A new snippet of “Conspiracy Theory” Chapter 4

I have some formatting issues here from Word. It’s readable though. Sorry.

The town of Potola was the last decent sized place to buy supplies before his camp ground. There was a little place called Beckwourth that wasn’t an official town, just a place name. They had a good tavern that served a pulled pork sandwich he liked. And it had a gas station with stuff for sale, that fell somewhere short of being a general store. But the prices were high for stuff like charcoal, and they didn’t have fresh meat, just some burger patties and hot dogs in the freezer case with ice cream and other junk food.

They did have lots of things campers forgot or discovered they needed. Cheap work gloves, bungee cords, cooler chests, sun screen, hats, bug spray, and toilet paper. BBQ tools and aluminum foil. Stuff that could be had for near half the price at a big box store in LA.

Jack was organized. He’d done this before, and had a checklist. He also knew what you expect is climate, and what you get is weather. He was prepared to dress for heat or cold, wet or dry. He had a reservation at the camp grounds. There were only a dozen sites, and every one of them was nice, well separated and against deep woods.

He set up easily, taking extra care to groom where his tent went. A small charcoal grill was much easier to use, and safer than a wood fire, even in the provided pit. He got it ready even though it was not time to light it. A lot of campers used the folding chairs that had a complicated frame, shaped square like a director’s chair. Jack favored a Hardoy chair. The frame was simpler and the cloth was just a rectangle with a pocket sown on each corner. If it got bent or ripped he could fix it, while the newer chairs were pretty much a throw-away if anything went bad. To him it was more comfortable too.

Most of his things would stay in the truck where they could be locked up while he was fishing. It was rare somebody stole a tent this far out in the country. He’d take his chances on that since it was a cheap three season tent. Closer to a big city he’d have had to take it down every day if he was away. The homeless filled up the campgrounds too close to big cities and social service offices. Out here it was too far to travel and no public transportation.

Jack got himself a lemonade from the cooler, positioned his chair where it would stay shaded awhile, and got his phone out to continue with the book he was reading right now.

About a chapter later movement made him look up. There was a deep green SUV coming up the drive slowly, checking out the sites. There were two young guys in it. It was the same make and model as the burgundy one that followed him yesterday. He hadn’t seen the two young men that clearly, to remember them. They had been brown haired and non-descript, like these, but it made him uneasy.

It appeared their site was about three down from him, and when they turned in they would no longer be visible. The privacy here was one of the things he liked normally. He had an itch to check out what their camp looked like, but had no reason to walk past. Instead the toilet and water were before his site, so they had reason to walk past his. It wasn’t long before one did, carrying a large jug for water. He looked Jack over, but then he was looking around at everything.

After a bit he walked back the other way with a heavy jug. It wasn’t long until their vehicle backed onto the camp drive, and took off again. Jack thumbed his phone to camera mode and zoomed tight on the little SUV. He got a good shot of the rear plate, before it disappeared down the loop. He couldn’t tell from the rear if one or both of them were inside, the tinted glass and headrests obscured the view. It was mighty bad planning to need to run back into town so soon.

California left no rock unturned for revenue, so they were pleased to sell Jack the vehicle history for that plate. A hundred and ten bucks seemed pretty steep, and he suspected he’d feel stupid afterwards, until he had it on the screen. It was a year old Honda Portage, which had no reported accidents, been subject to one minor recall, and belonged to Tangent Industries. Uh-huh. They did return later after enough time to have gone to the store for supplies.

Sleeping in the tent didn’t feel safe now. He moved stuff from behind the driver’s seat so it would recline all the way, and removed the bulb in the overhead light. He had a reflective sunscreen and put it across the cab back window. The side windows had a decent tint, so in the dark you could not see a person in the truck. He could see his tent and chair just fine slouched in the seat.

The clock did not dim with the dash lights, so he put a piece of tape over it. With both windows down a crack he could hear too. He didn’t want to be too paranoid, but he left his key in the ignition, ready to leave in an instant, and laid his pistol on the passenger seat with a bandana over it.

He let the fan run for awhile circulating him fresh air, but as it cooled off quickly he was happy to shut it off. If it ran the battery down too far the truck would auto-start to charge it, and he didn’t want that. Despite all the uncertainties he fell asleep before very late.

* * *

Early morning was dark in the thick trees, even if the sky was silvery looking straight up. Everything had that blue cast, and the shadows were still deep and black. Jacks eyes popped open, but he didn’t move just yet, aware something had awakened him, but not what.

The green SUV was pulled across the entry to his campsite. They likely coasted down in neutral, but the crunch of tires on gravel could have awakened him. He didn’t appreciate being blocked in. The two men were standing looking at his tent with some sort of monocular. The fellow using it the bucket carrier from last night.

