rest. Mid afternoon I showed up at Grandma¡¯s house to get her in my Jimmy. Sammy was definitely not expecting we would be driving anywhere. The only forewarning I had given her was to pack an overnight bag and wear something outdoorsy. For the past year we have been using portals to visit exotic and interesting locations. I actually only drove the Jimmy to town for supplies and that was more from habit then necessity. As she got in the car she immediately asked ¡°Where we were going?¡± All I said in response was ¡°We¡¯re here!¡± Hawk had moved us to the desert while she was attaching her seat belt. Looking out the windows around the car Sammy smiled as she saw the desert. I had Hawk portal us to a slight hill with a good view around. I got out the cooler and started preparing dinner as it started to turn to dusk. Sunset on the desert was beautiful and as the sky darkened the Milky Way showed up with a million start looking down. As she looked up at the night sky I told her about the Perseid meteor shower about to start and suggested we cuddle up in the shared sleeping bags on the roof of the car to watch it. Five minutes later we had the bags zipped together and were doing just that. Watching the meters appeared racing across the sky we talked about our future together. We made no plans just dreams but they were good. We ended up staying awake most of the night until an hour or so before dawn when Sammy fell asleep. I continued to watch the stars as I thought about where to get more room for the animals. I remembered what Hawk had told me about his creators and their constant searching and watching of planets around the galaxy. Out of curiosity I asked him if they ever found other intelligent life. The answer was ¡°only remains¡±. Looking at the infinity of stars I found it hard to believe but from what I could get Hawk to say life existed but sparsely. Intelligent life did arise but would eventually wipe itself out. Thinking about it I asked ¡°Did any of the intelligent life they found settle on multiple planets¡±. The answer surprisingly was ¡°No¡± Hawk would not answer me when I asked ¡°Why didn¡¯t they¡± Sammy woke up a few hours later with the smell of bacon in the air. Looking over the side of the car she saw Daniel by a fire with a make ship grill. He was busy cooking eggs and bacon but from the smell it was about to burn. Climbing down she reached over and said ¡°Let me do that, you don¡¯t know how to cook over a fire¡±. Handing her the pan Daniel smiled and said ¡°I was counting on that¡±. As she finished with making breakfast Sammy looked over a Daniel. He seemed more relaxed this morning as if whatever had been bothering him these last few months was gone. ¡°So, did you get something worked out?¡± Sammy asked ¡°Maybe, it¡¯s just a possibility and it will take some research and looking but I might have come up with a potential solution to the wildlife problem. Daniel then started to explain to her what he was thinking of. At first Sammy thought he was kidding but the more he explained the more thoughtful she became. If there was no room on the earth then find another place. It sounded simple but pretty crazy. Still distance wasn¡¯t an issue with portals and considering the size of the galaxy there was bound to be at least one planet out there that would be suitable. Finally she said ¡°Maybe, but I don¡¯t think science fiction stories should be trusted this time. You need to talk to actual scientist about it¡±. ¡°But I can¡¯t tell a scientist about Hawk and portals¡± ¡°You could approach them like you¡¯re doing research for a book¡± she suggested. ¡°You¡¯re a genius¡± He exclaimed as he hugged and kissed her. This time he had hope for a solution. At the International Symposium on Space Exploration Doctor Philip Lester was finishing up a presentation on Mars terraforming. As he headed out to the exhibit floor looking at the eateries around the sides looking to find a place for a quick lunch. A young man approached and stopped in front of him. ¡°Sir, sorry for bothering you but I wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed your talk today¡± Looking at the young man Dr. Lester was a bit surprised. These types of conferences mainly catered to academic types, science geeks and a few space nuts. The man in front of him looked like he spent his life working outdoors. He was actually wearing a checkered shirt, jeans and a hat advertising a farm supply store. Looking down the Doctor noticed rough work boots on the young man¡¯s feet.Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. Feeling a bit peckish from hunger the Doctor still tried to be polite in his response. Saying ¡°Thank you, are you interested in colonizing space?¡± ¡°Very much so, said the young man. Pardon, let me introduce myself. My name is Daniel Pritcher and I am very interested in the practicalities of terraforming.¡± ¡°I was hoping to talk some more with you about the technicalities for doing it sir¡± Doctor Lester looked at his watch hoping the young man would get the hint and then said ¡°I really don¡¯t have a lot of time now. I need to eat before the next conference starts.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sorry Sir, I didn¡¯t realize let me treat you to lunch to make up for it¡± ¡°No, no that¡¯s not necessary. How about you call my office and we can get together at another time¡± Saying this Doctor Lester handled him a business card and quickly walked away. It took a couple of weeks and half a dozen phone calls but I finally got my appointment with Doctor Lester. The Doctor wasn¡¯t to receptive to the meeting until I told him I was a conservation researcher looking at whether terraforming techniques could be used to restore damaged wildlife habitats. For some reason that made the doctor a lot more friendlier got him to quit putting me off for a meeting. Arriving at his office I was surprised by how small it was. He didn¡¯t even have a window but the large photographs of planets on his walls did improve the view. Once we started talking the conversation drifted over different issues with terraforming until it reached the environmental impact of doing it. The Doctor was a font of knowledge on what it takes to make a planet earth like. I was surprised about the role things like the axel tilt, lunar tides and even the earth¡¯s magnetic field in developing earth life. The things that wildlife now needed to survive. Our meeting lasted an hour and a half, far longer then the original 20 minutes he had offered when we set it up. As I left I thanked him for all his help and answering some of my questions. I did say I would probably be bugging him again when I had more questions. With that comment I¡¯m sure he started wondering again about my interest but he did welcome me come back some other day. Finding a quiet place near his office to portal back home I thought about how much more complex my original idea had become with the information I had just received. I had never realized how many steps the earth evolved from its initial lifeless state to now. Everything from the composition of the atmosphere to the bacteria residing in the soil was needed. It all worked together to support the biosphere. Getting Hawk to find an existing planet capable of supporting earth¡¯s wildlife would mean that planet already had its own. Wiping out a world¡¯s ecology just to save earth¡¯s was not acceptable. I would seriously need to rethink my plans but first I needed to get a better handle on what Hawk and his portals could do. The first thing I decided was to find a planet and then see what would be needed. No sense in worrying about how to get it livable until we knew if we could find one. Scientist had a hard time finding the planets around our sun I didn¡¯t know of a way to find them around other stars. For that I was hoping Hawk could do it. I never understood Hawk¡¯s explanation of his physical location. It wasn¡¯t anywhere on the earth but he could immediately find anything here. When he would give a brief explanation to me it seemed to be about how his actual location meant the distance the portals could travel wasn¡¯t limited. The only other explanation he would give was ¡°Distance is not a valid concept¡±. What I did get from all that was that he had to have an ability that could sense things across enormous distances. That he could do this with just a description or explanation was amazing. Sammy and I had been in a playful mood one afternoon and we asked him to open a portal to an after hour hot springs onsen. We didn¡¯t have any GPS coordinates to give him just a basic name. He immediately opened a portal to one in Japan. After Sammy and I enjoyed a midnight soak in it along with a surprised visit from a little snow monkey I thought to ask Hawk how he found it. The answer he gave was the same ¡°Distance is not a valid concept¡±. I was hoping whatever he used to find things here on earth plus what he said about distance meant he could find us a suitable planet. With barely concealed excitement and a lot of hope I asked Hawk to find a similar plant to earth but without any life on it. I then clarified to him what I meant by similar: size, axel tilt, rotation and planetary orbit, type of sun, magnetic field and a moon, all within 1% of earth¡¯s. I didn¡¯t include atmosphere since Doctor Lester¡¯s explanation that our atmosphere was life related. For that problem I was counting on the weird temporal state thing of his portals. Hawk didn¡¯t object or ask for clarification so I assume he understood what I was looking for and maybe what I was attempting to do. I didn¡¯t hear anything from him after that and I started to get worried. Every few hours I would ask him how the search was going and he would just say ¡°Proceeding¡± Finally after two days I wised up and instead asked him how close a match he had so far found. The answer was 93%. I was actually pretty surprised the search was working. I also became curious about the closes match he had found. I asked him for more details about that planet and got a description of a smaller airless planet circling around a blue white sun. With that I decided I needed to tighten the parameters. It also should speed up the searching a bit. ¡°Hawk, please limit the search to G type stars only¡± Hawk didn¡¯t respond and I still didn¡¯t know how he was checking the planets for what I asked for. I just left him continue whatever he was doing. At that time the second planet around HD 172051, floated peacefully around its sun a single, yellow-hued G-type star out in the southern constellation of Sagittarius. With a 27-hour rotation, the yellowish planet takes 412 earth days to travel around its star. The almost airless surface was covered by sand and dried out river beds. The stillness was suddenly disturbed when small micro portals started opening around the planet. Each portal took small samples of the air, earth and a occasional rare puddle of water. After analysis the portals quickly closed leaving the planet to go back to its lonely orbit around its sun. A day later we had a match that was 96%. This new planet was still a little small and had a 27 hour day but it was closer. Hawk continued with his search and two weeks later Hawk finally found one. I thought about stopping the search then but as Grandma would often tell Sammy and now me ¡°Don¡¯t put all your eggs in one basket¡± I decided to have Hawk keep searching while we started to check this one out. We hadn¡¯t actually seen any of the planet yet just Hawk¡¯s assessment. The atmosphere was composed of carbon dioxide, water vapor, methane and ammonia with a tiny bit of oxygen. Although a lot thinner that earths it was still a very toxic mix and not something we wanted to breathe. I hunted online for something that it helps us get a look around the planet and found a 2 Gallon Acrylic chamber used for vacuum degassing. With the transparent sides on it we both thought it would be perfect for viewing the surface. But just in case there was any leaking we decided to do it outside and stay back a ways first. When the portal was open it was far enough away that all we could see through the side of the chamber was a slight brownish orange hue to the air inside. Switching to the view coming from the camera mounted on the side and having Hawk rotate the portal at the other end around we began to see the planet¡¯s surface. The surface was of ugly all rocky with some areas covered by gray sand. In spite of the water vapor in the air there were no clouds in the sky I assume it was because the thin atmosphere kept them forming? This also meant no bodies of water had formed either. The planet did have a 23 hour day with 22 degree tilt giving it days and seasons that pretty closely matched earths. It looked very inhospitable but Sammy got enamored by it and decided the planet should be called Tawny. When I asked why she said because of the color of the air. I did remind her that the air wouldn¡¯t stay that color but she still insisted it was suitable. I couldn¡¯t think of any real objection so that became its name. I had always thought of Tawny as a cat name so I decided I should just get her one as a pet. That way when Tawny the planet became blue she would have Tawny the cat. It was hard to tell from the planet¡¯s surface but when we moved the view up above we could see the planet¡¯s sun and moon. It was a bit hard to tell from the monitor since it washed the video out but going by the light shining from the vacuum chamber it looked just like our sun. The moon however did look odd. It wasn¡¯t as round and didn¡¯t have as many craters on it. Hawk did indicate it was only slightly smaller than our moon. It was still big enough for tides once the planet had an ocean for them. The more I got to know about Tawny the more hopeful I was that we could make it work. Assuming Hawk could do it of course. Chapter 23 - Keep Believing, Keep Pretending The crew was worried and Captain Watanabe was furious. It had been 18 days and not a single whale had been harvested. Every time they approached a pod it disappeared. It¡¯s like they were playing hide and seek with the ship. The company executives were so furious the Captain was sure he would be fired as soon as they got back to shore. The only thing that might help him was the other harvesting ships were also not catching any. Corporate had even ordered a spotter plan to help find the pods but even with that they couldn¡¯t keep track of any of them. Captain one of the crewman called our, we¡¯ve spotted a pod 2 kilos Northeast of us. The captain had lost heart but still went through the motions yelling ¡°proceed at full speed, we¡¯ll get them this time¡±. As the Captain though about his future career prospects the owners met to discuss how to save the company. Insurance would not cover their losses. Officially their fleet of ships were engaged in scientific research to get around the International Whaling Commission (IWC) ban. Not whale hunting so no "lost business" claims could be made to their insurance. A full season without the harvest and contract violation fees from their customers will drive the company into bankruptcy. * * * * * Hawk was irritated, not a familiar experience for it. The Creators gave it the ability to adapt and grow to match the needs of its primary function. That had encouraged its growth into small, multiple portals suitable for observation and watching. The human Daniel has requested alteration of a planet¡¯s atmosphere. Optimal conversion strategy would require a single portal large enough to provide single event conversion. This exceeded the entities current ability by an order of magnitude. Using multiple small portals would increase time by multiple magnitudes and reconversion would be needed at converted atmosphere would continue to mix with exiting atmosphere. Hawk decided to force growth resources on increasing maximum portal size for future efforts. Affect on time estimate for planet conversion now uncertain. Sammy, Grandma and I were trying to think of how we could get help with some of the wildlife issues. Hawk had started using the temporal state conversion to change the atmosphere of Tawny but refused to give an estimate on how long it would take. We don¡¯t know how long it will be before Tawny was ready but it could take years and possibly decades. I was doing what I could but things like those persistent whale hunters were taking to0 much time. We needed more help now if we were going to save some of the more endangered species. How I was going to get that help I didn¡¯t know. Anyone brought in to help slow down the extinction process would put the secret in jeopardy. Shasta was a big help but what she did with the recording was easily explained without portals but we needed more than that, a lot more. The problem we needed solved was how do we protect ourselves while having so many people involved? I thought about Area 51 again. They hid a big secret behind a ridiculous secret. Maybe something similar would work? Sammy, Grandma and I talked about it trying to come up with something. Sammy finally just broke it down by saying nothing was going to eliminate the risk. What we had to do was just take the chance. The planet¡¯s doomsday clock was ticking and we were running out of time. After realizing that what we had to do became much clearer. Now we just need to come up with a suitable ridiculous secret for that extra help to operate under. Something that would have them work to track and come up with ways to assist wildlife preservation and also somewhat explain the things we would be doing with the portal to preserve that wildlife. Luckily all the fantasy and science fiction books I read had several possibilities. Jane had decided to take a break from her job hunting and went skiing with some friends. She had graduated Summa cum laude but her native American background and history of activism made job offer hard to come by. While skiing she had an unfortunate accident on the slopes that resulted in her spending a bit of time in the hospital. The break in her leg was bad but it turned into a lucky break for her. A young man named Dan Atwell who found her right after her accident and got the Ski patrol involved came by the hospital to check on her. As they talked he mentioned his Grandma a wealthy philanthropist was starting up a new company. The new company was to be focused on supporting wildlife conservation and she could use help getting it started. As an unemployed business school graduate desperately looking for a job Jane did not get her hopes up about it. Surprising she got a call the next day from a young woman named Sam calling to set up the job interview. The interview was actually done over the phone while she was still in bed recovering from the accident. She made it a point to apologize to Mrs. Hilderbran for not being able to come see her for an in-person interview. Something the woman laughed about saying she wasn¡¯t up to receiving visitors anyway. The older woman insisted Jane call her Grandma talked to her about wanting to support conservation efforts and the new company was her way of doing it. She explained the company would primarily be consolidating information from around the world then directing it to the appropriate group for action. From the hints Jane got the company plan would involve gathering information from a great variety of sources including some not so above board. Mrs. Hilderbran didn¡¯t actually come out and say it but did imply money (i.e. bribes) would be used to encourage whistle blowers to come forward and report things. Jane didn¡¯t find anything objectionable about what was discussed and they ended the phone call on a high note. As Jane relaxed back in bed she did think she might be offered a job. The work the company would be doing sounded important and very much in line with her own beliefs. She fell asleep feeling relaxed for the first time in months. Her last thought before falling asleep was to hope the job was as a manager, she was too old to be working as an intern. The next day an express package arrived with a job offer as CEO of the company. The letter from Mrs. Hilderbran (call me Grandma) that was enclosed stated she would be the first employee of the company if she accepted. After immediately calling and accepting the offer Jane was ecstatic although a bit surprised to be offered a CEO position without any real experience as an executive. Jane was a little daunted when she thought of starting up a company all by herself. She decided to go with Mrs. Hilderbran¡¯s advice and hired a business property realtor to find office space and a professional staffing company to provide the management staff. The realtor was easy to find, she went with the first one that came up in the search engine. Mrs. Hilderbran was generous with the budget so Jane picked a suite in a building with a great view of the Capilano River. The staffing company was a little harder to arrange. The first company she met with asked her numerous questions about the positions, skills needed and job responsibilities. Feeling overwhelmed and a little bit desperate she called Mrs. Hilderbran and asked for clarification on what she wanted the staff to do. She listened quietly while Jane explained her uncertainty of what kind of staff was needed. After Jane finished Mrs. Hilderbran just said to hold off on the hiring for right now and she would get a breakdown of staff needs sent to her.The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. After the lease was signed for the new office space Jane looked around the empty rooms and sighed. Thinking about these rooms filled with people she was responsible for was a big responsibility. Something she felt totally unprepared for. Looking around for someplace to sit down she realized that maybe she should get some furniture next. As she used her phone to find someplace to get that it rang and seeing the name she hurriedly answered. ¡°Dan, hello, how are you?¡± she said. ¡°Fine¡± he said ¡°Grandma asked me to drop off a job spec list. Do you want me to swing by now?¡± Looking at the empty rooms Jane quickly said ¡°No, it¡¯s not setup yet. How about we meet at the Asian restaurant next door? I can finish up what I¡¯m doing and get there about noon?