“Why is that?”
Frank turned to stare at Barnabas to see if he was completely clueless, or if it was a simple response to continue the conversation. Barnabas turned when he realized Frank had been quiet for a few seconds and had himself turned to stare at Barnabas.
“What?”
“I’m not sure if you haven’t been paying attention, but I doubt that. I’ll assume that you weren’t paying attention and I’ll answer the question, but don’t pretend to not know the answer. Bethany Anne’s sense of right and wrong is pretty strong. But her sense of fairness can be very skewed if she feels that someone is threatening those that are helpless or those that are pawns in a game. She was furious when they were taking her off of a dead-cases team because she felt the dead wouldn’t get justice. If she feels someone is threatening her own, her people?”
Frank turned back to look over the night waters, “Then we might witness what happens when justice releases a Fury.”
Barnabas sipped his wine, he was very familiar with the tales of the Furies, he could imagine some of what a mythological Fury could do in today’s society.
He enjoyed another sip of his wine, the waters would turn red with blood as it had in the battles centuries in the past.
TQB Base, Colorado - USA
Jeffrey Diamantz still felt it a little surreal to be working under a mountain. He was walking into was his team called ‘the pit’. It was a room that looked like an auditorium with four levels ending at the bottom with a large table full of monitors built into the table itself. All of them were touch sensitive with large high-definition screens across the wall at the front.
Basically this was the most up-to-date version of a space focused command center you might want.
There were three sets of work areas on each side of the main aisle as you went down the three levels. The top level was for supplies, drinks and food. Almost like someone expected there to be times when no one left for long.
Right now, the I.T. head Tom Billings hadn’t wired up the eighteen computer positions yet. That was happening this afternoon.
Still the table was good to go and allowed them to view some of the data they were receiving from their satellites and other home-built devices they had between the earth and the moon.
Like moon-droid one.
Jeffrey laid his coffee down on the table and opened his folders to review the latest information.
He pulled out the report on moon-droid one and reviewed what it had done in the last twelve hours. The device was actually a twenty-four-volt adult sized dune-buggy with gear added all over it. Shipped up on their first cargo container and using one of the Team BMW power units they had it driving all over the dark side of the moon. Not that it was dark, but it was the side not seen from earth.
Fortunately, the team was able to find and over-ride the detection units that the U.S. had on the moon and on that side facing out towards space.
Not too many people knew that some of the earlier rockets with nuclear warheads were designed to go into space. You can’t hit what you don’t know about, so the U.S. put up detection satellites as well.
Kind of makes it hard to build a moon base if you’re under the watchful gaze of Uncle Sam.
The dune-buggy had worked it’s way around a couple of larger craters and had been taking samples. Jeffrey looked over at the top-down pictures their own satellite had taken and then back at the report. He looked down to see that Bobcat had been controlling the dune-buggy for an hour.
Well, that explained the donuts Jeffrey could see on the Moon’s surface.
He needed to tell Bobcat to take Shelly up for a few hours to get some of his energy out of his system.
He heard a few more coming down the hallway, and then Williams booming laugh, it seemed that Team BMW was arriving.
Sure enough, a second later the three guys did come in with Marcus speaking, “That isn’t what I said!”
Bobcat retorted, “Bullshit! You said if I could make a donut in the moon’s one-sixth gravity that you would ask Gabrielle out on a date!”
Jeffrey set his reports down. While he was holding some of the best information related to the moon’s surface known to mankind, he just had to hear what the bases own version of a reality-TV show was up to today.
The three men spread around the table, taking their usual spots. William to Jeffrey’s left, Bobcat at the other end of the table and Marcus on his right.
Marcus grumped, “I was talking about a real donut! Not just marks on the Moon’s regolith. You know, with yeast?”
Bobcat’s head shook back and forth, “C’mon doc. You know better than that. If you don’t specify I get to choose my definition and my definition was a donut done by wheels on the dirt!”
“Regolith.” Marcus replied.
“Whatever. So, how hard is it to ask Gabrielle out on a date? C’mon man, grow a pair. It isn’t like she hasn’t turned down a thousand men in her life. All that would mean is… is…” Bobcat turned to William, “Help me out.”