“There’s no hot-spot. He isn’t in there,” the fellow with the viewer said.

“Crap, do you think he went off fishing at the crack of dawn?”

“If he is he’ll probably be gone at least the morning.”

“But he could have gone to take a piss and be right back.”

“You want to back the Honda up to our site and watch awhile?”

“No, if we start it we might wake somebody else up and draw attention. I’ll look in the tent and you check out the truck. If he comes back we’ll brazen it out. I don’t think one senior citizen is going to want to get into it with both of us.”

The one fellow boldly unzipped his tent and entered, the other came up to the truck and produced a very sophisticated jimmy tool, the sort to get around the guards most manufacturers built in now, with an adjustable hook on the end.

He slid it under the rubber window channel and tried to lift the lock arm a few times. It didn’t catch so he adjusted the end and tried again. All the while Jack laying back watching him work. Jack picked up his pistol and shifted it to his left hand. He shot just fine lefty too.

The door lock popped up, and the young fellow looked very satisfied. He pulled the door all the way open, turning with it to lay the tool on the ground. When he leaned into the dark cab Jack extended the pistol and planted the muzzle square between his eyes.

“Quiet.” He demanded softly.

The fellow pulled his arms back palms displayed, and then hesitated a little and opened his mouth.

Jack thumbed the safety off and stuck his finger in the trigger guard. That re-froze him.

“Reach back and get your wallet, and toss it past me very gently into the passenger footwell.”

“Did you say something?” came muffled from the tent.

Jack drew back the pistol and smacked the fellow hard above the ear. He went down easily the first blow. He immediately started the truck and pulled forward driving over the front of the tent with the door until both front wheels were pinning it down firmly, and the volume was reduce by over half. Trapping the other man against the back wall of the tent.

“What the hell?” sounded from inside, but there wasn’t much he could do. He might cut his way out eventually, if he had a really good knife, but the newer fabrics were amazingly tough.

Jack dragged the young fellow around to the other side of the truck where they were not visible from the loop road. The guy in the tent was objecting, so he walked over and kicked the struggling shape about where he guessed the guys butt would be. It was enough he fell down inside, and shut up for an instant. “Ryan?” he asked in a little bit.

“Ryan is indisposed. If you have any brains you’ll shut the hell up, because if I have to deal with you I’m going to make damn sure Ryan is not a threat at my back. Understand?

“Yeah.”

“Good.” Jack got some cable ties from his truck and cuffed Ryan’s hands in front of him. Rather than do his ankles he ran a tie through the lower laces on both shoes and linked them. He could shuffle if he stood up and just in case he could kick them off too fast he undid the kids belt and pulled his pants down. If he stood up he’d have them around his ankles too.

He relieved him of his wallet, phone, the Honda keys, and finding no weapon unfolded his chair beside the young fellow. For an instant he worried he was too still and felt for a pulse at his neck. It was there, but he was still limp as a dead fish. That would be a problem if he was in a real coma. He put charcoal in his grill and started it, sitting reading the young man’s documents. His Tangent Industry Security card and driver’s license went in his own wallet. The other items and cards carefully examined got tossed one by one on the fire.

The kid rolled on his side and projectile vomited. He didn’t get any on Jack, which was good. Jack was grumpy, missing his breakfast, and not terribly kindly disposed toward him. The kid spat, gasping and found out he was cuffed.

“You’re in a hell of a lot of trouble old man!”

Jack couldn’t help it. He laughed so hard it hurt. When he got through he tossed the kid’s Bank of America card on the fire and watched it melt.

“What are you doing?” he said horrified.

“Well, if the police come you are going to be a completely undocumented person. I don’t have to tell you the suspicions that arouses in police today. They will immediately suspect you of something serious if you chose not to have ID on you. And no matter what shakes out it going to be a tremendous big pain in the ass to replace all these cards and stuff. I’m just stacking the deck against you any way I can. You can hardly blame me for that.”

Jack had already put the couple hundred dollars from the wallet in his pocket. The ones and a few fives the kid had he folded over as he withdrew them to hide the bulk, and tossed them on the fire too, just to freak the kid out. It worked.

“You are crazy…”

“I didn’t invade another man’s rented living space and break in his vehicle. I believe this qualifies as a home invasion by case law. Is that your brand of sane?” He tossed the empty wallet on the fire.

The boy had no answer.

Jack went to the truck and got his hand ax. It was far sharper than firewood required. His prisoner said nothing, just looking worried.

“Watch your toes,” Jack told the lump in the tent. “I’m going to hack a hole down by the ground.” It took a good dozen strokes, but he got a ragged slit as long as his hand.