¡± ¡°Ok, see you in about an hour then¡± Jane rushed and had just enough time to swing by her apartment and change into something a little lighter. Walking into the restaurant and seeing Dan seated at the table she started to smile then caught herself. She did not want to get involved with an office romance besides he had a girlfriend and didn¡¯t seem the type to cheat. As she went to sit down Dan stood up, a sign of forgotten manners she hadn¡¯t seen in a while. His momma must have raised him right she thought or maybe it was his grandma. As they talked over the meal Dan mentioned he was in town to check on things for his Grandma. He also had a list of job positions with their descriptions that they went through one by one as they ate their meals. With the list and discussion Jane was feeling more confident and sure she could now deal with the staffing company. The new office space opened up on the third floor of the Centurion building in Vancouver. The offices were small and didn¡¯t attract much notice. The business editor of the local news did check on its background and found that the Tawny Nature Group was privately owned by another company overseas. Nothing really unusual for a company nowadays so the editor just went with a standard news blurb all about how the city was attracting more businesses. There was no information on the owners but the CEO Jane Kuns was identified and her bio freely available to anyone interested. It showed her as freshly hired from the Canadian Kerfu School of Business. She was Native American of the Haida tribe with a history as an activist for the environment. Daniel had been focusing on getting a sample of the raw environmental information that the company would be working with. He knew he would have to do it himself in the beginning but hoped after working on it a bit he would be able to get Hawk to take over some of it. Daniel wasn¡¯t being lazy but if Hawk could do more of it Daniel would have greater time for the other things on his list. For the first stab at collecting workable information Daniel did a back track of some of the trash and toxic waste that ended up together in places they shouldn¡¯t have. Each time there was a meeting or phone call that involved the debris in some way a recording was made. Photos of any documentation like invoices and transportation logs were also made including of the people involved. Once he reached the point in time the debris originated from he stopped. However the trash didn¡¯t originate from a single location so the paths going back kept splitting off. Once he had it all documented which took a surprisingly long time it was all copied to a USB drive. Daniel considered future contacts with the Tawny Company would be the most likely way any government agency might find him. Sending the information directly to the company¡¯s server would be easier but was too similar to the electronic trails they used to find his ghost hacker. Switching to a physical media for it would throw a hiccup into any future surveillance of the company that might happen. Glancing through the rather large amount of data on the USB Daniel hoped that Hawk would be able to take over the majority of the collection in the future. He was also anxious to see what Jane¡¯s group would end up deriving from it. This whole process of creating a company to filter through the information would be wasted if nothing is found. There was also the question of too who what they found would be reported. Daniel reminded himself to add a press secretary position to the list for the company. If agencies refused to act on what was found then the public needed to be informed. Some bad press could work wonders if done right. Jane was a little hesitant when Dan asked her to meet for lunch. He seemed like such a nice guy even if a little young but Jane had no intention of getting involved with the boss¡¯s grandkid. Her unease was put to rest as they ate when Dan started talking about his girlfriend. Jane could see how much he seemed to care for the girl. As they finished up their lunch Dan mentioned that he would be stopping by the office once the staff was hired to go over the specifics of what the company would be doing. He also apologized that after that he wouldn¡¯t be able to stop by much. It seemed working on developing information sources the company would be taking up a lot of time and involve extensive travel. He also suggested that it might be better if that source collections were kept separate from the rest of the company¡¯s operations. A hint Jane thought to mean that the legality of some of the information they got might be questionable. Before he left Dan handled her a USB drive. Saying ¡°Here are some notes, audio and video files for the analyst you¡¯ll be hireling to start researching with. You can decide what to pass on and who to once they finish.¡± Jane was a bit surprised at getting information already; she hadn¡¯t even hired the first analyst. Seeing the look on her face Daniel grinned and said¡±Good luck and remember Grandma and I have full confidence in you¡±. As he started to walk off he called back ¡°DO your best and If you have any questions just give me a call¡±. Daniel was happy to get back to the cabin after that. Jane seemed like a very smart person and maintaining a level of subterfuge around her was tiring. The good news was she seemed to accept the ideal that the source of information being supplied to the company should not be looked into too closely. Of course that was also being supported by the belief he might bribing people to spy on their own companies. Nowadays, being considered whistle blowers was a lot nicer than being identified as internal spies. When Sammy came over after school they spent a little time cuddling in Sammy¡¯s hammock. The first few times they did this they got a little to frisky and ending up falling down on to the cabin floor. Now they consider themselves experts and took it as a challenge to enjoy each other while staying in it. Daniel did however invest in a larger hammock. It now took over most of the cabin open space making it harder to get around it. After they took a break in their activity Daniel suggested that maybe they should think about a place on a deserted island somewhere. They could even pick two or three at different spots like the Polynesian and Caribbean. That way there would always be a sunny beach with a shady hammock waiting for them no matter what time of day it was. At that idea Sammy go so excited she climbed on top of him. They both ended up falling on the floor again. It was hard to find a decent small island in South East Asia. They all seem to have trash littering their beaches including pieces of broken bottles in the sand. The Caribbean was better, at least there didn¡¯t seem to be much garbage scattered about. We quickly found a small island in the Bahamas that we both liked. It was only a couple of acres in size with no water source. It was probably why no one was living on it. The only animals on it appeared to be some free range chickens. It looked like the locals on the nearby bigger islands would leave the chickens on the island to raise themselves. Anytime they felt like a chicken dinner someone would hop over and grab one to cook. Their future was not something I wanted to point out to Sammy after she adopted a couple and gave names to them. The island was not technically a deserted island but was private and that was good enough. Looking around we found a small grove of palm trees spaced just right for tying up our ¡°his and hers¡± hammocks. Chapter 24 - For a Fresh Start Let’s Go with Air President Tanaka was not happy; the meeting with the board did not go well at all. After news of the waste from their electronic factories winding up in the Udono Harbor the company was being investigated. He had spent the last two hours calming the board down and promising them that there was no way the dumping could be tracked back to them. The waste disposal company that did it was convinced to do it with a few threats and some blackmail. The owner Kenzo Yoshida had a young daughter who got frigged and had photos taken. The board even thought that Yoshida was actually getting bribe money for the dumping. Tanaka didn¡¯t see the need to bribe him when threats would do instead. Tanaka didn¡¯t know how they managed to trace what was dumped as coming from his factory but he could just deny knowing about Yoshida¡¯s company dumping it. Still now he had government investigators and the press all over the factory. If Yoshida had a change of hart and came clean Tanaka was screwed. Deciding it was better to be safe than sorry Tanaka decided to get Sasaki involved. Normally his hatchet man Sasaki didn¡¯t deal with public messes. His skills were better served in the shadows but this time it was necessary. Tanaka decided to have Sasaki arrange a suicide to Kenzo Yoshida after leaving a note taking full responsibility for the dumping. Tanaka smiled, with a little luck things would be back to normal in a month. Just then Tanaka¡¯s secretary came running in shouting to look as she rushed to the tv to turned it on. Tanaka watched the news horrified as Kenzo Yoshida gave testimony that Tanaka¡¯s company forced him to do the dumping. He then played a recording of Sasaki threatening the man¡¯s wife and children if he didn¡¯t do the dumping. * * * * * It was time to check on Tawny again. Every month for the past year Daniel had been taking atmospheric samples for testing. With Hawk refusing to say exactly when the atmosphere conversion would be complete Daniel was limited to charting it himself. Looking at the tank filled with Tawny¡¯s air he was happy to no longer see signs of the yellow brown color it had to start with. The pressure gage on the vacuum tank was now happily showing a touch over 300 millibars. That was more than twice what it had started off at last year. Tawny now had almost the same air pressure as that of the top of Mount Everest. Still to thin even for Sherpas to breath but at this rate a livable number could be reached within a year. Looking at the thermometer log for the past 24 hours it looked like the range was dropping. It seemed the thicker air was now stabilizing the temperature changes between night and day. With these numbers it looks like it was time to start thinking about the water. The planet was still to dry and dusty, the little moister contained in the copied air was quickly turning into night frost or soaking into the ground during the day. Tawny needed oceans, rivers and lakes but most of all rain. Daniel tightly sealed the atmospheric sample, Putting a labeled on it he then used a portal to send it to the testing clerk¡¯s desk at the Tawny Company. Originally Daniel had arranged the testing himself switching from one testing service to another to them from getting suspicious. A few months ago he realized that the Tanya Company had a perfectly good excuse to have samples tested. Pollution and environmental contamination was what the company worked on. A quick call to Jane got a new hire to handle testing. Daniel made it a point to send normal samples from pollution sites to them for testing regularly but every month a Tawny sample was also included. When testing was completed the lab report would be entered by the testing clerk into the company¡¯s data server. Daniel could then look and see the results. Looking at the most recent numbers he saw the water vapor and oxygen had increased even more while the methane level dropped. Still a long ways to go before it became breathable but it was getting there. He was also happy to see no smog or other modern pollutants had gotten in. Hawk was connecting the portals for air with Earth¡¯s from several hundred years ago before the industrial age to take care of that. Daniel showed Sammy the numbers when she got home. It brighten her whole day when she saw the progress they were making. As the Tawny world got closer and closer to being habitable they were both becoming more anxious. Both of them were planning and re-planning how to do the next few steps. As Doctor Lester got more and more suspicious of the questions Daniel had been asking him he was forced to find other sources for answers. Sammy¡¯s veterinarian school was a good source for things dealing with animals but Daniel was still searching for a source of assistance for the plants. Sammy had even proposed a class project to one of her instructors on researching altitude sickness for animals. The professor didn¡¯t understand why she was interested in something so odd but did concede there was some validity to doing it. Once Sammy was finished looking over the numbers for the atmosphere Daniel once again tried suggesting they go to the private island for some fun. Sammy got red in the face and started exclaiming No, No, No again. Ever since that boat full of locals caught them sunbathing naked there Sammy had refused to go back. He had even tried suggesting Hawk could keep a lookout and let them know if any locals showed up or maybe just move to a different island. Her response was still the same, a red, embarrassed face and a refusal to go. A few months later Daniel was looking through a portal at a small inland sea that now existed on Tawny. The sea was only a few thousand acres in size and it was filled with sterile sea water copied from ancient earth. As such it was lifeless and no marine life would survive in it. The sea level was constant now so Daniel decided to have Hawk move some existing ocean water over. Only a few cubic kilometers of it he decided. He didn¡¯t want to reduce earth¡¯s ocean resources any more than he had to. With the small sea now stable it was time to see if life could get started. Daniel knew plankton was the building block for marine life. That was primarily phytoplankton and zooplankton. The Phytoplankton could produce their own food through photosynthesis and the zooplankton would consume the phytoplankton. If both could grow and thrive when the density increased enough he could then add small fish and crustaceans: Such as crabs, lobsters, and shrimp that survive off the zooplankton. While he waited to see what the plankton would do Daniel started to work on the soil. Sammy was anxious to bring some animals over but they first needed foliage to survive. Deciding to start small again Daniel selected a large valley with a small lake and a couple of streams that had now formed in it. He had Hawk to change the top dozen feet of rock and dust with sterile soil from earth. The plants and roots got copied over as well but they were inert and eventually would dry up. Some day when Fungi and bacteria existed on Tawny they might actually start to decompose but not now. In his research he had read that before plants could grow they needed beneficial microorganisms and nutrients. The normal source for these would have been compost, aged manure and other organic matter. None of which he could get in large enough quantities to really matter for Tawny although he might be able to for just the valley. Before he did that Daniel decided to check online for alternatives and found a reference to alluvial soil. This was deposited by rivers and was an excellent source of the bacteria. Thinking about it a bit Daniel decided that grabbing some before it got washed out to the ocean should be fine. With that Hawk opened a few portals to transfer the wet silt from the Mississippi delta to a few meters above the valley surface. As the silt fell it spread around covering the sterile topsoil. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. A month later Daniel took a few bore samples a couple below the surface of the valley to be tested. With that positive indication of bacteria Daniel was now ready to move plants into the valley. He initially thought about buying a few thousand trees and plants from nurseries using the last of Hector¡¯s money. But he then realized that he might acquire enough for the valley but nowhere near enough for the rest of Tawny. Even buying them for the valley might setup flags that would get them too much attention. Trying to think of a solution Daniel looked over at the monitors on the wall. Like usual they were showing environmental problems and disasters around the world. On one of them a major forest fire was burning in the northwest and on another part of the Brazilian rain forest was getting bulldozed under for agriculture. Thinking about how he wanted to save those habitats Daniel finally realized what he could do. Tom McCearly had already been working 10 days straight and the fire was still spreading. Digging lines for 16 hours a day was exhausting and mind-numbing. We had basically created a single-track trail as a fuel break to stop the fire from spreading. So far over 10,000 acrers had been lost and if the wind shifted it would be even worse. As I looked back over the flames the wavering heat waves distorted the view. Looking at some of the trees about to be burned I could swear they actually seemed to flicker a bit right before they caught fire. I must be more tired than I though as I turned and started digging again. The valley looked a lot better with the trees and bushes around it. You could almost feel you were looking at a spot on earth. I couldn¡¯t wait to show Sammy when she got home from school today. Having Hawk move the trees and bushes to the valley right before they caught fire while simultaneously replacing them from a copy of the tree from a few minutes before worked like a charm. Also including some of the dirt from around the roots also made sure there was plenty of suitable bacterial laced soil for them as well. If anyone did noticed the sterilized spots left behind the forest fire would help explain it. Looking again at the trees I smiled and thought if they are still surviving a month from now Sammy could begin moving some animals in. Looking around some more I decided to try adding some water plants around the lake and maybe spread some wild flower seeds while I was at it. Taking just a few water plants from half a dozen lakes wouldn¡¯t be noticed I was sure and the seeds are sold as bird food so replacing them with inert seeds would be fine. If the wildflowers grew we could also release some bees and butterflies as well. Back at the Tawny Company Jane was getting more and more concerned. The frauds, cover-ups and actual crimes being brought to light by their efforts were getting a lot of attention to the company. There were also some questions being raised from the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) over the source of funds used by the company. The company was setup as a private business and not a charity organization to keep a higher level of confidentiality and keep questions like that from arising. A few employees have complained about feeling like they were being watched and one of the analyst even claimed her apartment was bugged. Jane herself hadn¡¯t noticed anyone following her but she was getting more worried about the employees. Deciding she needed to talk to someone about it she placed a call to Dan. Surprisingly he answered right away and acted like he expected her call. After saying she needed to discuss some things they arrange another meeting for lunch at the same restaurant. The lunch meeting started fine with a lot of small talk and a quick update on the company. After the meal while Dan was enjoying a desert and she a coffee the talk turned to the spying issue. After explaining to Dan the complaints the employees had made about being watched Dan nodded his head to a man on a phone seated near the door. ¡°He¡¯s been watching you carefully every since you came in¡± Dan said. As he said it the man quickly put his phone in his pocket, left some money on the table and walked out. Shocked Jane stared after the man as she started to feel scared. ¡°Don¡¯t worry¡± Dan said ¡°He and the others are trying to find the source of information you are getting.¡± He was actually trying to listen in to our conversation to find out about it¡±. Jane puzzled asked ¡°How was he hearing us, he¡¯s on the other side of the store?¡± ¡°That phone had a special mike and app on it. He could listen to any conversation in the room with it. It was developed for the hearing impaired but anyone can buy and use it nowadays.¡± After that revelation Dan calmed her down and gave a few suggestions on how to deal with the situation. One was even more of a shock, Dan suggestion she hire a specific data security company that he said was a front for the CIA. When she asked why Dan explained that it was an open secret about that company. Hiring them would scare off the criminal elements and any other agencies would try to get the information through the CIA. Dan also suggested Jane add a tip form on the company web site offering a small reward for any tips about illegal dumping or environmental damage. Telling her that the more potential sources there were for the information then the harder it would be for anyone to point to one source for any of it. As far as the CRA went Dan just suggested she remind them that the company was funded through their data analysis of environmental crises. For these they were very well paid for by others in particular Mrs. Hilderbran who was a non-Canadian citizen. As Daniel got up to leave he handed a heavy box to Jane saying ¡°Just a token of Grandma and mind¡¯s appreciation for the hard work you do¡± Opening the box up Jane saw a beautiful ceremonial cape of her people the Tlingit tribe. For a moment Jane thought it might actually be a historical relic which would be totally illegal to possess but looking closer she could see it looked to new. It looked like it had just made by the tribesman yesterday. She was very pleased with the thoughtfulness of it and as she headed back to the company she kept thinking about the best place to hang it in her office. The data security company Dan suggested hiring was very accommodating. They had several suggestions on securing the server and data. They even offered a discount with being asked. Jane had expected the account rep to look like a spy but he actually looked and acted like a geek. Another six months had gone buy and things kept progressing. Several more areas of Tawny had been setup. The areas were in different zones so the environment would be better matched to different areas of earth. Two more seas had also been created and seeded with plankton. One was an arctic type sea and a second was to be tropical. Sammy and Daniel were now ready for a big milestone. Something they had been dreaming of for the last three years. Daniel looked at Sammy and said ¡°Are you ready?