It's Hell to Choose

by Michael Anderle

  Normally, that wasn’t an actual asset to him for his work in South America, now it turned out to be damned helpful.

  He had reviewed the latest intel he was receiving and since TQB had launched their space effort in his backyard he had all of the justification he needed to follow them.

  Especially since he had received a pretty severe ass chewing for failure to know anything about the space-worthy shipping containers in the first place. When he spit back that ‘no one’ knew of the event, how was he supposed to have achieved a miracle when it involved legitimate companies operating legally in a country which had two people per square kilometer?

  His boss grumped back it was shit rolling downhill, deal with it.

  Yeah, he was going to ‘deal’ with them alright. He had plenty of aggravation personally and professionally with this group, and now he was going to use the resources for a very, very off the book operation.

  For Phillip Simmons had crossed the line of what was wrong to achieve in the name of what is right too long ago to care.

  He was watching a clip about the children that were on that fucking base in Colorado and how the school had the best in the country as teachers and the ‘show and tell’ days had experiments coming from fucking Ph.D.’s from the R&D group on base.

  The lady reporter mentioned that in a month, the school was going to take their first off-base field trip to go to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science and then for a private meeting to a world-renowned genetic research facility for the older students.

  Phillip sat forward and rewound the message again. He pulled up his phone and checked his calendar to see how many days he had to plan.

  Perfect!

  CHAPTER TEN

  Costa Rica, South America

  Phillip was reviewing the responses he had received back for Mercs.

  It wasn’t like shopping on Amazon, but it was rather close. Relationships were everything and trust wasn’t something actually provided even though Phillip had worked with some of these contacts for well over fifteen years. Money talked, bullshit walked, and you were only as good as your last gig.

  Did you do what you said you would? Yes? Well, so long as you did that and got paid. Then life continued on.

  Until the big screw.

  The ‘Big Screw’ was the expectation that at some point, even your closest contact could switch their goals and would be willing to burn everyone as they left the industry.

  Permanently.

  Either because they were dead, were going to die as soon as someone figured out where the slimy-ass bastard went, they successfully disappeared, or in those super rare instances, they were way too dangerous to go after. If the last option was the choice, then everyone agreed that so long as they stayed gone, it was going to be live and let live.

  Most of the time.

  Phillip looked through the responses he had received for Merc’s willing to operate inside the United States and his eyes opened significantly with the third email’s contact name.

  Vassily.

  Vassily was a Russian connection which was both nice since any Mercs from Russia would throw off any fingers pointing back towards him. Plus, Vassily had connections, surprising connections.

  Phillip clicked on Vassily’s email holding his breath as he read through the first paragraph and then broke out into a shit-eating grin.

  Boris was available.

  Not just ‘any’ Boris, oh no. This was the Boris. Like the Dread Pirate Roberts, this one was probably a name that was shared down from one guy to another. It helped continue the rumor he was unkillable, and he was definitely not someone to double-cross.

  Phillip thought about this decision. He absently looked through more Merc’s with availability, and liked the number of deniable options that were screaming at him. With the money from the group to do this off the books, he was going to be set.

  But he kept coming back to Boris. Something about having him in on the kids’ bus part of the operation appealed to getting a little of his own back. It wouldn’t matter how good the team from TQB was, if Boris the Bear was sitting inside with the kids, the other fourteen members of the team was going to be second string.

  Phillip reviewed the other people and looked at what Boris was asking to make the trip. Hell, he was going to either ask for more money or drop a lot more people. Either way, Boris was going to be on the team.

  Phillip smiled. Fuck it, he wouldn’t tell the bosses that he was hiring Boris, and would get as many other high-quality Mercs without a conscience as he could.

  He bent over his chair to the left and opened the bottom drawer. He pulled out a fifteen-year-old bottle of Scotch and the celebration glass. He closed the drawer, put the glass on the table and poured two fingers of Scotch in the glass before capping the bottle.

  He raised his glass in a silent toast to his friend, still suffering mental issues up in the States.

  “This is for you, Terry.” He took his drink and set the glass down. Leaning forward, he let Vassily know that the money would be transferred that evening.

  TQB Base, Colorado - USA

  Jakob was reviewing notes on his laptop when a chat message box popped up from ADAM, asking if he had time to talk?