“Pass your wallet and phone out. If you try to take stuff out I’ll know. I’ve already been through Ryan’s”

“No friggin’ way.”

Jack just sighed, wearily. He walked back and got the bottle of charcoal lighter fluid and walked back to the tent. He stuck a stick in the slit to spread it squirted a steady stream of fluid in the hole.”

“What are you doing?” the voice from inside had a little panicky tone to it this time.

“Tents ruined. Might as well dispose of it.”

“That stuff is dangerous. Just a little vapor and it could flash over from your fire!” the cuffed kid warned.

Jack had a thought and walked to the truck. He reached up inside the fender and removed the tracker. Putting it on the concrete fire circle he smashed it with the back of the hatchet head. Then he put it on the fire too, piling some more charcoal on top of it.

“Oh shit. Ernie?” he called to his buddy in the tent.

“Yeah?”

“The old man just pulled the tracker off his truck and destroyed it. It’s a set up. He had us made, crap, who knows how far back?”

“Before I even left LA fool,” Jack assured him.

“Are you agency?” the kid asked. He was finally broken, and looked near tears.

“I don’t owe you any information,” Jack assured him. He gave the kid a squirt of lighter fluid in the hair, and another on the front of his shorts. He looked panicked at the close grill.

“What are you going to do?”

“You just don’t understand do you?” Jack asked. “You stalk me, invade my space, tear into my stuff, and I heard you assume you can just beat up an old man if he resists. But when the shoe is on the other foot you think you can call a time out and act like it all was a joke? You are a threat to my life. I didn’t get to be an old man by letting threats come back on me latter. If I let you go you’ll try again in a week or a month and you might actually be cautious enough now to get the upper hand. There’s going to be another tragic tent fire, like you read about in the news, and a couple young city fools who didn’t respect fire let it get away from them. Tragic, but these things happen every season.”

“What do you want?”

“Your buddy already refused me the wallet and phone. I’m not in a bargaining mood.”

The wallet miraculously got shoved out the slit in the tent. “My phone is in the car” Ernie said from the tent. Jack retrieved it and opened it behind the back of the fellow on the dirt. The Tangent ID and license were conveniently in the top two pockets and went in his shirt pocket. He sat back down and resumed reading ID and systematically burning them. There were a couple interesting business cards he kept too, not even trying to hide that. Eventually this wallet went on the fire too. It was wet with the fluid so it went up nicely. He took the battery out of the phone, but didn’t mess with it.

“OK, now I have some questions.” There wasn’t any response to that.

“What is the business of Tangent Industries?” Jack asked. Silence.

“What is the business and association to Tangent of Quest Star Associates?” Jack read off the one business card. Silence.

“What is the business and association to Tangent of Orion Fabricating?” Silence.

He thought about asking why Tangent needed space suits. It might not be good to reveal how much he knew yet, and these men might not even know if they were low level security. “Are you willing to die deny me this information?” he asked instead. No reply again.

“Are you deep conditioned to be unable to tell me these things?” Jack asked with sudden insight.

The kid on the ground started shivering violently, and beaded with sweat quickly.

“Yeees,” was all he could stutter through chattering teeth.

“Well,” Jack said aloud, surprised. Long ago he’d served a short stint in the air force, before he went to university to learn CAD and have a civilian life, he’d heard rumors of such conditioning for government spooks. He’d still bet these folks were not some black government program. They were doing something on the cheap. That was not a quality of black programs. And yet it had something to do with space. He still wanted to know what, and now he was just a bit irritated with them too.

“I’m going to make the extraordinary gift of your lives to you,” Jack informed them. “Not for your sake, but because I am not yet ready to declare war on your employers. If you haven’t figured it out by now I will also instruct you. Don’t mess with the old boys. You think we are feeble minded old fools, but some of them have forgotten more than you will ever know, before you ever stood to take a piss. If I see you try to track me again I won’t be so generous.”

Jack folded his chair up and put it and the hand ax in the truck, dumped his coals in the pit and put the hot grill and supplies in the back of his truck. He got a pair of sheer gloves from the first aid kit, took a bottle of high strength hydrogen peroxide, and got a bandage soaking wet with it. The young man wisely didn’t try anything stupid when he wiped down the cable ties with it thoroughly. He sprayed extra freely around the barb head soaking it. When he was done he squeezed the bandage dry and dropped it on the pile of coals.

If they wanted his DNA they or the police could find it on the tent or somewhere on the campsite, but leaving it on the cuffs was a direct link to a criminal act. He walked down to the Honda and was very careful not to touch bare skin to anything. There was nobody in sight and he started it and backed up, parking it in their campsite again. Then he got out he walked around, shooting out all four tires. They were the modern high pressure super-high mileage kind, so instead of a neat hole the entire thin side wall ruptured at least a quarter of the way around when breached. They ran at about a hundred and sixty psi, so they blew a big blast of air out almost as loud as the gun.