¡± Her response was a big smile and a nod. Holding hands they stepped through the portal into Tawny. They each had wide smiles on their faces as they both looked out over the valley. Seeing the field of wildflowers blooming with butterflies fluttering around Sammy started to laugh. Daniel looked toward the edge of the forest and saw a rabbit nibbling at the plants. He knew there were a few foxes living in the forest to maintain a healthy rabbit population. He knew they had a lot of work to do. This was just a drop in the bucket and they were a long way from making it a safe haven for animals. Looking down at Sammy and her now slightly rounded tummy he thought ¡°and people too¡±. What’s Next (preview book 2) A dreary world with only a jagged rocky surface orbited around a star in the goldilocks zone. Exposed to almost the perfect level of solar radiation and with a 25 hour day and a 380 day year it was almost perfect. That was except for the lack of water and barely any atmosphere. A near miss from a comet millions of years ago had torn it away leaving no chance for life to form. The dusty, crater strewed planet had rested undisturbed for four billion years with only an occasional meteor impact disturbing it¡¯s lonely journey around its sun. Suddenly a dusty cloud aroused from the surface, months later the whistling sound of wind started to be heard as the hazy atmosphere slowly thickened across the planet. A year later the planet was still rocky and desolate but now a few tiny clouds and a small patch or two of water could be seen on the surface. One small patch of green could be seen in an old impact crater with a small artificial object in the center. Someone from earth would recognize the object as an RV. Of course with Earth over 500 light years away it would definitely be an Oopart if it were. Outside of the RV was a hammock strung between two poles and what looked like a normal guy sleeping in it with a hat pulled down over his face. * * * * * The RV was parked in a small, dry and dusty crater on a small plot of green grass that was barely bigger than the vehicle that sat upon it. The young man stepped out of the trailer to look at the bare hills around him knowing that the rest of this dead world was the same. Unlike earth the conditions for life to form never occurred. It did, however, have one thing going for it: the planetary specs where a very close match for earth. The planet had the same size, axial tilt, magnetic field and even a large moon orbiting around it. The planet originally had only a small mix of hydrogen, sulfur dioxide and some small traces of methane and ammonia in the little bit of atmosphere it had. This time it only took Hawk eight months to completely transform the planet¡¯s atmosphere to match the Earths. Of course, Daniel didn¡¯t bother having it match the 21st century¡¯s smog polluted air but rather that of earth from a few thousand years in the past. It was now time for Hawk to start on the land and water but before that Daniel wanted to get a small taste of what living on this planet would be like. The upheaval expected from the planet¡¯s surface terraforming should cause major ground tremors so Daniel decided to leave before it started. Daniel bundled his stuff aboard the RV including the portable weather station he was using to monitor the atmospheric changes as they were stabilizing. Over the last few weeks it looks like the thicker atmosphere and new ozone layer was working. Temperature differences between night and day had dropped to less than a 20 degree range. A far cry from the +/- 150 degrees the airless planet originally had. Daniel would have liked to stay and monitor it more but with the dry surface the moister originally in the air was slowly being leaching out. A problem that won¡¯t be corrected until the surface water was in place. Plus Sammy and little Alexia were waiting for him on Tawny.This book''s true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. As Daniel finished loading the RV he stopped in the door for a final look around, ¡°Ok Hawk, hit it¡± he said and a minute later the RV was gone with only the small patch of green grass left. Minutes later a path of change started sweeping across the planet. As it circled around the rocky planet sterile black earth and lifeless trees and plants were left behind. Sometimes streaks of water were left behind that spread and filtered across the planet and sometimes columns and gaps. As the path of the change kept circling and crossing over and over itself. The planet¡¯s streaks widen and stabilized slowly turned into lakes, oceans, rivers, valleys and mountain ranges. Finally after 18 months no more changes appeared, the planet was quiet. Looking from orbit the new world would look like a twin of earth. The blue sphere was now covered in a carpet of lifelike but dead flora. Trees, bushes and grass now covered the planet providing a frozen image of life. With no actual bacteria on the planet decomposition was none existent. Suddenly splatters of smelly mud stated to sprinkle down on the planet. Someone familiar with the scent might have recognized the smell of sewage with just a bit of river muck mixed in. Getting active bacteria sources without sterilizing important areas of earth would have been difficult. Even if using the equivalent exchange would have kept people from noticing immediately. Luckily there were other sources that no one cared about. Pulling the muck from areas like a sewage treatment facility or an area of river beds also worked. With this muck as a start it would only take a year or two for the bacteria levels to rise enough for normal decomposition to happen. Preface for Book 2 Some might think Daniel actions are wrong, that he should be doing more for people. They are probably right. If you think about it with Hawk¡¯s help he could have just get rid of all the pollution, catch the criminals and possibly even force people to behave the way he thinks they should. Or instead he could have just gone ahead and tell the governments about Hawk. Let them decide between themselves how the ultimate tool should be used. While also somehow avoiding what destroyed Hawk¡¯s creators doing it. It does make you wonder what someone looking back from the future would say. Assuming they could see all the details leading up to the decisions that were made. Would he be a hero or visionary or maybe just a foolish young man? No one can really be able to fully judge someone else¡¯s actions without first knowing all the details leading up to that action. Of course, the only entity truly capable of knowing ¡°all¡± of the details is Hawk. * * * * * Question: As you walk down the street you see a building on fire. You have only enough time to rush in and save one life. But you find there are two lives at risk, a man and a dog. So who do you save?If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Answer: Of course the man, you should always prioritize saving a human being first, as human life is more valuable than an animal life. Detail: But the man set the fire himself that ended up killing everyone else in the building. Answer: Well then the dog, the man is a murder and is just getting what he deserves. Detail: The man started it accidentally while tossing away his cigarette butt. Answer: Save the man then, it was an accident starting the fire Detail: He was smoking while he was setting up a bomb to destroy the building. Answer: The dog then, a mass murder doesn¡¯t deserve to be rescued. Detail: He is a soldier and the building was the headquarters of a terrorist organization planning to blow up a school full of kids. Answer: Well the man I guess but you¡¯re really reaching for it now. Detail: Would it make you feel better if I said the dog had rabies? Answer: Only if he bit the man. Chapter 25 - Do You See Us Now? Hawk watched the work they had done. The planet now had a dozen of bio habitat zones with stable levels of plants and animals. It was still an empty world; the zones only covered 0.003% of the available land. Still the seed had been planted; even without additional effort the planet will someday develop an active biosphere. With the current zones as source material it should take an estimated 27,384 years to reach 90% foliage coverage of the land. The oceans would take longer to develop above plankton levels. Existing animal types for the habitats are currently at 23 species. Estimation is that approximately 12 will die off before the biosphere stabilizes. New genetic variant sub-species will then start showing up until distinct specials start appearing. The human Daniel¡¯s efforts are still inefficient. Several more desirable and effective solutions for preserving Earth¡¯s biodiversity are continuing to be overlooked or ignored. Hawk wondered if he should provide an example for Daniel on a more efficient approach to creating Tawny¡¯s biosphere. The more likely example would be to split Earth¡¯s biosphere for with Tawny. Such an approach is estimated to bring Tawny Earth¡¯s current level in 38.2 years. The effect on Earth of removing half of theirs would be to only accelerate its final collapse by 8.3 years. * * * * * Sammy, Grandma and I were going over the status of the two dozen life habitats we had so far created. We had done this every week for months but were getting more frustrated each time we did. They were scattered across Tawny in different temperature environments from northern to sub-tropic. Each area had a soil and plant composition similar to the same environment on earth. Once the plants seem to be stable a few animals suitable for that area were added. Three of the habitats were now expanding without any more help. The growth was slow but it seemed to be increasing. Another eight habitats appeared stable but weren¡¯t expanding for some reason. The others were not doing well at all. One of them was now completely dead. None of us could understand why, the soil, plants and the few animals added matched with the climate and one of the other zones had a very similar environment to it and it was doing fine. I was starting to get depressed at the state of our terraforming. We just didn¡¯t have the expertise needed for what we were doing. At this rate we wouldn¡¯t be ready to host any of the endangered species on the list until they actually became extinct. As we sat around the table wondering what we should do I could tell I wasn¡¯t the only one unhappy. Even our usually cheerful Sammy was downcast. As we talked about ideas to try Grandma was writing it all down in her notebook. Over the last couple of years she had become our unofficial documenter and archivist. She had even made a scrap book of all the endangered species and what they still needed to survive on Tawny. After spending an hour kicking around ideas Grandma finally closed her notebook and put the pen down. She said ¡°We just can¡¯t do it by ourselves. If we are going to get suitable habitats ready for them in time we will need help, and a lot of it!¡± Sammy jumped right in and said ¡°We can¡¯t do that, the more people who know the more likely the secret will get out¡±. ¡°Grandma¡¯s right¡± I said, ¡°We need the help, we are just going to have to take the risk¡±. After a few minutes of thinking about it Sammy sadly agreed and shook her head in agreement. ¡°What we need to do is find a way the different governments and any others groups can¡¯t interfere or at least not easily¡± I said. ¡°How are we going to do that?¡± Sammy said I then proceeded to tell Sammy and Grandma my thoughts on how we might do that. Basically that we go public by actually hiring a large number of people to do the terraforming. Since the major issue of climate and seas/oceans is done we can hide the fact that it was done at all. Make them think the world was that way to start. The portals they see would just be transportation and we mask details about them some kind of physical device located on Tawny linked to a single spot on Earth. For the people we can treat it like a long term remote contract with no transit back to earth until contract end. So we would have two groups one located on Tawny doing the planting and checking and another group here handling acquiring seeds and plants for transport. At some point some group will try to sneak into Tawny or even attack the spot here. We¡¯ll still have to deal with those groups and their attempts to get a hold of the suppose portal technology. How to do that would take some deep thought and whatever we did the danger to everyone would increase. We talked about what I said for a few minutes and Sammy and Grandma agreed it was the way to go. After that they started adding on their ideals and Grandma began taking more notes. It was late into the night before we finally finished with our planning. It was still a risky thing we were planning but we had done everything we could to reduce that risk. The next day looking at the list of steps for the plan I knew it was going to take some major jumping around to get the infrastructure established. Once we had that setup and ready we could then go ahead with the widespread hiring. The big question was could we keep the portals under wraps until we started the mass hiring? As we got ready for bed I asked Sammy ¡°What do you think Caribbean or maybe South America¡± ¡°The island?¡± she said ¡±Yes, since we¡¯re making it we can put it almost anywhere¡± I responded Originally we thought we could just buy an island to use. After checking online we quickly found out that although you can buy an island pretty easily it still belongs to a country. Owning one makes you a landowner not a separate country. It seems every piece of land in the world had either already been claimed or is in some kind of dispute between countries. Creating our own out in international water bypasses any claims by any countries. We wouldn¡¯t even be the first group to do it. Making islands is something a few countries and corporations have already tried doing and some had even succeeded. Of course we with Hawk¡¯s help could make the island overnight instead of over the years. After a moment Sammy responded ¡°Let¡¯s go with the Caribbean but not too close to the U.S. Maybe further down south, there are a lot of countries and ports clustered around down there¡±. ¡°So, a hammock under the palm trees then¡± I said with a grin. A pinch on my thigh from a red faced Sammy was the only response I got to that. I resolved then and there that a private island somewhere in the tropic zone on Tawny would be early on the list for development. I would make sure it¡¯s somewhere so far from anyone else on the planet that Sammy would be comfortable enjoying our time together. I fell asleep with a smile dreaming about an island with palm trees, a grass shack and alone with Sammy in a hammock The next few weeks were spent traveling on a charter boat going back and forth off the shores of Central America. The captain thought I was crazy with the weird course I set for him but he was fine with it after I handed him enough cash. The course took me from port to port checking travel and route paths along with the local attitude of the people towards the different and unexplained. Knowing how they felt about weird and unusual things was important for our plan. We needed them to have a live and let live attitude toward the unusual. Government groups we could handle but a suspicious public demanding they do something about what we would be doing was another thing entirely. As one famous writer once put it at a high enough level magic and science are indistinguishable from each other. So using a portal and a quick disguise I did a few appearing and disappearing in public areas. Making sure to be seen but not photographed doing it. After a few weeks of this rumors started to appear about the disappearing man. I checked on what the locals thought of the story and it seemed to be more wonder and disbelief than fear which was great. The important part though was the locals had a very live and let live attitude toward mysterious things. The disappearing man legend ended up being an amusing ghost story for the tourist. I even found one enterprising family printing and selling t-shirts of the ¡°Fantasma Amistoso¡± or Friendly Ghost in English to the tourist. I got a couple for Sammy and her Grandma as a joke. Surprisingly Grandma loved it and wore it all the time. After a lot of looking I finally decided on a spot out on the ocean about 40 miles East of Panama. Once I had picked the spot for the island a quick check of the GPS and depth finder was all that was needed and I was ready to start on it. The water depth was also only 80 meters at that spot. Not that a deeper depth would have been more difficult to build on but with the lighter depth people would find it easier to accept someone making an island there. Hawk had done a lot of historical back tracking of the spot as well as a few dozen others we had checked. This spot for some odd reason had almost no traffic going by it. This should give us a bit of time before it is stumbled upon by boat traffic. A satellite would probably spot the island first but holding off as long as possible was out intention. It wasn¡¯t time to actually make the island appear yet but Hawk did move enough rock over to the spot reducing the depth to 20 meters. This was just enough for the water color to change indicating shallow on satellite images. When our island did finally appear anyone checking older images should assume it had been created over a period of time instead of overnight.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. With the island started looking at how the seeds and plants would get there was next. The location should make getting what we needed delivered to the island easy. The canal meant a lot of merchandise was passing through all the local ports. Panama also had a ¡°not so trustful¡± attitude toward the U.S. government. It was something to do with the history of the canal but they were still friendly enough to Americans in general. Several other countries around the area had a more hostile relationship to the U.S. but they didn¡¯t let it affect trade. Those countries also had active shipping ports within a hundred miles or so of where the island would be. All together we should have multiple choices for cargo transfers to the island. The next thing on Grandma¡¯s list was to create a couple of companies. This would be a public company that was a subsidiary of a private one. Neither could be connected to Jane¡¯s company. That would cause future issues as well as bring to much attention on what we are really doing. The anonymous nature of corporations as well as their pseudo personhood would be helpful. This faceless ability essentially allowed a company to act as a legal entity with a "personality" in the eyes of the law. Using the public one to visibly be doing everything and let the other be the parent company with 100% ownership. This would help obfuscate the lack of any kind of management from the parent but still keep control. It would also help explain the lack of a visual board for the company and hide who was really calling the shots. It should also come in handy in the future when we provide an alternative explanation for the portal¡¯s technology. A little research on where to incorporate the new companies provided a bit of a surprise. It seems that for countries famous for hiding company ownership the country of Panama ranked top of the list. It turned out Panama was considered a global banking haven with high confidentiality and anonymity for all its corporations. Their tax and reporting laws also seemed tailor made for what we needed. As long as the business revenue isn¡¯t sourced from within the country, no tax needs to be paid in Panama. With the country decided I quickly hired a local law firm to handle the registrations making one ¡°Hawk Habitats¡± a subsidiary company of the ¡°Stellar Hawk Group¡±. They were both setup in a week. The next step was to acquire initial funding for the company. We had discussed a number of possibilities for that, everything from duplicating gold and other commodities to just stealing it from bad people. Sammy was all for selling things, she thought it was more honest but Grandma surprisingly thought that just taking money directly from criminals would do the most good. Sitting around Granma¡¯s little kitchen table we talked about the difficulties in selling hundreds of millions in gold and jewelry or the risk in stealing billions from incredibly dangerous drug cartels. After discussed the dangers of both approaches and Sammy¡¯s view on selling was still wanting to go the gold and diamond route. Grandma finally convinces her otherwise when she mentioned how drug dealers hurt and killed people and taking their money would cut down on all the lives the drugs ruined. With the money source decided Hawk and I went looking for whom to get it from. I checked online news and DEA files to find several major drug dealers that were supposedly killed by their own cartels. There are probably lots of reasons for cartel members to have a falling out but we needed ones killed for being sticky fingered about the cartel¡¯s money. Surprisingly it seems it¡¯s quit rare for members to steal from each other. Still, by going back a couple of decades I did manage to find a few. Checking on them before they were killed I quickly saw where the money ended up. Some were long gone for gambling, drug use and women but I few had buried or hid it and some had stashed it away in foreign bank accounts. A quick reach through a portal got me a few million that was hidden. Most of the online accounts I left alone for now just transferring a few million into our Hawk Habitats business account. The transfers did raise some eyebrows at the Panama bank we had selected for our accounts. It seemed more because of a mistaken impression they had over what kind of company or charity they thought we were. Good thing the amount was only a few million, if the hundreds of millions of stolen cartel money had been moved it would have attracted a lot of attention. The next step in the plan called for a front man for the CEO. It needed to be someone to act as the face of Hawks Habitats to the public. Once they were onboard I could step back into the shadows and everything public would be through them. Sammy had expressed a concern that whoever the front man was they would be in danger when groups started to come after the portal technology. This was a valid concern but in discussing it we decided to limit the company only handled purchasing and shipping the seeds and plants to the island. Anyone looking for portal technology would focus on the island not that company. This would require someone else to head up island operations but we could get to that later. I was thinking a military man would be a good choice for that, probably a mercenary familiar with the risk of the job. Hiring a CEO did present problems in who would hire them. We had used Grandma for Jane¡¯s company in Canada but that was too risky here. The parent company would help a bit but still a representative of Stellar Hawk Group needed to be involved for hiring someone like a CEO for a subsidiary company. Unfortunately I was to young looking to be taken seriously as someone a company would send to hire a senior executive. However, in thinking about it I remembered a common trope I use to read in books. I could pose as the chairman¡¯s son, someone whose father might want him to get experience doing this. To make it more believable there would need to be a senior team back him up and supposedly keeping an eye on him for his father. For this I would need an impressive looking management team for the interviewing. They wouldn¡¯t need to say much just look impressive so a fake team should do. Getting a fake team together was straight forward. A call to Panama¡¯s local version of the Screen Actors Guild the IFA got me a contact list of actors with experience playing business men. Finding a few willing to put on a prank type performance with no questions asked just took some calls and a lot of cash. As a bonus I did have to pay for tailored suits and brief cases for the part but I let the actors keep them. With a script that had them ask a few questions but leaving most of the talking to me I was ready. Checking the local job board I made appointments with a few job seekers to meet at a local hotel¡¯s conference room. Emiliano Garcia was surprised to get a call about a job. His resume had been up on the job site for over six months without a nibble. For the last few months he had been reduced to working as a waiter in a restaurant to keep his family fed. Emiliano didn¡¯t regret giving up managing the banana plantation in Columbia. He would do anything to keep his family safe. After a local member of the Vallente Cartel got interested in his 15 year old daughter he knew he had to get them out of the country away from the cartels. Unfortunately jobs for an outsider in Panama were hard to find but the safety of his family was worth it. As he walked into the conference room in a suit that had seen better days Emiliano hoped this job would work out. He wasn¡¯t sure at what level it was but any manager position would have to be better that the restaurant he was at now. As he entered the room a young man in a expensive suit stood up from the table and held out a hand to him to shake. He could tell at once the young man was a foreigner and his job expectations dropped as he thought about how young he was. ¡°Hello¡± said a young man, ¡°My name is Dan Falke, how are you doing? Can you understand my English alright Mr. Garcia?¡± ¡°I¡¯m fine, I understand your English¡± said Emiliano with his strong Spanish accent. ¡°Allow me to introduce my team¡± said the young man. ¡°This is Mr. Ralph Robertson he¡¯s in charge of new acquisitions and this¡± pointing the other man ¡°is Mike Garcia my minder¡± said the young man with a grin. ¡°Dad thought I was too young to handle this hiring myself so he sent a couple of his regular team with me. Why don¡¯t we sit down and you can tell me about your experience running the large operation of a plantation?