  Jakob was getting used to talking with ADAM. At first, he was thinking that Bethany Anne was pulling his leg about the Artificially Sentient Being. Finally, Bethany Anne had requested he ‘go on a Pod trip’ with her.

  “Are you scared of heights?” She had asked him. When she waved him to follow her, she followed up her first question with, “How do you like roller coasters?” He had admitted that until he had gotten too old physically, he had enjoyed them quite a bit.

  He never saw the eye-bleeding acceleration ride coming. Now that he had been ‘part’ of an experience when Bethany Anne could act like she was just making conversation before surprising him so effectively, he decided she wouldn’t catch him again like that.

  However, the trip to the spaceship was as mind opening as she had probably hoped it would be. While looking at an alien spaceship, she made him communicate with ADAM until he was comfortable with the notion that he was talking with an artificial sentience using technology that was both ‘not of this world’ and ‘out of this world.'

  Each morning, he would pinch himself to make sure he hadn’t hallucinated his existence from his fateful morning. The morning where he had decided to make the special trip to be a part of the most amazing company interview he had ever been invited to join.

  Jakob typed back into his chat box that he was available and a second later, his phone rang. He reached over and punched the button to talk. The communication was all IP-Telephony (using data connections for voice) that ran through the etheric. The NSA wasn’t going to tap this call.

  “Good morning, Jakob,” ADAM spoke through his speaker.

  “Good morning, ADAM,” Jakob replied. “What brings you to call me today?”

  “I am made aware there are efforts to use the Environmental Protection Agency as a means to get on base and require significant review of all locations and equipment.”

  Jakob pursed his lips, “Pretty sneaky method of getting access actually.” He thought for a moment, “Please send me your report so I can review while we talk.”

  Jakob had just finished his request when his laptop ‘dinged’ to notify him he had new email. He opened it up and started reading. Jakob started talking back to ADAM, “Here on the second page, this request is coming in from an employee we fired. So, someone has used him to begin a bogus EPA effort. Let’s do some background checking to see if he has come into any money, or who might have hired him recently. This isn’t…”

  ADAM interrupted him, “The employee, Percival Lewis, has recently received two-thousand in his bank account and is working for a remediation and clean-up company which is a subsidiary of the third largest Military Weaponry supplier in North America.”

  “Oh,” Jakob stated. He was stumped for a minute, so he just asked what was on the
top of his mind, “How did you answer that question so quickly?”

  “I have researched the people in this report and built a small file on each one. Our interactions in the past tell me that you have an eighty-eight point seven percent likelihood of requesting background information on at least two of the individuals in this report.”

  Jakob thought for a second, “Which two?”

  ADAM answered, “While the previous number was a statistic, I calculate it would have been Percival Lewis and CEO Sean Truitt.”

  “Why Sean Truitt?”

  “The same reason Bethany Anne provides me every time she is trying to find out the why behind so many of the attacks. She tells me she is ‘following the money.' While the money, in this case, might come from a lower level boss, the chance they are looking to cause issues with a company the size of TQB Enterprises without higher level authorization is statistically weak. Therefore, I calculate the next person is CEO Sean Truitt.”

  Jakob pursed his lips, “I think you are officially my new favorite A.S., ADAM. I’m sorry that I ever doubted you were real.”

  “Thank you, Jakob.” ADAM paused for a few seconds, “Did you want this paperwork lost?”

  “Come again?” Jakob asked he had been thinking about ways to deal with the EPA at the gates.

  The barbarians that they were.

  “I asked, do you want the paperwork lost?”

  Jakob smiled, “No, not lost, but could you change the wording on some of them while we get the proper support documentation to legitimize what you have found. I’m not suggesting that what you know is incorrect, but perhaps people will question how we received it.”

  “I understand. I believe we will need at least two computer research professionals and one, maybe two, private investigators to help alongside for the 'feet on the ground' effort.”

  Jakob stared at the phone for a moment while he collected his thoughts, “Ok, here is what I want to do…”

  The two had spoken for another five minutes before Jakob hung up, pleased with himself and the chance to stick it to that fat-ass CEO Sean Truitt.

  —

  Bethany Anne walked into the ‘Pit’ to find Jakob had already beaten her to their meeting. She checked the time.