He kept the key as well as the other fellow’s phone out of the dash pocket, and walked back to his camp slow and casual, gun under his jacket. There was one man walking along, looking in each site, but he was going the wrong way, away from Jack. It apparently was hard to tell which direction the shots came from. Good.

Jack got in his truck and backed out, not hurrying. The fellow in the tent didn’t come rushing out. When he passed the man looking for the source of the noise he was going slow and cautious, just like you should drive in a campground. The fellow just nodded at him. He was glad he didn’t flag him down and ask if he knew what was going on. If he had, he’d have said it worried him too, and he was leaving because it didn’t seem safe now. Being a geezer in a cheap truck had its advantages. He didn’t look threatening.

When he pulled out on the county road he had to smile. The police would probably be summoned before the two could disappear, and their lack of ID and shot up vehicle would be hard to explain. Then he frowned. He really should have taken their shoes too. Just to make sure they couldn’t take off across country and evade the police. But perhaps he was crediting too much ability to them.

He really had to find somewhere for a decent breakfast, maybe in Potola, he was starved.

A Short Story for you.

I’ll eventually publish another collection of shorts when I have enough, like “Common Ground and other Stories”. But for now…

Ball and Chain

Mackey Chandler

“It’s this damn Slump,” Tim Kirkland grumped. “There’s no market for even Earth mined materials, how can Luna possibly develop an economy without exports? If it wasn’t for defense they’d have probably pulled back and mothballed the Moon bases already. For sure they would have if they weren’t scared the other fellows would snatch the whole Moon. When things get back to normal and scarcity kicks in again things will open up. I’ve had my application in for Luna now for seven years. I’m way ahead of most folks in the Queue.”

“Are you applied with the Americans, Indians or the Chinese?” Aaron asked skeptically.

“The Americans and Indians both actually. The Chinese wouldn’t take my reservation without a full deposit, and an assurance I wasn’t signed on with anyone else, snotty little buggers.”

“I’m tired of hearing The Slump, The Slump, as an excuse for everything,” Aaron growled. They should tell the truth and call it the Greater Depression. You’re thirty-two years old man. How long has it been The Slump for you?”

“Call it twenty, twenty-six years. Depends on if you count from 2008 or 2014. I remember as a kid we had it pretty good. I was an only, but still, we used to go out to eat a couple times a week. My mom and my dad both kept a car. My God those were cars too, big lumbering steel beasts, built like a battle tank.”

“Let’s be honest. Is there any guarantee it won’t still be The Slump, twenty years forward from now? Other than the same promises just before every election?”

“Prosperity is just ahead. It’s as certain as global warming,” he said sarcastically. The continued cold weather was as responsible for the prolonged slump in the economy as any political stupidity. Nobody had ever disavowed the carbon treaties and such, they simply stopped talking about it. Maybe they hoped people would forget, but they hadn’t, especially the cartoonists.

“You could save enough to go by the time you are forty likely. If you don’t marry and if you don’t get caught with your ‘investments’.”

Tim made a squelching motion with his hand and grimaced. It was a family burger place, and noisy, but he hadn’t pulled the battery on his phone, and you just never knew when you might be monitored at random. He pulled it now, and pulled the foil faced paper from under his fries and wrapped the phone in that too.

“My, you are getting paranoid,” Aaron marveled. “Don’t you have your minders on the take, so you don’t have to worry about such things?”

“You can buy off your security folks, but it gets expensive. I’d rather make the effort, and keep my profits maximized. Anyway, you know I don’t just want to take a two week lift as a tourist. I want to live up there, maybe even beyond the Moon if that happens in my lifetime.”

“If you’re that much of a risk taker I’m encouraged. I wanted to run a solution past you, but wasn’t sure you’d have the guts to consider it.”

“If that’s your idea of drawing me into a warm feeling of camaraderie, you need to work on your presentation. If I’m such a cowardly lout, you can find someone else better I’m sure.”

“No, I don’t think so. I don’t know anyone as eager to go to the Moon, except my nephew Eddy, and he’s just turned twelve, so that’s a bit of a wait too. What if I had a way to open up travel, not just for you, but for everyone? We can’t change the economy, but there are other factors in the equation to alter. Changes that would do a world of good for quite a few people. I have a little development I’ve been working on. I have a patent application in on it right now, actually. It can change the expense factor of lifting to the Moon, and everywhere else above Clarke orbit too.”