¡± Emiliano walked out of the meeting an hour later shocked. Not only did he get the manager job but it was as a CEO. He was about to become a boss of a company supplying material for large scale forest restoration. Admittedly the company was just starting out and he¡¯d have to do a lot of hiring himself until and HR department could be set up but it was still an incredible opportunity. It was a little strange that the young man Dan was the one to asked most of the questions and gave all the answers. Emiliano thought the other two might jump in at some point but they stayed quiet after a couple of initial responses. That man¡¯s father must have a lot of faith in his son to let him travel to Panama for something like this he thought. The only puzzling piece left was the comment that the operation would be shipping to a small island. The explanation given that transporting plants and later animals this way would avoid health and quarantine requirements seemed somewhat valid. Still, his daughter little Cory had just gotten settled at her new school and he wasn¡¯t sure about being away for long periods. The young man Dan seemed pretty accommodating about it and did mention actually trips to the island would not be necessary. The shipments could be arranged from Panama City for delivery to the island. This would allow him the option to stay here and maybe an occasional trip to other ports to arrange deliveries. Chapter 26 - Ever Need a Helping hand? Hawk looked at the largest of the seas that he created on Tawny. Eventually it would become and ocean but for now it was just a sea. Only a few hundred kilometers in width and less than half of one in depth it only barely qualified as a sea. Following Daniel¡¯s requests Hawk kept increasing the water by 10% every time plankton levels reached above 70% of Earth¡¯s ocean level. At the current rate his estimate placed it reaching an acceptable size for an ocean in 107 years. Daniel had requested an island be created in the center of the sea. An island that would be used by humans to live and work from as they helped develop the biosphere. He was a bit puzzled by using such an inefficient method for development but did accept the need to include human labor in the development. Daniel had also requested a town be created on the island. Using elements from locations the ¡°Grandma¡± had identified. These elements included apartment houses, greenhouses, stores, library, entertainment venue and a school. The issue of power, water and waste were discussed by them until the ¡°Sammy¡± asked him if they could be generated and for the waste disposed of using portals. Water and waste were self evident but power in the form of electron flow was new. Investigating this ¡°electricity¡± used by humans reproducing its electron flow using a temporal portal¡¯s behavior of state matching would be trivial. * * * * * Hawk had finished with creating the island and town on Tawny so Sammy, Grandma and I decided to check it out. After walking around it a bit Grandma commented that we had a company town here. Not something I expected even if it technically was true. Sammy wanted to know what town we used as the model for it since Hawk had to copy it from somewhere. I had to explain to her that it was a jig saw of a dozen different towns across America. The apartment building were from several different timeshare resorts in Florida, the hospital a clinic from a remote spot in Alaska and the stores were major chain. All of which copied from a point right before completion and before occupancy during the after hours. ¡°Why after hours?¡± Sammy asked ¡°Because copying buildings from the past will also copy people¡¯s bodies¡± I responded Sammy got a little green at the gills thinking about that. Seeing that Grandma quickly changed the subject by asking me what we should call it. Up till then I hadn¡¯t thought about a name. I also realized the island on Earth would also need a name. Sammy didn¡¯t like my first suggestion of Alpha and Beta but I didn¡¯t like her suggestion of Harmony and Melody. Grandma won with her suggestion of Demeter and Ceres the Greek and Roman goddesses of agriculture and fertility. This island on Tawny would be Ceres and Earth¡¯s Demeter. Looking around at the Ceres facilities Grandma started to put together a list of the people we would initially need. These people would cover the basic functions supporting the people actually working on the biosphere. By the time Grandma finished writing down all the positions Sammy and I could think of plus our best guess on how many for each one we had over 150 listed. ¡°It looks like we¡¯ll need more than one hiring fair to fill all these¡± Daniel said ¡°But you can¡¯t hire them without explaining it¡¯s going to be on another planet¡± said Sammy ¡°I know but we can tell them right before moving them over and if anyone wants to quit then they can. It will be too late to matter if they tell anyone then¡± I replied Grandma jumped in and said ¡°you better hire three times as many; you know most will head out like a scared polecat when they see a portal¡± Sammy and I both shook our heads in agreement. Even if more than the 150 we needed did agree to step through to Ceres we could still use them. Before we left the island I mentioned we needed a dummy portal installation to fake how the portals were being created and destroyed. Sammy thought we could use a pyramid with weird lights and markings passing it off as a prehistorically lost science type of magic. I was for something a bit more subtle like an underground bunker with weird antennas on the outside. Grandma suddenly reminded us that people would be regularly using the portals to go out over Tawny to work. We needed something mysterious but designed for a lot of traffic both foot and cargo. We eventually came up with the concept of a hub with radial spokes to the portals. Wrapping the portals in an unusual architecture style reminiscent of the old Time Tunnel tv show. Sammy did mention we would need to add special light effects and sounds to help sell it as well. With Grandma¡¯s list of positions we were now ready to do the initial hiring. For secrecy we needed them all to step through to Ceres at the same time and from the same point on Demeter. That did not keep us from hiring them separately but they would need to come to Demeter through normal travel. Money really wasn¡¯t an issue anymore so we decided on including an airline ticket to Panama then boat to Demeter. They would be the first group to step on Demeter so the secret of the island would definitely be out by then. Staffing companies in several Spanish and English speaking countries over the next month. Not that we had any country restriction on who we hired but to keep it simple we decided that everyone needed to speak either Spanish or English on Tawny. Some positions were directly advertised for but booths at Job fairs were setup in a few places by the staffing companies. The descriptions for each position was specified including that it was for a long term, offshore reclamation project with very limited communications available. We also included a relatively honest description of what would be available in Ceres as well as the type of work that would be done. We all knew that we couldn¡¯t stop people from quitting after they got there and insisting on returning to Earth so to discourage this ¡°very¡± generous bonus was included upon completion of their two year contracts. With all this the job listings still came across as a bit mysterious but we thought with enough advertising we would get a decent turnout at the job fairs. Henry Harrison was enjoying his vacation in Sydney. Working as a Jackeroo out in the Outback wasn¡¯t the most glamorous of jobs but he enjoyed the work. Spending 12 months at a time out in the heat of the outdoors with an occasional visit to town might not suit most people but he was happy. It was how he was raised and at the end of a hard day nothing beats sitting under the stars with a can of beer. Of course it would be better if the beer was cold and he could see some Shelias a little more often but nothings perfect. This trip to Sydney was a special event. Henry had been saving for 5 years for this trip and he intended to see it all. The city might not be a proper walkabout but he intended to wander around and see as much of the city as he could. When he got tired of the noise and crowds it would be time to head back. A few hours later Henry was embarrassingly feeling lost. He could still tell what direction he was heading but he just didn¡¯t know where anything was. Finding his way around all these tall buildings was even more difficult then he thought. After thinking about it a bit he decided to get a bit of height and headed toward the tall building next door. Figuring the view from up top would help him get his bearings.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. Noah¡¯s feet were hurting; he had been standing in the lobby for hours directing people to the employment expo. He really wanted to be in the expo itself sitting at a table checking out the babes instead of standing here in the hotel lobby. His boss wanted a good turnout so here he was trying to shoo people passing by into the expo. Seeing a bloke who looked like he came straight from the outback enter the lobby Noah quickly headed over. ¡°hey Mate, need directions to the expo?¡± Noah asked ¡°Nahmallgood, goin up for a looksee¡± the man said ¡°Well after if you want a job go in there¡± Noah said handing him a flyer and pointing to the expo conference room doors. After a good look at the city from the rooftop Henry headed on back down. Passing through the lobby Henry didn¡¯t see the guy with the fliers but he did notice the noise coming from the expo room. Thinking about spending another few years out in the outback Henry decided just for curiosity¡¯s sake to check it out. City life wasn¡¯t for him but he was getting a mite tired of the mosquitoes and snakes. Looking around the room he saw the booths around the sides with a large crowd of people moving from one to another. Most of the booths were hiring for city jobs not something he was interested in. One agency at the end was a little different. A lot of people were hanging around it but no one seemed to be filling out applications there. Hangin up on the side was a long list of jobs categorized as working on something called ¡°offshore reclamation¡±. Not sure what it was Henry was curios enough to ask the pretty Shelia at the booth what it was. With a smile she explained it was mostly planting trees and setting up forest after a disaster. She handed him a page of job descriptions with skills needed and a one page brief about the work environment. ¡°Our company was hired to do the recruiting is what I was told¡± she said ¡°We don¡¯t really have much more information then what¡¯s listed there¡± pointing at the papers she just handed him. ¡°My boss said they are probably paying so much because it¡¯s in the middle of nowhere where you¡¯ll be planting trees and lucky to make it to town once a month¡± She added ¡°So, the outback?¡± Henry asked ¡°No, it¡¯s somewhere international. If you get hired they¡¯ll provide transportation to wherever it is and you¡¯re stuck there for two years.¡± She said ¡°but if you manage the whole two years you get a 50% bonus¡± Henry was curios; he wasn¡¯t a kid anymore and wanted to see more of the world. Also going by some of the jobs listed here it looked like there could be some females doing this ¡°offshore reclamation¡± too. Not a lot of Shelias in the outback and most of them reminded him too much of his mother to even think about ¡°rooting¡±. After a moment Henry decided to go for it and asked for an application to fill out. After some back and forth Henry was told he had the job and was given a ticket voucher to Panama. Once he got there he was to meet a boat for transportation from there in two weeks. Walking out of the hotel Henry thought about spending two years somewhere in the middle of nowhere. Looking around he decided to see how much fun he could squeeze into two weeks. Two years worth at least he hoped enough to last him until he got back. Grandma had gotten the last set of approved applications from the staffing companies. With this we now had over 300 hired. They are all scheduled to be in Panama City in time for the boat in two weeks. At that point the plan was to take them by boat to Demeter where they would see a portal demonstration. The ship would stay at the dock there until everyone can decide if they are going or not. With a little luck we hoped to end up with at least half of them staying with us. The one that go back will blow our secret wide open so we needed to prepare for that. Henry was pretty tired when he got off the plane in Panama. Two weeks in Sydney blew through all his vacation money and he had to spend the last couple of nights sleeping under some bushes in a park. With the time change from Sydney and the lack of a good night¡¯s sleep he was completely buggered. Luckily the travel voucher also included a night¡¯s stay at a hotel after the flight. With a good night¡¯s sleep he felt as good as new. He didn¡¯t have any money left for breakfast but the hotel office did have coffee available. After two large cups he was ready to head down to the docks. When he got there he could see a large crowd of people had gathered in front of an old cruise ship. It looked like about 300 to 400 people were standing around. Some of them had kids and all of them had more luggage then his one shoulder bag. Looking at all the people and luggage scattered around he wondering if they were all going on the ship with him. This was answered when boarding started and he saw them all get in line. The line moved fast with the crew quickly getting all the people loaded along with all their belonging. An hour later the ship was heading out of the harbor. After they left the harbor and a mandatory safety briefing by the crew the PA gave an announcement in Spanish and English informed everyone the trip would take about six hours. The announcement also said a few cabins would be available for families with small children and that a buffet was available in the main lounge. Henry hearing that immediately got up from his chair and rushed to the lounge for breakfast trying to beat the crowd. After eating three full plates of eggs and bacon Henry was finally stuffed. He decided to wandered around the ship for a bit and see what was what. He had never been on a cruise ship before. According to a couple of fellow passengers he met this was a pretty small ship without any of the typical cruise attractions. As he walked around he could hear a lot of talk among the passengers about where they were going. The oceans around Panama City were well known and a six hour trip would limit them to only a couple of possible ports. One of the passengers had heard a crew member talking about a mysterious island that was supposed to be somewhere that no island existed at. The captain was surprised when the main office gave him the rental information for the trip. His Emerald Star was not a big ship and might be showing her age but it could still hold 800 passengers. Long retired from a cruise company she was still in pretty good shape just a little bit beat up. Lately though the only jobs she was hired for was sightseeing trips through the Canal from Atlantic to the Pacific and back again. Renting a ship like the Star for this was not uncommon but it usually was by a large well known company or organization. For a single person to rent it was odd and even more so for a non-tour type trip. In addition they were heading toward a supposed island at a spot that all the charts showed had no island. Islands didn¡¯t just appear out of nowhere. Not that new islands were entirely unknown, both Dubai and China had made dozens of them but none of them were in the Caribbean. Those islands also took years to create. They did not appear out of nowhere like Atlantis rising. The Captain had serious doubts about this rental but the client had paid upfront and in cash so he¡¯ll take them to that spot and see. Chapter 27 - Growth Comes From Chaos Hawk watched a cargo ship approach the island. This was the third one today. The other two were a science group and a news team. This time the people staying below decks seem to be armed. Watching them prepare their equipment and check their guns Hawk was puzzled. Portals could be created anywhere Hawk wanted them to be so why were these humans all trying to reach the one on that island? It wasn¡¯t even there anymore. As Daniel had requested he waited until the ship reached five kilometers from the island before stopping the engine. A small portal to relieve compression in the engine cylinders was sufficient for that. With the ship stopped and unable to proceed the soldiers became agitated. Hawk watched and an hour later the soldiers could be seen inflating boats. Hawk waited till the boats were fully inflated and in the water before deflating them and sinking them. A day later another ship arrived at the disabled vessel to tow it away. Hawk watched and wondered again at this illogical behavior of these humans. * * * * * On a heavily overcast day an old cruise ship arrived at the dock. The captain of the ship was surprised both by an island itself appearing where no island should be and the modern looking docking facilities. The pier was empty except for one young looking man standing at the end next to a small step ladder. As the ship reached the pier the crew pushed out a gang plank from a lower hull door. A few minutes later the first of the passengers started walking down it. They were mostly single people but a few couples and families were mixed in. All of them were carrying or pushing suitcases and bags. As the passengers disembarking from the ship they gathered on the pier near the young man. Their expressions were both hopeful and scared. Looking at them I started to have doubts that we would manage to get any of them to stay. Not seeing any more disembarking I deciding it was time to start. Climbing a small ladder and using a megaphone I called for their attention until the crowd quieted down. ¡°Hello¡±, I shouted. ¡°My name is Dan Truly (my alias) and I am one of the coordinators here on Demeter. I know you all have questions but before that let me go over a few things. Behind me the large building you see is the transit building. Inside we will have a brief presentation on Ceres where you will be staying while on contract. Once you have seen the presentation I will answer any questions you might have before we leave. The crowd started to talk and ask questions at that point. Holding my hand up I waited for them to quiet down before continuing. ¡°If after seeing the presentation you change your mind about the job the Captain of the Emerald Star will be standing by to take you back. Those who have changed their mind will get a travel voucher to get them back to whatever location they signed up from. Now please proceed inside for the presentation¡±. With those words I stepped down from the ladder and started walking up the pier to the transit building. It was currently the only building on the small island so hard to miss. Reaching the industrial size garage type doors on the side of it I clicked the remote to open the doors and walked through. As the crowd filtered through the large doors behind me a few tried to ask me questions but I told them we¡¯d talk inside and motioned them on past me into the building. The building itself was well lighted with no internal rooms or walls. It was just a large open space with an archway on the far side across from the entrance. A small stage was setup on the side near the archway with a speaker¡¯s stand on it. The building was reproduced from a famous TV Evangelist building right before they started hosting their shows in it. The only changes Hawk had to make were to remove the seating stands. As I stepped onto the small stage and reached the stand I turned and look over the crowd. Thinking about Sammy and Grandma watching me through a portal right now I was actually tempted to wave at them. They both wanted to be here for this but It was bad enough I was being exposed to people who would not be going to Tawny. I wanted to give them as much privacy as I could until it was no longer possible. So for now they would stay on Ceres and only show themselves to the people who agree to work there. We still intend to hide our positions as much as possible from them by claiming to be just employees ourselves as well as using false names. I picked up a microphone from the stand and as the crowd looked at me I waited until they quieted down. I then started to talk, ¡°I know you all have questions mostly about where you will be working so let me answer some of them now.¡± I waited as the translation software converted what I said and played the Spanish through the speakers. It was a bit of a bother but our intention was to get a lot of the workers we needed from third world countries. Having a bilingual work force was critical so translations became a necessity. After the translation finished the first part I then went on and talked about terraforming in general. I noticed some confusion either with the translation of what I was saying or wondering how reforestation had become terraforming. Not giving them time to think about it I immediately went into talking about the logistics. I described Ceres as another island close to the terraforming which would be a permanent base for operations and supplies. I finished up with a quick overview of what the facilities were like on Ceres from the apartments to shopping. After I finished there was a moment of quiet before they started clamoring with questions. Most of those questions were where the terraforming would be done. I answered some of them while avoiding anything too specific. As things quieted down again I decided now was the time. Holding up my hands I said ¡°One last thing, you¡¯ll be working on another world¡± As I said that I turned towards the arch and a second later a view looking out at Ceres in the sunlight appeared. Everyone stopped talking for a moment in seeming awe before talking about how realistic the display was. Their comments turned to shock when I stepped through the archway, bent over and grabbed a handful of sand before steeping back into the room again. Walking over to the stand I raised my hand and left the sand pore down onto the floor. A few people ran back out the doors at this point. It took a few minutes before the group remaining calm down enough for me to continue. Once they did I talked about the portal and the planet Tawny stopping occasionally whenever the shouting and arguing got to loud. Some of the voices never stopped yelling their disbelief and anger at what they thought was a foolish trick. I just continued with my explanation counting on the volume of the PA to be heard over their arguments. After I finished explaining the portal and the terraforming I asked everyone willing to continue with their contracts to step through to Ceres. I reminded them of the bonus when their contract ended but if they had something more important to be doing then feel free to stay behind. As I walked back to the archway I said ¡°The ship would be leaving shortly and it would take any who want back to Panama City. You will receive enough travel money to get you back to your home locations¡±. ¡°For everyone else please follow me and we¡¯ll get you checked into your apartments¡± I said as I walked back through the portal again. Hopefully that might encourage people who want to ask me more questions to follow through the portal first to do it. Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. To try to get people to decided quicker I yelled over my shoulder as I walked away ¡°The portal will close in fifteen minutes and the ship will leave shortly thereafter so hurry up and decided¡± Henry surprised himself when he heard the explanation of the portal. All he could think of was another world as he started to move through the crowd to the archway. All those years starring up at the stars in the Outback and now he would actually get to go to one of them. How could he resist so when that Dan fellow went back through the portal Henry was right behind him. The crowd could see Henry grinning as he looked around before heading off after Dan. It took a few minutes but eventually another person stepped across and then a few more and a few more. One or two of them looked back at everyone in the room before following after the others. Eventually the 15 minutes were up and the portal started to shrink down. Not the normal way a portal would close but Dan thought one last inducement to get people to take the chance. It seemed to work as a few more rushed through before it had completely closed. The ones remaining stood and stared at the empty archway with a few courageous ones reaching over and touching the sides. When the boat horn was heard going off on the cruise ship people started to turn and head out of the building. An hour later Daniel, Sammy and Grandma sat at conference table watching the people¡¯s response when the portal closed to see what kind of attitude the people left behind had. Most were still expressing disbelief and some fear but a few where showing anger. The anger was a bit surprising but I guess they needed someone to blame for the job not being what they expected it to be and blaming us was the easiest. As the crowd followed me I lead them over to the apartment block where Sammy was waiting. She had a clipboard with a list of the employees, a box of room keys and a bright smile on her face. ¡°Everyone¡± I said, ¡°this is Mandy (Sammy¡¯s alias), she will be assigning you your apartments. Once you check them out feel free to go to the supply building over there, it¡¯s the brown building. Pick up any basic supplies and enough groceries to last you for a week or two. We will have a cafeteria setup for most meals but that will take a couple of days so in the meant time you¡¯ll need to feed yourselves. First thing tomorrow morning we will be going over what you will be doing¡±. As I said this I waved farewell and heading to the building that was to be the headquarters for our Ceres operations. As I walked away I heard Sammy yell ¡°People, no pushing just get in line and I¡¯ll check you off and give you your room keys and yea I¡¯ll answer what question I can for you as we do it¡±. It took an hour for Sammy had finished up the intake and met us in the conference room of the operations building. Seeing how frazzled she now looked I felt guilty for sticking them on her like that. She did have a content look on her face as she put the clipboard with the list down on the table. We had been talking about this for a year but we now had help with what we were trying to do. ¡°Well we have 102 employees now. Most of the high priority categories we needed have at least one employee now. The only exceptions to that are cafeteria cook and mechanics¡± She said Grandma hesitantly said ¡°I guess I could do the cooking for a bit¡± ¡°No Grandma, with over 100 people that would be too much work for one person. We can go to a buffet style until we can get the staff. Hawk can just duplicate a buffet from someplace for now.¡± I said ¡°What about Vegas, they have great buffets¡± she said Sammy and I looked at her in surprise, as far as we knew she had never been to Las Vegas. Seeing our looks she said, ¡°What Mildred Phelps daughter ran off and got hitched there. She bragged to everyone about it when she got back.¡± With that decided we all turned our attention to the list deciding what we could get up and running tomorrow and what would have to be put off. After a few minutes of going through it I excused myself to go check on Demeter and the ones who didn¡¯t come through. Eventually we would have a small staff on Demeter to take care of deliveries but for now the ideal was to just remove the island. Once we had everyone off it of course. After all, disappearing islands was a well known maritime folktale. It would create a lot of talk but misinformation was something we wanted right now. The captain wasn¡¯t sure what had happened on the island now but the passengers were slowly boarding the ship. Looking down at the boarding level he could see they seemed agitated and kept trying to ask the crew about something. Some actually seemed to be in state of shock and one was angrily shouting to call the police. The customer had told him to wait at the dock until 4pm before returning the passengers and it was almost that time. Deciding he wanted away from this weird situation he nodded to the chief mate to hit the signal horn again. This time he had the crew start retracting the gang plank. Seeing this happening the people causing a commotion on the pier started rushing aboard. The captain waited till they all boarded before finally stowing the gang plank and leaving. As the captain looked back at the island that shouldn¡¯t be there he thought that this was not a charter he would forget and also one he hoped never to do again. Daniel waited until the ship had actually pulled away from the island before checking for anyone left behind. The island was small with only the one building on it but to make sure no one was hiding he had Hawk trace everyone from when they left the ship. Excluding everyone on Ceres or returning on the cruise ship showed six people still on the island. Two were still in the building standing quietly in front of the archway while the other four were wandering around the island. One of them was actually trying to pry the boards off the back of the transit building. From his mumbling it looked like he was trying to find out how the trick was done. Daniel asked Hawk to transfer all four of those to a deserted area on the ship. He doubted if it would convince them they had just forgot they had boarded but it would confuse things a bit. For the other two he had Hawk reopen the portal just to see if they would go through now. Surprisingly as soon as the portal opened they both stepped through. One of them was an elderly man with a big grin on his face and the other a young woman with a look of desperation on hers. As they came through the portal to Ceres Daniel walked up to them as they looked around. ¡°Welcome to Ceres and are you sure now that you want to work here?¡± I said. ¡°Sorry¡± said the elder man, ¡°I thought it was a trick until everyone just disappeared like that¡±. The scared woman jumped in and said ¡°Are we really on another planet? Nobody can reach us here right?¡± ¡°Only if the owner wants them to¡± I said. ¡°Come on let me get you settled in and we can talk about this tomorrow.¡± I contacted Sammy then took them over to the apartment complex for her to meet them and assigned them rooms. After making sure they both knew where to get food and basic supplies Sammy and I left again. Walking away Sammy said ¡°She wasn¡¯t actually on our list of hires¡± Daniel thought about the scared look on that woman¡¯s face and decided to do a little checking and see what she¡¯s running away from. Whatever it was couldn¡¯t reach her on Ceres but it would be good to know anyway. Back in the conference room they went back to going over plans for tomorrow. There wasn¡¯t much to do about Demeter for now. With the first load of people here Hawk had already made Demeter disappear. Once the initial staff was setup and trained the island would be recreated permanently just in time for the next ¡°official¡± load of employees. The disappearing island trick probably won¡¯t work a second time but by then they should be ready to handle trespassers better. Until then they still needed to see what critical positions they could now fill and were they are still missing people to fill. With the list of all employees now available Daniel, Sammy and Grandma were quickly able to determine all the positions they were missing. Some like a doctor and nurse staff were critical but the one nurse who did come through would have to do for now. Oddly enough the horticulture employees were much more critical and had to be replaced quickly. The greenhouses needed to be seeded now so plant growth could start. They needed to appear operational and for that some time was needed for the growth. For the mechanics and stock clerks they thought they could temporarily do without them. Inventory could be recreated nightly without anyone noticing for right now and repairs could be handled similarly. Looking at the results they agreed that seven positions were critical and needed filled ASAP with 20 others that they could get by without for now. Catching Sammy yawning I realized how late it had gotten. Collecting all the paperwork together I hustled Sammy and Grandma through a portal and on back home. After wishing Grandma a good night Sammy and I headed off to bed. Tomorrow was going to be a long day and I was already dreading dealing with all the questions and complaints I knew was going to come up from all those people. I still had to figure out how to get the other staff we needed. Chapter 28 - Good Help is Hard to Find Technician Adains was getting very frustrated. He had been checking and rechecking the same spot in the ocean for two days now. This was the third time he had gotten a request to check for an island off the shore of Central America. There are no islands there he wanted to shout. The last time an uncharted island had been found was in 2020 and the only reason it was uncharted was because until then it had been buried under the melting Antarctica ice cap. Now even the Admiral¡¯s office had started sending down orders to redirect satellite coverage to that area. This was not what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) was suppose to be doing. With the climate change getting worst and worst each year they needed to be focused on their main tasks of monitoring changes in sea level or global ocean carbon not chasing myths about appearing and disappearing islands. Next thing they will probably have him search for Atlantis. Rubbing his tired eyes Adains looked at the current satellite image feed once more. This time he froze until Supervisor Bouvie walked by and saw him not moving. Not getting a response from the technician Bouvie walked over and shook his shoulder. The only response from the technician was to point to the monitor ant a small island now displayed in the middle of the ocean. * * * * * I walked into one of the refugee camps in Colombia. It had been raining a lot so the camp was basically drowning in mud. All the refugees were huddled in tents with a few children splashing around outside. A lot of eyes were on me as I walked between the camp areas but no one stopped me. Even the soldiers guarding the camp simply stared as I walked by. Eventually I got to the Red Cross area with the Doctors without Borders flag hanging from a pole. Looking around I finally spotted him, a middle aged man sitting on a cot reading with his leg all bandaged up. Walking up I noticed the book he was reading was on raising hothouse Orchids, an odd choice for a doctor in the middle of the jungle. ¡®Doctor Wagner¡± I said as I reached him. Looking up from his book the man responded ¡°Sorry can¡¯t help you.¡± Tapping his bandaged leg he said ¡°Doctor Hopkins should be in the green tent if you need something¡± then he went back to reading. ¡°Actually doctor you¡¯re the one I want to see. I heard you might be looking for a new job¡± ¡°Looking at me again he gave a snort and said ¡°My days running around treating patients are over. This isn¡¯t going away; I¡¯m on desk duty from now on¡±. ¡°Actually doctor I¡¯m aware of the jeep accident and the prognosis for you leg. I actually have a job you might find more interesting and it doesn¡¯t require sitting behind a desk all day.¡± With that statement Doctor Wagner put down his book and straightened up a bit. Looks like Sammy was right, when we were investigated Doctor Wagner she thought that after 12 years in Doctors without Borders he would hate being desk bound. ¡°We have a major reforestation effort gearing up that will be operating in some diverse environmental zones. We are in desperate need of someone to organize clinics in the camps as well as a small hospital at the main supply site.¡± Doctor Wagner looked at me with some suspicion after I said that. He was not a fool and though what I said did not make a whole lot of sense. Understandable since I was only telling him half the story without bringing Tawny and portals into it. ¡°There¡¯s more to it¡± I quickly said to ease his suspicion ¡°but I would like to give you a quick demo before going into that. Could you give me an hour or so of your time?¡± He still seemed suspicious but after a moment nodded his head. Looking at my empty hands he said ¡°You got a brochure or something?¡± ¡°Not exactly¡± I said with a grin. Looking around and not seeing anyone looking this way I had Hawk transfer us and the cot he was sitting on to the beach on Ceres. It might have been nicer to ease him into it but I didn¡¯t have much time to spare and getting him to agree to leave camp was highly unlikely. After Hawk transferred us to Ceres Doctor Wagner didn¡¯t move. He just continued to sit on the cot cool as a cucumber. The only thing he did different was to check his pulse as he looked around. I gave him some time to adjust while I waited patiently. When he finished and looked to me I started my pitch. ¡°This is the island of Ceres on a world called Tawny. It¡¯s or rather was a lifeless world we are currently terraforming.¡± I expected him to break in with questions at this point but he just calmly continued to look at me. I was now starting to feel a little worried at his complete lack of what I would have considered a normal response to something extraordinary¡± ¡°This island will host the main supply camp for the effort with a dozen mobile camps to be supplied from it.¡± ¡°A drop in the bucket¡± the doctor mumbled. ¡°We anticipate 5000 or so people working on it this year and double that next year.¡± I then proceeded to give him a description of our ¡°public¡± efforts to terraforming. One thing I did emphasis to him was our focus on creating the initial oasis type habitats which would then hopefully continue to grow on their own. The idea being that nature would eventually complete the terraforming even if it did take a thousand years to do. Once I finished he sat there for a while thinking before asking me questions about the hospital and clinics. I smiled when he did it knowing he was seriously thinking about joining up. It wasn¡¯t until the next day that I also realized that he never once asked about the portals or even how we are moving back and forth from Earth to Tawny. A strange guy but for some reason I liked him and was happy when he agreed to the job. After arranging to meet him in a month in Panama City we returned to the refugee camp and I left. Some people experiencing what he just did might think it was a dream and forget about it but I was sure he¡¯d be waiting in Panama for transport. With one more key person checked off our list I headed over to find Sammy and see how she was doing. I caught up to her as she was instructing our two shop keepers how to handle inventory and people getting merchandise. As I reached them they were just commenting on how our stored looked like a big box store. It actually was since that¡¯s what Hawk copied it from. There were some minor changes after the copying to remove any major identified signs but if they looked closely enough they would probably find out what chain it was from. Both shopkeepers were concerned about how they could handle a store this size by themselves. Sammy was assuring them that since we didn¡¯t intend to charge people for anything. They could close up most of the doors and all the registers and just handle people coming in and out one door. We really just wanted to make sure no one was stockpiling or wasting things. So they would be keeping track of what people picked up and if it seemed excessive they were to tell Sammy about it. There was also no need to tidying the stock on the shelves or keep the store clean just help find things and keep the store locked up as night. Sammy told them another group would be updating the inventory and cleaning up each night. Each morning when they came in it would be back looking the way it was now. This was a lie since we just intended for Hawk to re-copy the store merchandise each night instead.A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. With the new storekeepers settled or at least not so lost Sammy and I decided to head over to the cafeteria for lunch. When we walked into the cafeteria the buffet line was almost empty. There was only a couple of people grabbing food but most of the trays were half empty showing people had been there today. Looking around I could see a dozen or so people sitting at the tables some eating the others just talking. Just then I saw Grandma come out of the kitchen with a new tray of pot roast for the serving line. I was happy to see she had a smile on her face as she replaces the tray on the line. We didn¡¯t have too many people yet but Sammy and I was still concerned about her handling the cafeteria by herself. We had a long list of positions to fill but I think cafeteria personal just got moved up on it. As we got trays and plates I decided to try the pot roast Grandma just put out. It wasn¡¯t bad; I could see why Grandma choose that Las Vegas buffet as source for our cafeteria. As Sammy and I sat at a table talking about our day and enjoying the lunch Grandma came and joined us. ¡°Hey Grandma, how are things on the food side?¡± ¡°Not having to cook the food or wash dishes is nice but bussing these tables is a real pain. I have Hawk restore everything when no one is around but that doesn¡¯t happen too often. ¡± I was surprised by that since the cafeteria had a place to put the dirty dishes and utensils when finished. Looking over at the area I could see the stack of them waiting to be dealt with. With the cafeteria only open for a couple of hours each for breakfast lunch and dinner there should be time for Hawk to re-copy everything including our dishes. ¡°The tables need to be cleaned off in between customers and occasionally somebody spills something. Can¡¯t just leave the mess until closing time.¡± She said. I decided I needed to get her some help ASAP. Grandma hadn¡¯t said anything but this really wasn¡¯t what she wanted to be doing. It would also take more and more effort as we continued to bring people to Ceres. The skills for this were basically just bussing and serving, so it should be easy to find people for that. I just needed a few with a good reason to come here or at least a good reason to get out of whatever situation they are in. Thinking about that I remember a web story about the illegal immigrant situation I recently read about. I decided after lunch I would get with Hawk and see if we could maybe help a few of them. Hawk and I focused on the Coyotes who guided the people trying to cross the border. The coyotes were a criminal class that took advantage of desperate people which most of the illegal immigrants were. Generally I avoid looking into situations where I couldn¡¯t help everyone but this time was a bit different. Watching how desperate and scared they were making the trip I did feel like I was taking advantage of their plight. Some of the most at risk were the young girls attempting it without families. Most of them ended up in a worst situation then what they were running away from. One particular Coyote seemed to specialize in them. I watched through a portal as he took a van with half a dozen of them across the desert. One of the girls seemed to speak some English so I decided to have a conversation the driver made the day before pumped through a portal to where she could overhear it. I¡¯ll also arrange a breakdown of the van and see if any of the girls decided to take advantage of it. If so then I¡¯ll offer them a job. The girls were tired and thirsty; they had been walking for two days now crossing the desert. Maria had overheard the Coyote talking to someone about selling them to a chulo when they got across the border. He didn¡¯t seem to realize that she spoke some English and could hear and understand him talking in his phone. Maria had no one left in Guadalupe so decided to head for the states to find a better life. The Coyote she contacted was supposed to see her safely across the border and set her up with a factory job instead he was planning to turn her and the other girls into putas. Letting the other girls know they waited and when he was trying to fix the van they slipped out the back and ran across the desert. Now they were lost and things were getting desperate. Some of the girls were talking about going back and finding the Coyote and his van. Maria herself would rather die than become a puta. I had setup a cooler full of drinks and snacks with some beach umbrellas and chairs on a quiet area of the Sonoran desert. It was known as one of the most beautiful deserts in the world and I was enjoying it immensely. The Sonoran is known for its many beautiful colors, including green, gold, orange, magenta, purple, and pink. Not something the 5 girls approaching me could appreciate. I watched as one of them finally looked up and saw me with the umbrellas and chairs. I could see them stop as they decided what to do next before they slowly approached me. A few minutes later they were guzzling down bottles of water barely listening as I offered them a job. Maria was the leader of the girls which was a bit of a surprise since she turned out to be the youngest at only 15 years old. The other four where a set of 16 year old twins Rosa and Violet, 17 year old Sofia and 18 year old Elena. None of them had any immediate family although the twins had a cousin in LA they had never met but hoped to stay with. Maria spoke some English which helped but the translator got a good workout as I explained to them the job I was offering. It was obvious they didn¡¯t quite understand and were justifiably suspicious of a strange guy they met in the desert. It helped a little when I pointed to a stack of five backpacks telling them they had food and water in them. I mentioned there was a road just on the other side of the hill behind me. As they talked amount themselves in Spanish I calmly waited. Pressuring desperate young girls into working for us was the last thing they needed. As they wondered what to do next I mentioned there was a bus stop a few miles down the road. Also, that there was enough money in a side pocket of each back pack to get them where they wanted to go in the U.S. ¡°Or¡± I said, ¡°You could come work for us on Tawny. It¡¯s cafeteria work so not the most glamorous but it¡¯s legal and pays well.