William smiled, “Hell no. I’m not about to admit I might, or might not, be aware that Gabrielle is older or perhaps older than two centuries. If a woman can be peeved if she hits forty, I damn sure am not going to say she is older than four-hundred. So, hell-to-the-no, you’re on your own.”
Bobcat told him, “Fuck you my no-spinal-cord friend and I mean that in the nicest way possible.”
William nodded, “Apology accepted.”
Bobcat turned back to Marcus, “My point is, I’m sure she has learned not to rip apart the shallow and delicate ego men have. So, what’s your problem?”
Marcus looked between his two teammates and squeaked out, “What if she says yes?”
Bobcat slammed his hand down on the table making a loud ‘crack’ sound and then using the same hand to point at Marcus, “Perfect! Then you … you…” He looked back over at William again. “Shit, what would you say to a woman who has literally been around the block hundreds of times?”
William just smiled and acted as if he were zipping his mouth shut.
Bobcat gave him a look of disgust and turned back to Marcus, “I imagine she hasn’t been out with a rocket scientist. Hell, you guys have only been around since what, the 1940’s?”
Marcus started to consider what Bobcat was saying when Jeffrey cut in, “Gentleman, as entertaining as this is, we need to move forward with our meeting.” He pulled out his folder for their recent tasks and then spoke to no one in particular, “Just a footnote to end your discussion guys?”
They all looked over from their own papers.
He looked up and smiled, “Remember that she was in Europe and could very well have dated the original rocket scientists from Germany. Imagine if she had an evening with Wernher von Braun?”
Instead of causing Marcus to be more concerned, he turned thoughtful.
Jeffrey shrugged, sometimes he couldn’t figure out everyone’s motivation on the first pass.
—
Robert McCarty walked into Hanger One noticing that it was temporarily quartered into four distinct working areas with security around the perimeter. He raised an eyebrow when he noticed Kevin standing over to the side with his arms crossed. Robert started walking towards him while watching all of the rest of the activity on the large floor.
“What’s up with the tables and everything Kevin?”
Kevin McCoullagh looked over to Robert McCarty, his senior member for the Corps of Engineers on the base and answered, “The company is doing a security check of everyone that came on board and wishes to stay since the main building is completed.”
Robert stood next to Kevin and watched for a couple of minutes, “I see them going into the two offices, but it doesn’t look like they are in there for more than a couple of minutes.” He turned towards Kevin, “Do they have some sort of lie detector device?”
Kevin kept his face focused out towards the floor and lied through his teeth. “Don’t know. I’m to understand that it is some o
f the new technology from one of the companies the General is over-seeing. So, for all I know he brought it back with him.”
“You didn’t have to go through this when you were hired?” Robert asked.
“In a way, my interview was a lot longer and more thorough. I’m sealed from disclosing anything about my experience, but I’m pretty sure they got all of the truth out of me they wanted.”
Robert turned back to the floor, “What happens if they don’t pass?”
“Released with four months’ pay. Or they’re given the option of working for another company, if a position they are qualified for is available. In that instance all moving costs for the employee and their family will be paid. So far I’ve heard of six taking the package without even going through the security check.”
Robert asked, “They scared to take the test?”
Kevin laughed, “No! They were just tired of the cold weather and found out the company has some operations in Southern California and Florida.”
“That sounds nice, my bones are starting to seize up mid-summer just thinking about some of the cold we get here.”
Kevin grunted, “Well, if you want warmer climes, I’m not going to hold you back, but you need to help me find a qualified candidate or two if you can.”
Robert watched the people entering the offices, “You say the company will pay the moving expenses?”
“Yes, for you and one household to go with you. Although for you, I imagine the opportunities are pretty wide-ranging.”
“Oh?”
“Yeah, they are building in other areas as well, plus in Europe.”
“No shit?” Robert asked.
“Nope.” Kevin replied.
Robert seemed to be thinking for half a minute. “I’ll be back in a bit. I need to go call Tricia. She keeps on my ass about living near the water and if I don’t tell to her about this moving option and she finds out …” Robert left it hanging.
Kevin simply nodded his understanding as Robert started walking towards the door heading outside and pulled his cellphone out.
Kevin hoped Robert’s ‘wife’ chose to move, because it would really suck to have to fire the guy for taking money to pass along base secrets.