“Lift vehicles are a very mature technology,” Tim objected. “Nobody is willing to build nuclear rockets, for political reasons. I suspect they have a few actually, but if they do it’s damn black, and likely to stay that way. I know you do fiber design, and nano fabrication for the University. I’m pretty sure you’re the smartest guy I know, Aaron. But I don’t see even you designing an anti-gravity machine in that home workshop of yours.”

“Not at all. But you are aware they have had materials now for about five years, which could be used to make a Beanstalk?”

“As in “Fountains of Paradise”? A humongous ball and chain on the Earth? I read it would take about fifty-Trillion dollars to put a real one up, and that was US dollars, not Canadian. I can just imagine every jihadist in the world salivating at the idea of getting a tactical nuke on an elevator car, if they did build the thing. I don’t like to characterize us as the poor cousins, but if it gets built it will be the Americans. Canada doesn’t have that kind of wealth free to use, and it will take a huge application of military and political power to run the thing. You have to buy off some nation on the equator, and then pour enough troops and equipment around the base of the thing so nobody thanks you for building it, and then nationalizes it. I can’t think of anywhere around the Earth’s waist I’d want to trust.”

“Yes, but, it was a Russian, Tsiolkovsky, who developed the concept long before it was popular in fiction. But a ball and chain is restrictive, this is more like a lifeline thrown in stormy seas. I’d like you to give me your word that you will hold this closely confidential, and I’ll to invite you over tomorrow evening to demo a few things for you.”

“Well,” Tim huffed, raising his eyebrows. “I’m not used to such gravity and formality, but you have my word as a gentleman, if such a thing can truly exist today.”

“It does if you wish it,” Aaron assured him. “I’ll pick up the tab today too,” he offered and swiped his paycard for both meals.

* * *

“I’m here to see the stuff,” Tim growled in his best gangster style when Aaron opened the door.

“What, no body guards? No evil henchmen waiting in the car?” The absurdity of a wiseguy named Timmy made him smile, but he’d never tell his friend that.

“I prefer minions. They’re much more cost effective and low key.”

Tim hung his jacket, and stood on his boot heels in turn, to step out of his boots. He’d been here before. It wasn’t a spoken house rule, but if he left his boots on Aaron’s eyes kept going back to them, worrying about his crème carpets.

“I hope you can wrap this up in time for the game.”

“Who’s playing, uh, you mean hockey I assume?”

“No, Bocce Ball,” he said, and rolled his eyes.

“I don’t think I have any beer, you’ll get cross with me.”

“I have twelve cooling in the car. They won’t freeze for another hour.”

“Let’s get downstairs then. They lose all their fizz if you pop them slushy.”

* * *

“This is a pair of die maker’s stereo magnifiers,” Aaron offered, putting his on to show Tim how. “You turn the knob on the left to adjust the magnification. The right knob adjusts the little headlight at the temple pieces. The over shade is to protect from laser, so don’t be tipping it up.”

He picked up small bit of metal with a frosty stone set in it. “This is a diamond anvil with a nice tapered hole drilled through it. I have a piece of Bucky wrap that is strong enough to build a space elevator looped through the diamond. And the anvil slips into this handle,” he said, sliding a hand grip back until the anvil snugged in hollow on his side, “so you can pull on it without slicing your fingers off like a cheese cutter.” A tube surrounded the line on the other side.

“That’s so thin, do you loop that through, and tie a knot by hand? I’d never feel it.”

“You’d feel it when it cut your fingers. The line is braided of nine smaller fibers. You clamp it two places, push them towards each other to spread them open, and interweave the end back into itself. Now, this is as far as the line reaches from the wall over there.” He pulled on the handle and it didn’t come past the edge of the bench he was using. Tim squinted along the line in the direction of an anchor set in the concrete wall. He could see a few centimeters of it finer than a hair, and then it was lost to sight off toward the wall.

“I’m going to have you snap this, but I want to anneal a place near the anvil. If it snaps at the other end the whole thing can whip back and cut you. When it breaks near the handle it will fly toward the wall.” He pulled a pocket laser and laid the tiny line across a graphite block. He pushed the switch repeatedly and a red spot glowed hot each time. “There, pull on it a bit, see how strong it is.”

Tim picked up the hand piece and pulled it. It came to a definite stop, but was free to move side to side. The line to the wall was long enough you couldn’t feel the arc. Tim leaned until his weight was hanging on it.

“Amazing stuff.” Tim said. “There is no give to it at all.”

“Now go ahead and give it a good jerk. I can break it, so I know you can.”

Tim took a stance, so he wouldn’t overbalance, and turned his hand around with the protective tube sticking up through the middle of his fingers. He gave one pretty good jerk, but it didn’t snap. He backed his swing up a bit further, and snapped it clean with one hard pull. He followed through but didn’t lose control.

“Tough stuff,” was all he acknowledged.