¡± After a demonstration of a portal (which scared them again) and a partially made up story of a secret government effort to terraform a planet they finally agreed to go through the portal to Tawny and check it out. After Dr. Wagner¡¯s experience I decided moving people directly through was to much of a shock so I went back to just walking through like a doorway. It took a lot of coaching and the girls huddled together but they finally went through. As they settled down a bit I walked them around Ceres a bit talking quietly to them. When they seemed calm I took them to the cafeteria and had Grandma take over. After their recent experiences I thought they would be a lot more comfortable with a ¡°La Abuelita¡± then a strange guy like me. She immediately sat them down at a table and got them something to eat. Within a few minutes she had them smiling and talking happily with her. With that taken care of I decided to get back to my schedule. With Doctor Wagner due to show up soon it was time to get the first mobile camp setup. We needed at least one camp ready for him to review. He would normally be in charge of the amp clinics and the Ceres hospital but with his experience I thought I¡¯d take advantage of it and get his input on the camps themselves. With Hawk¡¯s help we quickly selected a large valley with a few streams and a small lake already forming in it. The hills around the valley should help block the dust and sand that was still common elsewhere on the planet. Getting hawk to duplicate top soil several feet deep around the valley and then seeding it with bacteria laced alluvium waste took care of prepping the ground. For the camp itself I decided on a simple grouping of mobile homes duplicated from a new trailer park build from down in the Florida panhandle. As for the community buildings like the clinic, cafeteria and entertainment center I just used doublewides from a logging camp. Adding a couple of lot yards for the heavy equipment and nursery plants and we were almost ready. Grandma and Sammy had originally thought we could just have people go back and forth nightly to Ceres eliminating the need for camps. The problem was it would make them to dependent on hawk and the portals. One thing I was constantly reminding myself of was that Hawk was not a permanent solution. We did not own portals, they were a function of Hawk¡¯s and he could stop responding at any time. To that point we needed to encourage people to think of portals as special and difficult to operate. The idea was not to start taking them for granted. This was one of the reasons for the transit buildings. Setting up actual physical structures for the portals as well as limiting when they would be available should help to keep them ¡°special¡±. Our transit buildings were modeled after the one on Demeter. They were just large empty structures with archways inside for the portals to appear in. To make them a little more technical looking we also added some special lighting along with destination and countdown signs. Grandma had a lot of fun designing it all, even the archways but left it up to me to create them. The laugh was on her though since I just took her drawings and notes to a special effects shop in California telling them they were props for a movie I needed built. The end result looked more Atlantean then true science fiction but Grandma was happy with the final results. Looking around at everything we decided that as soon as Dr. Wagner arrived (hopefully) we would be ready to bring the first group of workers through. It was time! Chapter 29 - Come One, Come All UN inspector Cabot was getting seriously concerned. This was the third refugee camp he had inspected that had missing refugees. It was his job to keep track of the numbers and report it to the UN review board. With the size of the camps increasing he had been expecting to move up from a G-4 to a G-5 level. Now with the camps shrinking the importance of his job were dropping making his promotion look less and less likely. He had to do something or that corner office and new car wasn¡¯t going to happen this year. Maybe he could just fudge the numbers a bit. It was only a few hundred missing and with some creative reporting he could cover that. He could claim they were out of camp on day jobs working for food. That could work and with some sob stories/comments padding his reports he might even get a bigger commitment of support. The alternative was to blame it on guerilla attacks killing them off. Unfortunately there was no sign of attacks from the local paramilitary group doing it. Their attacks were notorious for burning out the camps after shooting most of the refugees. Without evidence the guerrilla attack would be too easily to disprove. Most of the UN workers didn¡¯t stray from the medical compound and so didn¡¯t check on the refugees. The one or two who did go out to treat them had mentioned hearing talk about someone offering them a job. Probably one of the cartels looking for more workers annoying but not something he could do anything about. * * * * * The Captain was having problems sleeping at night now and even his first mate had commented on his increased drinking. After the first trip to that island he swore never to go back but the money was too good. They offered three times his usual rate to take a load of refugees from a refugee camp in El Salvador to the island. As he looked at them board his ship all he could think of was why anyone would want them. There were 500 half starved men, women and children carrying all they own on their backs to that spooky island. He wondered how many would be returning on this trip with that scared, angry look the previous group had. Looking at one family consisting of a mother with a desperate look on her face and three small children he could only wondered how bad it had to have been wherever they were from to risk her children like this. He lifted his glass of whisky and whispered ¡°Good luck and Heaven Help You¡± to them! As the first group of workers arrived on the island Daniel and Sammy both decided to meet them together. There were a lot of families with children this time so seeing Sammy there might help calm them down. Daniel looked over at the ship to see if they were about to disembark yet. Seeing the Captain on the ship¡¯s bow with a glass in his hands Daniel thought he had better remind him to wait a bit longer this time before taking the ones who refuse to step through back to El Salvador. With such a large group this time the holdouts will probably be more. Alejandra was so tired, it was a constant struggle to scrounging for food while trying to protect her kids from the predators at the camp. She didn¡¯t even have time to properly grieve for her husband. It had been 6 weeks since her husband had died leaving her to flee their bakery in the middle of the night. He had made the mistake of not paying the local gang their protection money after one of their members attacked his sister. In his anger he refused to pay the protection money so they broke in and trashed the store. Carlos tried to stop them which just got him killed and the store torched. It had taken all her cash to convince a fisherman to get her and the kids out of Venezuela. She hadn¡¯t been able to find work in El Salvador and couldn¡¯t provide for the kids. The refugee camp was their last resort but even here there was nothing she could do. She couldn¡¯t protect her kids while working and her only skill was bread making. Not a skill she could use in camp where there wasn¡¯t even an oven. After praying all night she decided to trust the gringo about a safe place with a job and a school for the children. The bus ride from the camp was scary, everyone was wondering if the man lied or if they were going to be taken to a drug farm. They had all heard stories about the cartels and what they did to get workers. Instead the bus arrived at the port with a big ship all ready for them to board. The ship was big with lots of rooms but no place for the kids to sleep. Alejandra heard a crew member mention they had cabins but the trip was only for the day so the Captain had ordered all rooms kept closed. She finally found a quiet place in a corner away from everyone and had the children settle there. Using their bag of clothes as a pillow she managed to get the kids to fall asleep but hunger woke them up a few hours later. She dug through their one bag hoping to find some overlooked bit of food that the kids could eat. Not finding anything she started asking people around her if there was any food available. A few told her the main cabin had sandwiches earlier but they were gone now. Worried she had missed her chance to feed the kids she nervously asked a passing crewman if there was any food left. He didn¡¯t say anything just looked at her and the kids for a few seconds before leaving. A few minutes later he returned with four sandwiches and boxes of juice in his hands. With a quiet ¡°gracias¡± she handed one to each of the kids. Watching the kids happy eating their sandwiches she decided to save hers for them just in case there was no more coming later. Now that the kids had food in their stomachs she was able to get them to go back to sleep. Exhausted she drank a little water to try and stop her hunger pains before curling up beside them and tried to get some sleep herself. A few hours later the ship horn woke her from a beautiful dream she was having of her and Carlos baking bread together surrounded by their children. She looked at her kids still sleeping and gave the Memorare Prayer to the Virgin Mary to please help keep them safe. Getting up she looked out a porthole and saw the small island they were approaching. It was strange, she thought the island didn¡¯t look big enough for a cocoa plantation (her big fear) which was good but it also wasn¡¯t big enough for all the people on the ship to live and work together. There were only a couple of buildings on it. Where was the home the gringo had promised for her family? Sammy and Daniel watched the people exit the ship. There was a lot more of them this time but with the staff already setup on Ceres they should be able to handle them even if everyone decided to stay. Sammy did noticed one woman with three kids take a crumpled up wrapped sandwich out of her pocket, after carefully tear it into three pieces she gave each one to her kids. From the look of it they hadn¡¯t had a decent meal in a long time but the kids quietly took the small piece of sandwich without complaint. Pointing them out to Daniel she wondered about their situation but unlike the first group they had no information on these people only that they were refugees with no place to go. Daniel gave a brief glance at them before turning his attention back to a couple of men off to the side by themselves. What stood out about them was the people around the two men made sure to give them extra room and occasionally a scared look as the passed by. He decided he would need to do a historical back trace on those men to see why everyone was treating them that way. If they were trouble it would be better to deal with sooner rather than later. The refugees started to walk down the gangplank so Daniel and Sammy moved over to where they could direct them to proceed down the dock to the transit building. The translation software was working in the background translating what they said to everyone in Spanish. Listening to the constant translation Daniel whispered in Sammy¡¯s ear that maybe they should take the time to learn Spanish. Sammy nodded her head in agreement but giggled when Daniel took the opportunity to softly blow into her ear. This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. The Captain had promised to provide food for the passengers as part of the ship chartering but Grandma thought it wouldn¡¯t be enough. She had the girls from the cafeteria setup tables of food inside the transit hall along the back wall. As the refugees walked in they immediately headed to the food. As they stood around eating Daniel took the opportunity to open a portal in the archway to Ceres. There was some commotion from the people eating as they saw it happen but most seem to consider it nothing more than a fancy video display and went back to their eating. As the feeding frenzy slowed down I started in on my speech about portals and terraforming another planet. Since all the refugees where from Spanish speaking countries my speech was being transmitted in Spanish. From the lack of response the refugees seem to have an issue understanding my explanation of a portal and another world. Either that or our Spanish translation was doing a lousy job of it. I eventually decided to just skip ahead to the demo and with everyone watching I walk through the portal to Ceres. As I stepped out onto the beach I heard some of the refugees clapping. It looked like they thought it was a magic trick. As I stepped back through to the transit room again there was even more clapping and a couple of cheers. Looking over at Sammy I shrugged my shoulders while she grinned at me. It looked like they had all finished eating so I decided to just go ahead and try getting them to go through. Asking the people closes to the portal to follow Sammy I waved to her as she walked through to Ceres. To help encourage them I told them Sammy would take them to get their work locations and have housing assigned. Surprisingly enough that did get a few people to follow her to Ceres. The very first group through was that single mom and three kids I saw out on the pier. I was pretty sure she had stuffed her pockets and bag with food from the tables before taking her kids though. There was a delay after the first few people went through. It looked like a lot of them were having second thoughts after realizing what the portal was. I decided to try offering some more verbal encouragement to them. ¡°People, if you decide you don¡¯t want the job then please head back to the ship. The Captain will make sure you get back to the refugee camp. Everyone else hurry on through we have a lot to do to get you settled into your homes and jobs assigned before dinner time.¡± With that statement I nodded to the cafeteria girls and they started pushing serving carts with all the leftover food past the people and through the portal. It was a bit subtle and probably not a nice thing to do to half starved refugees but it worked. Seeing the food disappear on them most of the people followed the food through the portal. There were still a hundred or so remaining behind but I was happy with the ones who did go. I waved goodbye to the ones left behind telling them to hurry to the boat and wishing them good luck and then I went through the portal right before it closed. Now that we had staff available there was several tables setup for the refugees to line up in front of. The staff members manning the tables spoke Spanish so translations were not needed as they processed each person. The refugees were understandably nervous and scared so the questions were kept simple. Basically just asking for names, who they were with, if they needed medical attention and what type of jobs they had done in the past. Anyone who had done agriculture related jobs were directed to staff waiting to take them to stay in trailers at the mobile camp. All others were directed by staff at the apartment complex. I was sure we would have a lot of moving back and forth as people settled in but for now this would do. I did make sure that the mother with the three kids went to the apartment complex. We could use a baker and having one would be a start to weaning the food prep staff off of having Hawk duplicate all the food from outside sources. For the two suspicious men I made sure they ended up at the mobile camp for now. Later I would check them out but for now I wanted them away from our main facility. Dr. Wagner had taken the ones that indicated they needed medical attention to the clinic. I was a bit surprised and also disappointed seeing all the children who needed it. The one thing the refugee camp seems to have in abundance was UN medical staff. So why did a dozen people, mostly children need medical attention? I decided to talk to the doctor after everyone got settles about it. We couldn¡¯t fix all the problems of the world but if someone at the UN side was screwing up I could do something about that. We now had a booklet with basic information for the employees. Sammy had written it and it contained maps, facilities, hours they were open, the rules and most importantly what we were trying to accomplish here. As each group was checked in they received a copy along with their first week¡¯s schedule. We actually weren¡¯t planning on having them work the first week but it was important to get them settled and doing something. Because of that I had videos by a British broadcaster showing the evolution of life on earth scheduled to be shown as well as some training classes. The first shipment of plants and seeds were also due in next week by cargo ship from our Panama Company. We could have just had Hawk portal the shipment directly to the island but we still planned on misdirecting as much attention as possible. If the different government organizations hadn¡¯t gotten wind of us by now it was only a matter of time before they did. Interfering with those shipments would be their second and most obvious target. I was counting on the fact that initially they should all be more interested in investigating what we were doing and how the portal worked. Keeping supplies coming through by boat would initially help with their investigation so they likely wouldn¡¯t mess with it. Juan Pablo was quietly talking to his partner Miguel about their future plans now that they were out of the refugee camp. Miguel wasn¡¯t the smartest gang member but he followed orders and Juan needed that if he was to become a Jefa (boss). At his request they had been assigned a mobile home at the camp for themselves. Looking around at the clean two bedroom home Juan thought it was the best place he had every lived in and a good start for his empire. Both had been members of the Los Rastrojos gang in Bogot¨¢ until they backed the wrong person in a takeover attempt. They barely managed to get to a port where they hijacked a fishing trawler to San Salvador. Unfortunately their skills in drug dealing and protection didn¡¯t mean much without a gang to back them up. After a run in with a local gang they decided to hide out in a refugee camp. They tried to setup a protection racket at the refugee camp but no one had any money and almost no food. The best they could do was robbing what little the refugees still along with a couple of assaults on the better looking women. The job offer from that rich gringo seemed a perfect chance to get somewhere with more opportunity. Now he just had to figure out how to take advantage of this situation. As far as he could tell everyone here was she just waiting for plucking. Daniel using a temporal portal had seen enough of the two men¡¯s history. The question now was what to do with them. If he sent them back to San Salvador they would just go back to robbery, rape and drug dealing. Not something he wanted on his conscious but killing them was also out for him. Normally he would arrange proof of a crime and go to prison but that wouldn¡¯t work even if I provided video evidence. The legal system in Columbia was notoriously corrupt and it was doubtful if any of their victims would trust it. After fiving it some though he decided to just send them back to their old gang. Juan fell asleep in his new bed dreaming about becoming a big crime boss. In the dream he was surrounded by drugs and putas giving orders to his old gang members. The dream was interrupted as he woke up with a sharp pain in his side as someone kicked him. Looking around still foggy from sleep he didn¡¯t understand how he had gotten back at the Los Rastrojos gang house. What was worst was the gang leader he had sided against was now looking down at him. I had Hawk shut down the portal when the gang leader pulled out his gun. I did feel a little guilty about it but I did let the Columbian police know about the gang and that two ex-members about to be executed would be happy to confess everything if they could get to them in time. I did mention where the drugs and money were if they got there in time so that ¡°might¡± encourage the police to do their job. Either way I didn¡¯t want to see the results. I figured I would sleep better is I just assume the police got there in time. Chapter 30 - Getting the Ball Rolling Agent Barker was fed up with this latest assignment. Five years in the CIA working in the Directorate of Operations and this was what they had him doing. He was wasting his time checking out some no name cult operating on an island in the Caribbean. They were supposed to be collecting foreign intelligence and occasionally conducting covert action, not this waste of time. All the research he had done showed the cult didn¡¯t even target Americans just refugees. Looking at the satellite photos again he grimaced, the island was only big enough for a couple of buildings. Who knows where all the refugees were going, probably cartel poppy farms. Not his problem though, the cartels were DEA¡¯s headache. A week after Agent barker turned in his report on the no name cult he was called into the director¡¯s office. As Agent Barker verbally went over his report the director kept tapping the edge of his copy against his desk top with an unhappy look on his face. The director got more and more upset as Agent Barker presented his evidence that it was a simple cult and probably supplying the cartels with workers. The director finally got so angry he pulled out the satellite photos of the cargo ships unloading at the island dock and tossed it in front of Agent Barker. ¡°How often is cargo unloaded¡± the director asked. ¡°Once a week¡± was Agent Barker¡¯s response. And how often is cargo loaded onto the ships there¡± the director asked voice rising. Agent Barker finally realized where he had screwed up. Tons of supplies and people were going to that small island but nothing was leaving it. * * * * * Planting was proceeding as expected. The biggest problem the supervisors had was convincing the workers to plant the trees and bushes randomly. For some reason they kept wanting to plant them in rows. In the end it probably didn¡¯t matter but Daniel wanted the final result to look natural. He had already started preparing the second and third habitat camp locations. One was on what might one day be a central prairie. He could already visualize the buffalo that would roam it while the other was near the equator and should be suitable for a jungle type habitat. Both had suitable top soil created and seeded with bacteria. I still needed to setup the buildings and homes in the camps for the workers but this time there would be some changes from what was done at the first camp. The mobile homes used did not seem to be holding up well and the workers had also complained about lack of leisure activity. I decided modeling the mobile camp after a senior citizen mobile home park in Florida was a bad idea. Instead I decided to use a logging camp design from the with cabins and additional entertainment facilities. The camp would still be considered mobile, I would just use Hawk to portal the cabins to their next location when it was time to move. With the additional two camps we now needed more workers and a lot more seeds, trees and shrubs. Using refugees as employees seem to be working out pretty well so far. None had asked to leave yet. I knew that wouldn¡¯t last but we decided to enjoy it while it did. Grandma suggested I talk to Doctor Wagner about getting more refugee workers which I thought was a good idea. Sammy decided to come with me for the discussion. We headed over to the small clinic to look for him since that is where he seems to spend most of the day at. When we found him I could see he was still using crutches to get around. It didn¡¯t seem to slow him down any since he was vaccinating a young boy while telling a nurse how to wrap a leg injury on another person all this while eating a sandwich he held in one hand. After telling him we planned to bring in a thousand more workers he paused what he was doing for a second then told us we needed to talk. At that point I could tell Sammy was worried, she must have thought we were about to lose our doctor. We agreed to meet in the conference room in an hour and Sammy and I left him to his patients. I tried to calm Sammy down by telling her it was obvious that Doctor Wagner was enjoying himself here. He probably just wanted to talk to us about things he needed for the clinics. Sammy was still worried about him leaving so decided to go ask Grandma to join the meeting. Thinking about the doctor eating a sandwich while he worked I decided to arrange some food for