Or bury him, depending on who he had sold out to. Kevin understood that behind door number two over there, was Michael. And he was just passing time with most of these simple mind reviews waiting to see if Robert really wanted to try and become a mole in the organization.
Something that Kevin McCoullagh wasn’t going to allow. Tom Billings had found evidence on three computers. Software had been installed to start passing information outbound in three weeks. Tom had deactivated the software and upgraded the firewalls, stopping information going outbound without authorization from special data transfer rules now in place.
It would be good enough until ADAM brought AGILITY online, the refined version of himself capable of being run on the massive number of servers Tom had installed and fired up in the past three weeks.
Which was good, because when Kevin first learned that Robert was guilty of setting up all of the snooping software, he wanted to leave him a bloody wreck. It took everything he had to act as if he didn’t know of Robert’s duplicity. Knowing they were mere days from AGILITY going active had stayed his hand.
Just barely.
CHAPTER THREE
TQB Base, Colorado - USA
“Hi boss.”
Bethany Anne looked to her left as she was walking down the hallway. “Hey Kevin, how did the security review go?”
Kevin McCoullagh stepped out of the room he was in and joined Bethany Anne as they walked towards Lance’s office. “Well enough. Almost all of the troublemakers left without causing us a problem. Can’t say I’m terribly happy about letting Robert go without something to remember me by.”
Bethany Anne cocked an eyebrow at him, “My, someone’s in a bloodthirsty sort today aren’t they?”
Kevin shrugged, “It pisses me off that he would so easily sell out. I have to question if he would have done that while he had on the uniform? Anyway, I didn’t say anything.”
“Good, the team has a plan to monitor the software he installed and see what they were targeting and then feed false information upstream.” The two of them arrived at Lance’s office. Bethany Anne knocked a couple of times sharply, then opened the door.
“Bethany Anne!” Patricia grinned at her from behind her desk and stood up. Lance and Patricia had decided they wanted one large office with the desks at both sides of the office facing each other. If you placed a mirror in the middle of the room, it would look the same. Except the mirror wouldn’t show Lance’s occasionally grumpy face on the other side.
“Hey Patricia.” Bethany Anne accepted a hug from the woman. She didn’t look much older than Bethany Anne now. It solved the issue of calling her ‘mom’ when she looked more like her sister.
Bethany Anne turned to see her dad’s empty chair, “Dad around?”
Patricia sat back down, “Yes. He went to find a couple of Ding-Dongs. He can get grumpy in the middle of the afternoon if he didn’t sleep enough the previous night. I found that sugar and chocolate cheers him up.”
Kevin was looking at Lance’s desk and asked, “No worries for his health?” He turned to face the two young looking women who were staring at him. “My mistake, I wasn’t thinking. No calorie worries.”
A voice spoke behind them, “Hey Kevin, hey baby!” Bethany Anne turned to receive a hug from her dad, Kevin got a slap on his back. “Ready to talk base?”
Kevin closed the door, “Yup.”
Patricia grabbed her laptop and Kevin turned one of Patricia’s chairs around and pulled it over so everyone was facing Lance.
Lance spoke, “We can talk about the three company R & D groups a little later.” He then asked Kevin, “What did we learn from Michael?”
Kevin answered, “We have a defense industry probe already into our business. It seems the fact that you are the big guy for TQB Industries and residing here on your former base has made everyone assume you have a huge military play going on. That was the ‘core focus’ of three people that Michael read. We haven’t fired any of them yet. We are waiting for additional people to help cover their roles before we let them go.”
Bethany Anne asked, “What kind of people do you need?”
Kevin replied, “Security, engineering, maintenance and operations. Pretty much all of the core people.”
Patricia interrupted, “Is it going to be hard to find people here in the States that know military and are safe?”
“No, we proved when selecting crew for the two ships that it can be done.” Bethany Anne answered, “However, we need to be thinking about merging more countries into our mix. I don’t want there to be an ‘all U.S.A. all the time’ answer to everything.”
“What about vetting them? When you crewed your ships, I understand from Frank that he took care of that for you.” Lance said as he unwrapped a cigar and bit on it.
Bethany Anne wrinkled her nose, “Gah! Those things don’t smell good anymore, not like they did when I was young.” She moved in her chair, trying to get more comfortable. “Dad, are you irritated with my comment about more Americans?”
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