“Indeed. Now this is the new thing I brought you to see,” he said picking up a similar but bulkier hand piece. “It is a bit thinner so crank up the magnification because I want you to see it better”

Tim leaned in and adjusted the viewer.

“See the little silver wedge pushed in the hole with this one? That’s an electrical contact. Now observe the surface color of the thread.” He flipped a switch that stuck out of the grip. “Did you see that?”

“It went from dull black to kind of shiny, I think.”

“Yes. That’s exactly right. Now I want you to do the same thing as before, except…”

Tin snapped the line taunt with everything he had.

“I don’t want you to hurt yourself.”

The handle ripped out of his hand, and he doubled over his abused wrist, holding it against his waist with his other hand.

“Holy shit. Nothing should be that strong,” Tim objected hopping up and down a little.

“Did you break it?” Aaron asked concerned.

“I didn’t hear a crack, but I think I better put some ice around it and watch it a bit. You can damn well go out and bring the beer in. You could have warned me a little faster Dude.”

They stayed upstairs, and watched Toronto starting against Detroit. The wrist didn’t turn funny colors or swell quickly so they concluded he didn’t break anything. The beer and two Napoxen helped.

“I’m thinking about it,” Tim said. “I still see problems.”

“I know a few. I have something else to show you after the game.”

“To hell with the game,” Tim said getting up. “Toronto zero, Detroit two. They have the better goalie and that’s how it will wrap up. I knew that last week. If it doesn’t I’m down six-thousand dollars in the morning. Try not to hurt me with this next demo.”

“I know you are concerned about a site for a Beanstalk. I have a model prepared to show you a concept. Here we have our globe.” It was a globe too, taken off the usual mount and put on an electric motor shaft.

“This is one possible base location,” he pointed out a screw firmly driven into Ecuador on the globe.

“Here is our counter weight,” he produce a golf ball with an eyelet screwed into it, and a straw colored thread dangling. “The tread is just Kevlar, but it is our cable.” He looped the thread around the screw and tied it. The tread reached all the way around the globe, and just enough to hang it back over the screw.

“Stand back, I cracked myself on the knee with this first time I spun it.”

“You’re dangerous man.”

Aaron retreated to a switch, and turned it on. The globe spun, and flung the ball out. It whipped around the globe in a blur until he killed the switch again and it dropped and bounced to a stop.

“Yep, that’s just what I pictured,” Tim agreed.

“But that isn’t the only way to do it,” Aaron told him pulling a screwdriver out of his pocket. He took the screw out of Ecuador and started turning it into a hole he hadn’t noticed. It was Toronto.

“But, you can’t do that,” Tim objected.

“Would you rather Vancouver?” Aaron asked pleasantly. “It has a better climate I admit. And you don’t have to bring shipping for the elevator up the Saint Lawrence. But there are financial reasons and political considerations. I certainly don’t want it in Quebec, and it’s about a tossup for shipping grain off the plains. I suspect a great deal of rye and oats will be riding up the thing.”

“That’s not what I mean. You can’t just screw the bloody thing on anywhere. That’s cheating.”

“Why?” Aaron asked him. “Oh it might get a bit difficult above sixty degrees north. But at Toronto you have significant angular velocity.”

“Well, you know, it’s out of balance. It has to hang off the center straight.”

“Ah,” Aaron sighed agreeably, You’re going to hang another on the other side so we don’t unbalance the earth and make it wobbly all over the place. I expect some die hard environmentalist to bring that up actually. I didn’t think you’d be so Green.”

“Well not wobble,” Tim insisted indignantly. “I know the elevator won’t mass that much compared to the Earth, But it won’t pull straight. This is just a shell. The real Earth pulls with gravity, so the line of force pulling on the counterweight down,” he demonstrated with his hands, “won’t be in line with the tension on the line,” he asserted, very happy with himself.

“And the counter weight would not be exactly at the Clarke orbit. In fact it would be just a hair more difficult to match a spaceship with it, and dock than on a perfect equatorial orbit,” he went on and finished repositioning the screw. “But then too, a lot of other users in Earth orbit might be just as happy not to have this huge battering ram of a counter weight whizzing about the planet, right in the plane where they want to naturally orbit free floating objects.” he pointed out.

“But tell me. If there was no gravity involved where would the counterweight float when you spun up the system?”

“Right in the lane of rotation. At right angles to a line through the poles.”

“Okay, ” Aaron agreed, retreating and flipping the motor on again, “pretty much like this right?”

The ball zoomed around in a plane that passed through the latitude of Toronto.”Now gravity is pulling the golf ball down slightly compared to the force of the thread pulling it. It must be dipped down toward the floor a half degree or so. You can see it dip lower as it spins down to a stop. It just swings over on the thread a bit and finds an equilibrium position right?”