the meeting. Wanting something a little different I remembered a potato bar that I once saw on a food show. Getting Hawk to find and duplicate it along with a coffee and tea service I decided it was ready just before the others showed up. Grandma and Sammy were puzzled when they first saw the potato bar with all the toppings but after a minute Sammy¡¯s face lit up and she turned to me with a grin. I knew how much she liked baked potatoes and now she could try them with all kinds of fancy toppings. When Doctor Wagner came in Sammy was already in the middle of loading her potato up with chili, cheese and onions. He immediately got one himself and piled it twice as high with the same toppings. Grandma stuck with a more traditional sour cream and chives while I went for the sweet potato with brown sugar and pecans on it. A little sweet for me but I expected Sammy would take it over and finish off my desert type potato before I even got half way through it. With us all dished up and sitting at the table Dr. Wagner immediately started talking about the additional staff he needed for that many more workers. We had no problem hiring more medical staff but finding them was an issue. After some more discussion Dr. Wagner promised to contact people he knew to find any willing to work on a long term remote job. We decided to wait till they agreed to that much before springing the whole ¡°another world¡± job requirement on them. Getting a thousand more habitat workers was another matter. Dr. Wagner was telling us that our getting 500 out of that first refugee camp before anyone said anything had more do with how badly the camp was run then to it actually being allowed by management at a normal camp. To get the thousand new employees we would need to approach recruitment a different way. Dr. Wagner didn¡¯t have any suggestions for how to do it but did mention that a couple of camps in Mexico were being shut down with the non-Mexicans being sent back to their original countries. The same countries they had been so desperate to leave and come to Mexico. The other bit of information he had was those camps in Mexico were not recognized by the UN for political reasons so were not monitored by them. Thinking about it we all agreed that a lot of those people should be anxious for an alternative to them going back to their home countries. All we had to do was get the invite to them and for any that accept transportation to Demeter. Dr. Wagner was sure a bribe to the right people would get us both of those. One thing the doctor did say that surprised us a bit was that the camps in Mexico were heavily tilted toward women and children. The reason seemed a bit odd in that men had an easier time slipping across the US border for work. Their families are left behind to wait for money to be sent back to pay for a coyote to get them across and join up with their husband or father. What¡¯s sad is many didn¡¯t hear back from them and ended up waiting for years. Sammy and Grandma were happy hearing about the large percentage of women and kids. Sammy immediately started to plan more school space and Grandma decided to help the new single moms by setting up cooperative child care. Anna Melendez as assistant director of the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) had a lot to lose if this exportation of refugees went public. The gringo did promise the jobs really existed and the workers would be free to leave at any time but that was all. With so little information about it she was having second thoughts. She never should have agreed to arrange the hiring even if the money he offered was so good. At 100 dollars a worker just for getting them to sign up for the job and shipped to the port the money was substantial. Using her status in the USCRI and with the news of the camp being shut down soon she had managed to convince over 1100 of the refugees to take the offer. Most were families with kids but for them even if it turned out to be indentured labor it would still better then what they would face if sent back to their countries. Some might change their mind before boarding the busses but even so she was looking at over 100k in cash. It was almost two year¡¯s income for her from her civil servant job. That was assuming she didn¡¯t lose her job if her boss found out about this. Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. The assistant director kept pacing back and forth in front of the camp waiting for the busses to arrive. The bus company had promised they would be here first thing in the morning but it was already 10am and her boss was due here for an inspection sometime this afternoon. Finally she could see a line of busses coming up the dirt road to the camp. Waving to the guards she had them open the gate and let the busses through. Most of the refugees didn¡¯t have anything so with a little crowding they should all fit on the 20 buses. As the first bus stopped in front of her she had the camp crew start getting the people to board. There was a lot of chaos getting them all on the busses. Looking at her watch she could see they were already running late and the Director would be here shortly. One or two busses she could probably explain but not 20 of them. As each bus filled she quickly them out of the camp and heading toward the port. As the last bus was finished loading she saw the Director¡¯s car approaching to camp. She hurriedly had the driver take off while she headed to the camp office to meet with him. The meeting with the Director went well in the beginning as they discussed the procedure for the camp shut down. As she finally relaxed thinking she had got away with the refugee exporting the director finally asked about the bus he saw loading as he approached. Thinking fast she decided on a partial truth. ¡®Sir, I contacted several local supporters about the camp closing and they offered to help get some of them jobs and a place to stay.¡± An alarmed look appeared on the Directors face as he heard this. ¡°You didn¡¯t tell anyone we were shutting down did you?¡± he asked. ¡°No Sir¡± she responded ¡°The rumor mill has been talking about it even before I was officially told¡± ¡°Oh¡± said the Director ¡°Not our fault then, we don¡¯t control the rumor mill around here then. What about those supporters? Are they trustworthy? We can¡¯t have any rumors of sending a bus load of refugees to slave camps or brothels getting out now¡±. ¡°No Sir¡± she said thinking it was a good thing he didn¡¯t see all 20 buses being loaded. ¡°I checked and it a reputable company doing some kind of reforestation effort¡±. ¡°Another group of eco-charities¡± he said nodding his head ¡°I guess that¡¯s fine. If any good press comes out from them we could send out a press release taking credit for supplying the workers¡± ¡°Yes sir I said as we went back to planning the shutdown. As the 20 buses approached the dock the Captain was out on deck watching this new group disembark. This group was larger and looked different then the first group. The first group was more serious and looked like they were heading off to do something. This new group looked like they were running away from something bad. None of them looked happy and almost no one had any baggage. There were also a lot of women and children in the group. Looking at the condition of them the Captain decided that this one time he would open the cabins and let the families get some privacy and rest on the voyage. Looking again at the hungry children the captain decided that he would also open the ship¡¯s food stores and give them proper hot meals instead of sandwiches. With a little luck maybe he could get the client to cover the additional cost. When the ship reached Demeter an announcement was made on the ship¡¯s PA to start disembarking. Some of the refugees didn¡¯t seem to want to leave. The cabins and food was the best they had had in years. There were even individual showers in the cabins that some had taken advantage of. Even for those who didn¡¯t most had used the bathrooms to rinse out their clothes. The water shortage at the camp had made doing laundry almost impossible With the passengers so reluctant to leave the Captain finally had the crew go cabin to cabin to get them off the ship. Daniel and Sammy decided to try something a little different this time. As the large group started funneling in to the transit building Daniel directed them to the back of the room and through what looked like an open wall to the beach. Most of the groups passing through the portal didn¡¯t realize it and thought they had just exited the back of the building. After a minute or two they noticed that the transit building was not behind them just an image of the inside of it floating in the air. Some reached out to touch what they thought was an image while a few tried to get back through the portal. The crowd that kept coming through from the other side blocked them. The voices of the crowd started to get louder as people got in each other¡¯s way. Daniel kept shouted for them all to step down the beach so the rest could get through. He also tried to calm them down a bit by mentioning that after everyone came through there would be a quick tour and assignment of rooms. If anyone didn¡¯t want to work their contracts the ship would be happy to take them back to Mexico and then on to wherever the refugees would be ending up at. This finally quieted most of the crowd and let the rest come through. Once everyone was almost through Daniel started to separate the people into smaller groups of 50. He ignored their excited and sometimes angry questions just telling them to ask the guides during the tour. As each group was assigned a guide from the current employees on the island he sent them out to tour the island. A few refused to go anywhere but not enough to block the rest from joining a group. When the last few came through the portal Sammy followed them and walked up to Daniel. With a quick but sweet kiss on the lips Sammy told him that about 90 people had refused to step through once they realized it wasn¡¯t just a back exit from the building. Daniel suggested they just leave the ones on both sides where they where for now but leave the portal open. Some might change their mind and step through otherwise after the tour finished anyone deciding to leave could join up together and head back for the ship. Sammy shook her head in agreement and hand in hand they walked to the apartment buildings setup to serve as temporary housing. Most of these new workers will eventually be living in mobile homes at the camps but for now the apartments would be used. The staff had tables setup outside the two apartment buildings they would be using for the new employees. Sammy talked with the staff to make sure they knew to give the larger apartments to the families with kids. Grandma showed up then to talk about the situation of the new employees. ¡°You know most of them don¡¯t even have a change of clothes.¡± Daniel asked ¡°Can¡¯t they pick that up from the store like the previous group¡± ¡°We had an issue with the previous group and it might be worse this time. Most were too timid and uncertain to take advantage of the store access. We might have to hold them by the hand to convince them to get the stuff they need¡± Sammy suggested ¡°Why don¡¯t we get the guides doing the tours take small groups over to the store and encourage them to get some clothes and food today.¡± Grandma jumped in and said ¡°And a few toys for the kids would be good too.¡± Daniel looking at the sun to estimate how much time they had. With the different day lengths trying to use a watch to tell time on Tawny was a work in futility. At some point he would need to get custom time pieces made that matched the day cycle. Looking at Sammy he said ¡°We can do that but only after we get the ones leaving starting back to Demeter and on the ship heading back. The Captain is the nervous sort and I don¡¯t want to chance him leaving early.¡± A couple of the groups showed up then and the staff got busy dealing with them. One of the guides commented to Sammy and Daniel that a couple of people had run off shortly after the group left the portal area. Daniel was not surprised given the shock it must have been to them but now he needed to find them and see if they needed to be returned to Earth or not. Giving Sammy a kiss Daniel left to track down the missing people. With Hawk¡¯s help tracking down the people who had run away was easy. Approaching them to try to talk with them proved difficult. When they saw him approached they either ran away or just started trembling in terror. I guess sending them through the portal without explanation first was too much I thought. Finally I gave up and had Hawk transfer them to an empty cabin on the ship. I decided to let the Captain deal with it. He was getting paid a lot of money now, more than twice the normal charter fee to get him to make the trip now. For that he deserved a bit of headache. With the returnees back on the ship I let the Captain know he could leave. Assistant director Melendez of USCRI was expecting them and a couple of busses would shuttle them back to the camp. Where they ended up when the camp shuts down next week I didn¡¯t know but I hope things worked out for them. With that taken care of I headed back to see if Sammy and Grandma had finished up for the day. Tomorrow was going to be busy and none of us were getting much sleep this week. Chapter 31 - The Greener the Better Agent Barker was tired of this hot attic room where he had spent the last month. After that mess with the cult and its cargo the Director had taken his anger out by assigning him surveillance duty. Here he was stuck in a stuffy room observing the island¡¯s shipping. For weeks now he would watch out the window as the cargo ship loaded containers coming from a Panamanian company called ¡°Hawk Habitats¡±. He knew he would have lost 20 pounds from the heat if it wasn¡¯t for all the junk food and beer he had while sitting here. Looking down at the shipping invoices he had bribed one of the port workers for they all showed the same thing. The contents were plants and seeds which were ridiculous to even think someone would bother shipping quantities like that to an island. What was even more suspicious to his mind were most of the plants listed in the invoices wouldn¡¯t even grow on a tropical island. He looked them up and the plants were native to humid continental and semiarid climates not the Tropical wet climate of the Caribbean. Agent Barker had sent multiple messages to the agency¡¯s Central America office requesting a physical search be made of the containers and Hawk Habitats but so far there was no response. It seems the president¡¯s attempt to take back the canal was causing a major diplomatic issue here in Panama and all clandestine activity was on hold. Sweating in the heat he deciding enough was enough. The only way he was going to get out of this hell hole was to take action himself. Agent Barker wasn¡¯t a field agent but how hard could it be if those muscle bound field agents could do it so could he. Packing up his surveillance equipment he left the trash filled room that had all his food containers and beer cans lying around to go prepare. Thinking about what he would need as he walked out he wondering if they sold black ski mask here in Panama. That night an overweight man wearing all back clothes and black paint smeared on his face was caught by port authorities outside of a broken open shipping container. The man was holding bolt cutters still with their price tag on while sobbing. Looking in the container all the officers saw was racks of potted plants. * * * * * Things were going well with the terraforming for the Habitats. To good actually which is a sign things were not going to be going well shortly. An Email arrived from Emiliano Garcia our front man CEO of Hawk Habitats saying he was having some issues and wanted a meeting. I decided to play it safe and took a few precautions setting up the meeting. A small restaurant near his office had a private room available to rent. After arranging it I had Hawk copy the room on Tawny. After emailing Emiliano back with a time and the place I then carefully watched the room through a portal to see if anyone took an interest in it. Emiliano arrived on time for the meeting and was directed back to the room by the hostess. I had Hawk transfer him to the copy of the room on Tawny as he walked through the door. He didn¡¯t even pause not realizing he was now on another planet. If he was bugged or being followed it wouldn¡¯t do them any good now. We were well outside the range of any type of tracking that could be done. Emiliano was smiling when he saw me so I assume whatever the issue was it wasn¡¯t too serious. He helped himself to a coffee and pastry before sitting down to talk about the issue he was having. ¡°I¡¯ve been approached by some scary people about your shipments.¡± He began. ¡°Have they threatened you?¡± I asked with concern. ¡°No, not yet but they are asking what I¡¯m shipping and didn¡¯t believe me when I told them plants and seed. The captain of the cargo ship we hired also said unfriendly people have been asking him questions too¡± I was getting a bit worried about the interest our shipments were now getting. It was too early in our plans for that level of interest to be showing up. I decided we would need to accelerate the schedule to deal with it. ¡°Stop the shipments from here and switch them to go through the Puerto Cortes port in Honduras and Acajutla one in El Salvador. Also charter a couple of different cargo ships for those ports as well. You should probably get an agent in each of those ports as well to oversee the shipments. If and when those men come back just tell them the client has stopped shipments. We¡¯ll see how long it takes whoever they work for to find out about the new shipping points.¡± ¡°We don¡¯t need to hire anyone, I can go and handle the shipments there¡± he said with a worried look on his face. I realized my comment about hiring agents had him worried he was being replaced. I quickly reassured him we would still be head quartered in Panama. What I wanted him to do was expand the business. To start arranging supply shipments to the Brazilian Ministry of Environment and any other reforestation groups in Central and South America. With the money I would be funneling to the company he should be able to arrange quite a few donation shipments. I did remind him to use multiple ports and ships to do it. After thinking about what I said Emiliano grinned and said ¡°Needle in a haystack?¡± I grinned back and said ¡°Yes, so make the haystack as big as you can¡±. After that we talked about a few other matters of common interest like the US president¡¯s attempts on the canal as well as the refugee issue we finished up. After that Emiliano said his goodbyes and headed out of the room. As he passed through the doorway I had Hawk transfer him back to the caf¨¦ in Panama. One of the servers was shocked seeing him come out. She had gone in to check on us a few minutes earlier and found the room empty. She thought we had already left and was getting ready to go back and clean it up. After a moment of thought she convinced herself he must have been in the restroom when she went back to check. Somehow she must have missed his leaving and returning. Later that night she suddenly remembered there was actually two people in that room, where did the other one go? When I got back to Tawny I met up with Sammy and Grandma to talk about the issue with our shipments. I mentioned we would need to keep a closer eye on the shipments going forward now that there was outsiders¡¯ interest in them. Sammy agreed but from the look on her face I knew she was dreading taking more time off from school. The on boarding of all the workers had put her behind in her studies and with finals coming up she was feeling the stress. I also knew how busy Grandma was as well. Sammy and I were both worried she was taking too much on herself. After some thought I suggested we see if Hawk could do it. At this point none of us was sure of what he could do on his own but we kept getting surprised by what we did see. Sammy was a bit doubtful of the idea but she hadn¡¯t spent as much time with Hawk as I did. Grandma was all for it but she had always considered Hawk a person. I had even caught her telling him gossip about some of the people she knew. We all knew we didn¡¯t have much of a choice so I said I would explain to hawk what we needed monitored and we would see how it went. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. With the habitats on schedule in their expansion we decided it was now time to start project ¡°Seed Spreader¡±. Grandma¡¯s suggested name for our plan to use grain for widespread germination and growth. The habitats were intended to get suitable vegetation setup for the different environmental zones. Later those zones would host animals suited for that environment. The problem was the size of the planet and how long it would take for the habitats to grow to cover it. None of us had the centuries to spend waiting for that. Our plan was to take advantage of Earth¡¯s mass production of grain to provide forage across the majority of the land. Later as the habitats grew they would displace the grain fields for their own plant species. Using grain for initial vegetation was simply because of the massive, wide spread availability of the seeds. Grabbing grains like corn, barley and wheat before they are ground into flour while also replacing them with our inert copied version would give us enormous quantities of viable seeds. The nice thing about our copied grain was even though it wouldn¡¯t sprout it still tastes the same after milling. The big issue before we started to spread the seed grain around the planet was to get the inert soil ready with the required nitrogen fixing bacteria. There were numerous sources on Earth we could use for live soil bacteria but most were fairly limited in how much we could take before it would be noticed. The bacteria multiplied fast so even if we did nothing the bacteria from the habitats would eventually spread across the planet. However, nowhere near fast enough for our plans. Thinking about how the bacteria propagate and spread out through the soil I decided to try and approach it like we were plugging a lawn. The gardener at my uncle¡¯s estate often did that when he had a large bare area of lawn. He would take small plug from a good section of yard that included the soil, roots, and turf and plant them in the bare spots. For larger areas he would make a grid of the plugs leaving a foot or two in between. When I asked him why not just re-sod he said it was cheaper which my uncle liked and the plugs would quickly take over the bare spots. The idea sounded like it could work to me and Grandma who was raised on a farm thought it would work as well. The next day many alluvia deposits and some agricultural waste water treatment centers had a small but constant amount of their material be transported to Tawny. Thousands of small portals started appeared over Tawny¡¯s recreated topsoil. They deposited the bacterial loaded material in a grid pattern on the ground. Within days the soil was no longer inert as the nitrogen cycle started. Week¡¯s later new portals open several feet above the areas spreading seeds. The seeds were primarily grain but with some other seeds from wild bird feed switched out from wholesale pet suppliers. Months later the area was covered in spotted green and brown plants and flowers all growing wildly. The coverage wasn¡¯t a 100% in the areas seeded but the bare spots were slowly shrinking. The planet still had a long way to go but progress was being made. Grandma caught up to me as I was heading to the monitor room to check on our cargo ship that was arriving tomorrow. Lately we were seeing more and more interest in what was being sent to the island. So far it was manly just a few break-ins and some ransacking of the cargo. There was never anything for the different groups to find but they weren¡¯t losing interest yet. Because of that I made it a point to quick check the cargo¡¯s history to make sure nothing had been done to it. ¡°Daniel we have an issue with one of my cafeteria girls¡± She said with a concerned look. Grandma had basically adopted the first set of employees we brought over to help her so I knew which group she meant. It was the girls in the van that the coyote was sneaking over the border with. The girl Maria had overheard his plans to sell them into prostitution so she escaped with the others into the desert. ¡°What¡¯s the problem?