  Two minutes before two. She was early, so Jakob was just earlier than her.

  They passed pleasantries so Bethany Anne started, “I understand you are concerned?”

  “Well, not so much concerned as confused.” He rubbed his neck, “It isn’t strange for a company to request the employees to have non-compete and other agreements to forestall technology from leaving the company when an employee gets hired away.”

  He shuffled the folders in front of him and opened the second from the top. “Here, I have three employees that admit they have had excellent offers from other companies. Usually, for at least forty percent more money.” He looked up to Bethany Anne, “And you already pay excellent wages, so these are definitely outside of the norm.”

  Bethany Anne shrugged, “I’m sure they are looking to hire away product knowledge.”

  “You aren’t concerned secrets are going to legally walk away?” Jakob was somewhat confused. He understood her core group wouldn’t walk away from her, no matter what was offered. But these were top level people who usually made their biggest pay increases when moving positions.

  “No, they are free to go. Mind you, those that actually know something wouldn’t walk anyway, and while these three you mention are knowledgeable, they have two things the other company can’t provide.”

  “Oh? What is that.”

  “Ethics and excitement,” she responded. “Our people have superior levels of ethics, and the companies which tried to hire them away are run by notorious assholes. The second is we are the leading company in all of the most exciting technology. Plus, we already pay above market rates. So, it is ‘more’ money, but it is working for a company you don’t respect for a group that is going to have infighting and backstabbing politics. Our people don’t like it.” She shrugged.

  Jakob thought about it for a few seconds. “How did they find this out?”

  “Well,” Bethany Anne said, “We accidentally on purpose dropped a fuck-ton of company research books about the top thirty most likely companies to try to hire our people. Plus, we added a note that these reports were able to be requested anonymously and when it happens, we print out five copies of the company and go place it on the table.”

  “What happens if they are legit?” Jakob asked.

  She shrugged, “Then the report shows it. Most of those companies can’t afford such a high premium to market for their knowledge unless someone else is backing them. We are honest in all of the ways it is going to happen, and we are forthright in how we pay. Everything is above board, and everyone here who is part of a team with marketable technology receives a small percentage of the income. So, for some people you couldn’t possibly offer enough money to get them to leave.”

  “How can you offer so much money?” He asked.

  “Easy, we don’t care.” She grinned, “Don’t get me wrong, I need the money to continue funding the effort. However, we are about to ‘print’ money when we start busting up asteroids and mining them. First, because our raw material and transportation costs are going to be reduced by about seventy-two percent, but also because we will bring the high-value metals back to earth. Our cost-displacement expense to bring something down to earth is minuscule.”

  “I thought you weren’t competing with terra-based companies?”

  “We aren’t. The asteroids are significantly outside the LaGrange point. There is no way for them to get there and we don’t offer to lift anything up into space for a fee.”

  “What about the launch last week?”

  Bethany Anne’s eyes drew together, “You mean the Opscat 4 Satellite?”

  Jakob pulled another folder open and looked down the yellow sheet inside, “Yes.”

  She waved a hand, “That was a time-dependent lift. The original provider called and asked if we would do it as a favor. We told them we would, but that they would have to share the income with a list of fifteen non-profits we gave them.”

  “I don’t remember getting that memo,” Jakob said.

  “That you know about it at all tells me you got the memo!” She smirked, “So don’t play dumb with me, Jakob. We asked the company to keep it secret that we did this for them, and they were happy to comply.”

  “Asking a lawyer not to play dumb is taking away eighty percent of my weaponry.” He retorted.

  “That many people assume a accomplished and experienced lawyer is really dumb?” She asked.

  This time, Jakob smiled just a little, “People believe what fits their worldview without challenge most of the time, no matter the facts in front of their faces.”

  He moved to grab another folder, “That’s why acting less intelligent works so often. Who doesn’t want to believe they are smarter than the lawyer in front of them?” Bethany Anne pointed to herself so he replied, “That’s because you want to be lazy and have me do all of your work.”

  “Having the appropriate person who is well versed in their profession with decades of experience doing their job is leadership, not laziness.” She retorted.

  “Point to the defense,” He allowed.

  TQB Base, Colorado - USA

  Graduation Day. Well, that’s what everyone considered it. The teams were trained ‘up’ to newbie status.