“Too small to see, but yeah, it must be,” he agreed.

“Now if we were talking about using material that was strained almost to the yield point, I’d worry about having it in a slight arc, with side forces on it. The primary problem has always been the weight of the cable hanging on itself, not the tension, or forces of cars climbing up and down. My new material is so much stronger there’s no need to worry about that. We’ll have a good engineering margin like proper designers know is necessary. So why is it a problem if the cable climbs off into the sky at a bit of an angle?

“Crap, I feel stupid.”

“Not at all. We just changed a part of the equation everyone assumed was a constant.”

“Let’s go back upstairs. I need another beer.”

* * *

“Can you tell me in short sensible terms why it’s so strong?

“It’s a form of Bucky too. You have a long bucky-tube, and deliberately create regular defects on the side walls. There is a high temperature superconductor inside, and it cross links through these defects, and locks the fibers together. It’s similar to how wool felts up when you pack it, but on a molecular scale. You work harden them by moving them around, and more of these side opening line up and bond. So it grows stronger as you load it and unload it, and the modulus decreases. It has about the same strength as regular bucky tube material,” which as you saw is not too shabby.

“But if you hook a battery up it will actively resist being elongated. It actually pulls back against the force applied. Pull more, it draws more current. You reach a threshold where it can’t draw any more current, and it fails spectacularly. Obviously using it to build, you need a very reliable power source, to trust something with actively powered mechanical properties. You start off with a big roll of bucky with the material inside, and keep rolling it down thinner and thinner. The excess ‘stuffing’ is squeezed out. At the end you have to draw it through diamond dies, in an intense magnetic field. Have another beer.”

* * *

“Would you like to help me build it?” Aaron asked. “I mean, you’re going there anyway, right?”

“I’d love to see you build it, but you need some real high-powered business help to bring something like that to market. You need investment bankers, and lawyers, and people I don’t know.”

“You want to go yourself. This will open the road faster than anything on the horizon. You can go while you are still a fairly young man. It will be all the other applications that pay for the Beanstalk. That will be your first work, and likely for a long time. Somebody else I wouldn’t be sure they wouldn’t get bogged down with all the other applications, and never get around to building the Stalk. I’ll have other people for various things, but I want you for my business guy.”

“This is going to change everything about bridges, and body armor, and rotating devices, pressure vessels, high pressure chemistry, synthetic diamonds, and other materials. All that has to be started, and the use of it known and standard design, before the cable goes up, for people to trust it, or indeed to even believe it will work. I’m willing to let you have the majority ownership of the Beanstalk as a separation bonus, when we are done. By that time you won’t want to work for me anymore, and I will have so much income from the other uses, it’s silly to think I can want for anything.”

“Aaron, you are talking Billions of dollars to own an orbital elevator. I don’t have the kind of capital to start to do a mailing to promote this thing.”

“So we start with lesser applications. You are good with business, I’m not. At least there isn’t any cloud hanging over my rights. I was smart enough to document all my work on this. Every time I logged on the computer, and the time line of every physical experiment I did. There is not a dollar of Government money, or an hour of University time involved. I own the intellectual property clear. I’ve even kept an even more detailed log of my work for the University, so if they say – “Well, you must have worked on it sometime.” I can say – Here, show me where it fit in. Was it while I lectured all day on April 8, 2019? Just let’s have one thing clear,” Aaron said and looked at him hard. “You try to screw me out of the whole thing, and I’ll cut the living heart out of your chest, and let you die looking at the bloody thing.” He was holding his hand out cupped between them, and looking Tim right in the eye.

Tim looked at his palm like he could see it beating there. “Partner, those are the kind of contract terms a guy doesn’t forget. But I’m still in.”

* * *

“I thought twelve years was wildly optimistic,” Aaron said. “Ten years was fantastic. You did a fine job, Tim.”

“I thought twenty years was downright depressing,” Tim countered. “I didn’t want to ride a wheelchair up the damn thing.”

They both stood and watched the dots of elevator cars accelerating away up the shiny black column. So huge it seemed unreal, and the fact it tilted off the vertical over toward the South still looked strange to Tim.

“I thought we’d have more resistance, especially from the Americans, but everything fell into place, especially the last couple years.”

Tim just looked at him with that superb poker face.

“What? You know I can’t read you when you ice over like that. But it tells me you have something going on in there, you don’t want to reveal.”

“The government got a lot more cooperative two years ago. Remember when General McPherson was retired?”

“Yes?”

“They called me in the morning you flew to Hong Kong. You remember that trip?”

“Sure, we were having trouble getting cobalt. The guy who controlled it was there.”