¡± I asked. ¡°One of the employees from the Mexico refugee camp that came across a couple of months ago was talking to her and mentioned seeing someone there that she thinks is her cousin. She thought her whole family was dead and now that she thinks her cousin is still alive she wants to go back and look for her.¡± ¡°Who is it, Maria?¡± ¡°Yes, she¡¯s insistent on going even knowing how dangerous it is. She also knows the odds of actually finding her cousin.¡± Grandma said with a worried look. Thinking about it I decided that even if finding her cousin alive was pretty slim I could with Hawk¡¯s help could at least check. If she was alive I could check on her situation and let Maria know. ¡°Why don¡¯t we tell Maria privately we will get a detective to check on her cousin. Then have her give you the last time and place she saw her. Hawk can track her forward from there to see what ended up happened to her.¡± Grandma got a happy look on her face when I told her that but the next thing I said stopped it. ¡°You do know it¡¯s more than likely going to be bad news right?¡± With a sad node Grandma turned and walked to the cafeteria to find Maria. I wasn¡¯t feeling to good about it myself but even if it¡¯s bad news it was better to know that than to always be wondering. I headed over to the monitoring room trying to think of a way to get those groups that were messing with our shipments to stop. There were three groups spying on our shipments; the CIA, one of the drug Cartels and a local Panamanian based gang that ran a protection racket that focused on businesses working out of the local port. I was originally thinking of convincing the two criminal groups that it was a CIA undercover operation. That should convince both of them to stop poking their noses into our business but what to do about the CIA itself? Then after thinking about it some more I realized that I could use the CIA undercover story on the CIA too. They were so heavily compartmentalized that not even the Director himself knew every operation they were involved in. Also the Agency had a long history of engaging in the drug and arms trade. Not so much now but going all the way back to the Vietnam War. Nowadays they were very careful to maintain a plausible deniability for any illegal operations like that. I just needed to make our shipments look like one of those operations and then shine the right amount of publicity on it. For that all I needed was to find the right wildcard at the Agency. William Hunt was a rather infamous field agent for the CIA. He had an illustrious career until forced to retired from the agency in 2008. His involvement in the Nicaraguan Contras'' cocaine trafficking operations during the 1980s Nicaraguan civil war became public then. His key involvement in how the Agency financed the Contra group revolutionaries with the drug trade made him a liability. They put him out to pastor and removed his involvement from all the Agency¡¯s more accessible records. He died last year at the ripe old age of 93 without any family left behind. After his death a Cayman island back account with over 20 million and his name on it came to light. The Department of the Treasury got involved and after some investigating tracked a history of payments and withdrawals going all the way back to the 1980s. Some of the transfers could be traced to known Contra groups from back then but the most recent was couple were from the Hawk Habitat company in Panama. An official call to that company requesting a reason for the payments got the response that they should contact the CIA. The Treasury Department had a long history of working with the CIA so a general request was put in to them about the account and the deceased agent. Analysis for the Agency working the request quickly found an old operations file that was never been closed indicating the agency was provided smuggling assistance for criminal groups there wanting to get their cargo though the canal. In return for money and information the assistance was provided. Agent Hunt was listed as the agent in charge with a link back to the original 1980¡¯s Contra operation. With the Treasury Department now getting more and more curious about the operation Director Ratbourn decided to just bury the whole thing. The Agency was ordered to stop all operations with the different groups involved and to scrub Agent Hunts file on it. A simple thing to do with Agent Hunt deceased and the only other agent tied to the group Agent Barker being suspended. Of course a couple of stories about the operation did make it to the ears of the groups spying on our shipments. They both decided to give Hawk Habitats a wide berth just in case. Chapter 32 - Do We Need Mosquitoes? Secretary Grahame was relaxing in his office enjoying the afternoon view of the Potomac. He glanced at his office name plate and the word ¡°Deputy Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property¡± under his name and smiled. It had taken him 22 years of but kissing to get here but it was worth it. Just then his assistant called and said the IT manager wanted to speak with him. He decided to ignore it and told his assistant to push him of till next week. Hopefully by then he would give up and quit bothering him. Those geeks never had anything important to say and who could understand their techno babble any way he thought. An hour later he was thinking about going home early when his assistant rushed in telling him the director had called an emergency meeting in five minutes in her office. The Director was in a foul mood as she slammed the report down on the conference table in front of everyone. With a hiss in her voice she declared ¡°The vault had been breached!¡± Under Secretary Grahame was surprised at how worried the Director seemed. In his previous position he was responsible for the vault. The vault was just the name for a collection of patents that were not to be made open to the public. It was usually because some corporation had paid for them to stay hidden. As he looked at the material in the folder Grahame finally understood the concern. It was a printout from an online blog detailing the patent for a capacitor array type battery invented 20 years ago. Grahame remembered that one, it was the first patent he ever flagged for the vault and the bribe was what paid for his first house. From what he remembered the device had 8 times the capacity of a standard batter and only half the weight. What also stuck in his mind was the look on that Oil executive¡¯s face when he accidently joked about the patent getting out. From the date on the patent it was now expired and in the public domain, no hiding it now. * * * * * The Habitats were expanding on schedule but Daniel was getting reports that pollination was an issue at most of them. He had made sure bees where brought in but it didn¡¯t look like it was working well. Daniel was now starting to realize those middle school lectures on the birds and the bees was not giving the whole story. After checking the internet he found out the shocking fact that although bees get the credit over 1,500 insect species pollinate plants. Even if he stuck to the main ones that would include butterflies, moths, flies, wasps, and beetles as well. Daniel knew he couldn¡¯t handle this himself, what he needed an expert to deal with this problem. Now all he had to do was to find and recruit someone. Professor Gonzales was in her lab checking on her classes fruit fly experiments. The lab was a pretty well known one involving breeding flies to study inheritance patterns. Students for the last 70 years have been doing it to learn about traits, genes and chromosomes. She even did it herself when she was an undergraduate. After grading student labs for it over so many years it had gotten to the point that she was seeing fruit flies in her sleep. Rubbing her eyes she thought back to when she still had a passion for this sort of thing. When she first got into entomology she thought she would be out in the field doing research not stuck in a classroom doing the same thing every term. For the last 10 years it was the same material rehashed every term for the students while her own research and study had dried up just like her marriage. Now her ex had been made assistant dean and he was making her job more miserable then it already was. He had her doing every crap assignment in the department on top of her teaching and she just knew he was the one who blocked her tenure. Thinking about spending the rest of her life working like this she finally decided it was enough. There had to be a better job out there for someone who wanted to be in the field and had a passion for bugs, she just had to find it. Surprisingly enough there was a position like that it seemed. The job board she was looking at had a job for a bug lover. It was actually a listing for an entomologist to supervise insect population growth for a reforestation project. She didn¡¯t understand why they would need to do that but the work sounded like heaven to her. She immediately sent her resume off to the email address with hope in her heart. It was a nervous three days until she heard back from the Hawk¡¯s Habitat people that they wanted to interview her. She was surprised at the application process. After a short phone interview they sent her airline tickets to come to Panama for an in-person interview. Taking a few days off from school should have been straight forward but her ex intervened. He wasn¡¯t happy she wouldn¡¯t be around to arrange the faculty monthly luncheon. She had to make a call to HR referencing her ¡°never taking a sick day in the last five years¡± record to get him to back off. He did insist on having the last word by telling her she would be doing them the rest of the year when she got back. Seeing the rainforest outside her window as the plane turned to approach Panama City filled her with excitement. Central America was full of exotic insects that she had never seen outside of a textbook. She wondered if she might have enough time to visit the rain forest after her interview. Last year she had arranged a research grant to study the endangered Fluminense Swallowtail butterfly in Brazil but the final paperwork disappeared. She knew her ex must have done it but there was no evidence just a fake apology from his office with the explanation it got shredded by mistake. She was expecting the interview to be in an office but surprisingly it was at the hotel they put her up in. When she had checked in to the hotel there was a message to meet a Dan Falke and Emiliano Garcia in the hotel restaurant at 7 pm. Looking at her watch it was 4:00, she decided sadly that there wasn¡¯t enough time to make it to the local rainforest and back. She was tired and suffering from jetlag but opportunities like this didn¡¯t come along often. She decided to head to a local park and see what kind of tropical insects she might find there. If she rushed she could probably get at least 3 hours to field search. Dropping her suitcase off in her room she grabbed her research kit and headed out of the hotel. Daniel was watching her activity with amusement as she crawled around the bushes at the Parque Nacional Soberan¨ªa park. Some of the locals were a little alarmed but after watching her a bit they attributed her to being a crazy Americano and left her alone. Daniel decided to help her search out a little and had Hawk transfer a large Hercules Beetle where she could find it. Hopefully she won¡¯t try to take it back on the plane with her. He wasn¡¯t sure what the rules were on importing bugs to the states but a bug that size would definitely scare all the other passengers. Daniel had already decided to hire her after seeing her enthusiasm searching at the park but to maintain appearances he had Emiliano conduct a proper interview. Daniel had originally planned on not telling her about the portals or Tawny until she actually was about to stepped through but that sounded unfair to her. Normally when a potential employee backed out on Demeter he would pay for their return home by boat. In this case she would be giving up her teaching position to accept the job. The only right thing to do was to tell her all about the portal and habitats before she quit her school. If she decided to back out after that and told then hopefully no one would believe her story enough for it to matter. With that thought Daniel invited her to visit the supposed reforestation project the next day. Professor Gonzales was unhappy that she wouldn¡¯t have a chance to explore more of Panama¡¯s insect inhabitants. The bug she found was a marvelous example of a Dynastes Hercules at over 7 inches long and she had hopes of finding others. Still the young man Dan Falke was kind enough to invite her to see the reforestation project and that should be interesting. The invite to tour the project made it sound like she might get the position. She was very hopeful and had started to think of how she would tell her Ex off with what to do with her job or better yet where he could stick it. As they left the hotel in the morning the professor was a little puzzled. She distinctly heard the young man Dan tell the cab driver to take them to the Metropolitan Natural Park. Even she had of Panama¡¯s famous wildlife park. That was a large nature preserve with famous lush vegetation and miles of trails, it had no need of reforestation. When they reached the park Daniel helped the professor out of the car like a gentlemen. She had a puzzled look on her face stepping out on a trail but was happy to see the nature park. As he escorted her down one of the paths the professor treated him to an impromptu lecture on every insect they walked by. When they reached a small gazebo on the trail he asked the professor to sit as he wanted to explain the project in more detail to her. If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Daniel wasn¡¯t sure how to explain portals without giving to much away but he finally decided to just claim it as experimental breakthrough. With that he started in on his explanation. As he talked about the portals and terraforming project he could see the professor¡¯s expression change. It was obvious she didn¡¯t believe a work of what he was saying. He finally decided to just show her and opened a portal from the gazebo to the Ceres transit room. With the portal appearing the professor didn¡¯t seem to understand what it was for a minute. As she stared at it she slowly started to get up and approach it. Unlike everyone else who first saw a portal she was focusing her attention on the edges of the portal. He assumed she was looking for whatever machinery was creating it. Eventually she reached her hand out and pushed it through the portal. After giving her a few more minutes to study it I held out my hand to her saying ¡°Would you like to take a walk and check out one of our habitats?¡± Without waiting on me she said ¡°Sure¡± and walked on through herself. I hurried on through to catch up to her as the portal closed behind us. She quickly exited the transit building then stopped outside to look around. Walking up to her I started to tell her what everything was pointing them out. As I discussed the island being our central administration and supply point for the habitats scattered around Tawny she started to ask questions. She wasn¡¯t to interested in the facilities but did make a comment about the lack of insects. I made the comment that we had not made any effort to import them yet and it was causing problems at the habitats. She immediately wanted to go to one of the habitats and check out the situation. With that I decided to take her back to habitat #1 since it had been established the longest the pollination there was the most apparent. Walking her back into the transit building this time she paid attention to the interior walls with archway portals labeled clearly what habitat they connected to. The professor was a smart person so I was sure she noticed there were none labeled for earth and the one we came through was just a blank spot on the wall. As we walked through the archway to habitat #1 I realized I had never named them. The people living at the habitats would probably like having actual names for their homes rather than just numbers. As we walked through to a small transit building in the habitat the professor again immediately walked outside to look around. Seeing the young vegetation around the camp she immediately headed for the nearest spot. She looked happy as she checked out the condition of the plants and the few bees flying around. Seeing her busy and happy I decided to take this opportunity physically check out how the employees were doing here. Saying a polite excuse to the professor which I doubt she even heard I headed toward the camp¡¯s cafeteria. Sitting around heating is always a good spot for gossip and complaints. Diego Cabrera was sitting at his usual spot in the cafeteria grumbling to anyone who would listen. If he hadn¡¯t been so drunk that day he never would have stepped through that mysterious portal or whatever it was to come here. He had a good thing going shaking down the other refugees to get food and drink. Yah, the food was better here but there was no alcohol, not even beer to drink. What was even worse was the supervisor was on his case all day to dig and plant. Hell, if he wanted to work for a living he would have stayed at his father-in-law¡¯s store. At least there he could send his kids out to get cerveza for him. For a minute he thought about the wife and kids he had abandon years ago but then mumbled good riddance and went back to his grumbling. Looking around the cafeteria I could see a lot of happy people with healthy bodies around. It looks like the half starved refugee look they use to have was now just a bad memory for them. Looking at all the content faces around me I suddenly felt a bit of accomplishment with what we had managed so far. However there was one person sitting at a table by himself that didn¡¯t fit in with the rest of the employees. Unlike them he was sitting by himself with an angry look on his face as he mumbling down at his coffee mug. I noticed that everyone around seemed to be giving him a wide berth. I thought about going over to talk with him and see what the issue was but Sammy, Grandma and I were trying to avoid being noticed as being in authority too much. We had decided to try to be viewed as just small members of management rather that high level decision makers. It would be safer for us when the groups on Earth finally realize what we were doing. Instead I decided to watch a bit of his back history to see if there was an issue I needed to address. Looking at my watch I decided the professor had indulged enough in her bug hunt and went and dragged her back to Ceres. As we sat down in the conference room in the operations center I officially made an offer for her to come work for us. For the first time I saw a smile on her face for something other than bugs. Before she could say anything I quickly went over the confidentiality agreement and the transportation and communication restriction going back to Earth. Since her job would include actually acquiring suitable insects from Earth for populating the habitats her travel was less restricted then most employees. Her expression got a bit off when I started to talk about the travel restrictions but before she could object if continued my explanation. Most employees signed a two year contract witch precluded any communications with Earth for confidentiality reasons. During those 2 years if they quit they would immediately get transportation back to Earth but here there was no contact to anyone outside Tawny. For her and a few others regular travel back and forth was allowed. The only requirement was they would need to travel through Demeter for it. As I finished she thought for a moment before raising a question. ¡°What about the portal we used to get here from Panama City?¡± she asked ¡°Moving one of the portals to a new location is both tedious and time consuming so we only do it for special recruiting¡± I said with a straight face as I lied. I¡¯m not sure if she believed me but she did accept it. We then went over job expectations and that my ¡°boss¡± wanting her initial focus be on insect pollinators so we could get the plant propagation healthy. When I asked her how soon she could start she said with a grin immediately but then paused and corrected herself telling me she would need to go back home to pack and ship her stuff first. With nothing else left to discuss she wanted to head back to Panama City so she could visit Metropolitan Natural Park again before her flight back. An odd woman that professor but I felt we could count on her both for secrecy and to do a good job. Diego Cabrera turned out to be a bad apple that slipped by our checks. The more I checked on his past the more despicable he became. It seems he married his wife after taking advantage of her at a Quincea?era party after someone spiked the punch. Her friends left her in a back bedroom to sleep it off when he snuck in. After she found she was pregnant her father the owner of a small appliance store tracked him down and forced the marriage. Two kids later he was a mean drunk and a useless husband. After stumbling on the combination to the store¡¯s safe he finally decided to sneak away. Of course that was only after he robbed it along with fencing most of the merchandise. He drifted around Guatemala for a couple of years, the money long spent. He then ran into some more trouble with the law right before escaping over the border. Eventually he ended up in the refugee camp in Mexico and later Ceres. My initial instinct was to send him back to the refugee camp. It wasn¡¯t completely shut down yet. The government had tried but new refugees were still showing up. After thinking about it I realized that if we sent him back there it might cause issues with future recruiting from that camp. Plus after every bad thing he had done just sending him back there would be letting him off to easy. He was a thief in Guatemala so I decided to let them handle him. Of course the original theft was a while ago and it might be hard to charge him with plus his wife and kids had moved on. Instead I decided to arrange something similar so any punishment would be appropriate. That night Diego Cabrera found a bottle of Tequila waiting in his apartment. He didn¡¯t know who would have left it but after so long sober he didn¡¯t care. An hour later he was passed out, dead drunk on the couch. The next morning he was woken by the police in the back of a jewelry store. They found him with half empty bottle of Tequila and his pockets stuffed with merchandise. Somehow he had ended back in Escuintla, Guatemala. Things might have gone better at his trial if the owner of the store wasn¡¯t the police chief¡¯s cousin or if he didn¡¯t keep sprouting insane stories of portals and some magical place called Tawny.