“McPherson had a bunch of Air Force goons, came by and give me one of those invitations you can’t turn down, to go talk with him.”

Aaron thought a minute and nodded. “Now I remember, I got the appointment, and if I took the fast plane I could be there for breakfast, and head right back. You weren’t in your office and neither was Madeline, so I called a car and hustled to the airport. I knew you had stuff to do anyway, so you wouldn’t have come along.”

“You remember when you called me next?”

Aaron made a show of thinking. “It’s been two years. From the hotel?” he asked.

“Nope, you called from the plane. General McPherson had just explained to me that the government couldn’t let one man in private control of their access to space, as a matter of national security. He was letting me know I was expected to help them in the transition to nationalization.”

“Son of a bitch.” Aaron said.

“So right at that point you call, doing paper work, and talking to me on the side all distracted. I know exactly what you sound like when you are doing that. McPherson wanted to know what was happening. I informed him that as soon as he pulled me in you, by some strange coincidence, were on a private supersonic headed for Hong Kong within ten minutes. I told him that was the first time in eight years you’d walked out like that without telling me. His communication tech looks at him and says, “Voice analysis says a bit more than 97% probability of truthfulness.”

“There’s no way he could have known we set this up,” he objected. “That’s when the other two guys with us wearing stars started getting all twitchy.

“You can listen in I assume,” I told them, and went back to your call. “You never noticed.”

“Well sure. You were always covering the mic and yelling at somebody. I never twitched at a little dead air time. I guess that would sound strange to somebody who doesn’t know us.”

“So I asked when you would be back, and as usual you were noncommittal, so I took a chance,” I said, “Aaron tell me straight. Are you coming back?”

“You always say weird stuff like – Are you going to stay in Fuji with the native girls? Some of us have work to do Aaron. Don’t you think it’s time to just buy Peru instead of the copper? I distinctly remember one time I had you on speaker phone, and you told the whole executive board of Mitsubishi you didn’t think I loved you anymore. They all think to this day that we’re secret Joy Boys. That’s how I know your calls are over. You never say hello or goodbye like normal people, you get flippant.”

“Do you remember how you signed off?

“Nah, it’s been too long. I always try to be as big a smart ass as you, but it’s hard. You’re pretty damn quick.”

“Give me a reason,” you said. “It had just been a particularly nasty week here, with snow and ice. That could explain why you said, “I might find the climate more pleasing in China,” you said that and hung up.”

“That sounds…”

“Yep, couldn’t have said anything better if we’d had a play book, and worked it out ahead of time. They thought for sure you were defecting.” The jackass looked at his creep with the military grade lie machine. Kid just shakes his head he isn’t reading any deceit at all.”

“The General says, “You expect me to believe this private citizen penetrates our security better than we hack his, and is willing to fly away from all this wealth he has created these last eight years, and will start over again in China?”

“So I told him a little bit of the truth.”

“I don’t expect you to believe anything. I doubt your capacity. But one of my main jobs is spreading his money all over the planet as fast as it comes in, so some self-important fascist, who couldn’t start to create what he has created, can’t just walk in and steal it without even a gun in his hand. That ‘private citizen’ just sold licenses this quarter greater than the GNP of France, I told him.”

“What can we do? One of the other Generals had the sense to ask.

“I have no idea,” I told him. “I have no idea who he uses, or how he gets intelligence. I’m his business man, and he keeps Security, and every other critical function compartmented as hell. Are you familiar with when his University sued him, and tried to take his patents?” I asked them. “His lawyers came into court with twenty-six spiral bound notebooks. They were provably his holographic documents by the handwriting, and their age was testable. They were simply too extensive to have been generated as a fraud in the available time. They detailed any period of ten minutes in his life for the last six years, to prove he made his invention on his own time. They documented every drive, every meal, every phone call, and movie he saw. He even documented when he took a crap. What kind of a man foresees he’s going to need something like that? Every point you could check like stopping to buy fuel for his car, or if he bought a coffee with his paycard, was accurate. I’m not stupid and I do know for damn sure I’m not going to cross him.”

“Thank you, Tim.”

“Don’t thank me. I related to them the little speech you gave me about ripping my living heart out, and letting me die staring at the bloody thing if I tried to screw you.” The asshole actually had the nerve to look at his techie and confirm I wasn’t making it up.”

“Oh, my.”

“All I could suggest to them was that they dismantle whatever idiotic scheme they had devised, and if you thought they could be trusted to mean it, you’d find out and you’d come back. I wasn’t about advise you what to do when you obviously had better sources of advice than me. I was going to go back to work, and hope the whole sorry mess blew over. And I did.”

“Wow, the whole thing was a gigantic bluff,” Aaron said smiling. But his eyes weren’t laughing anymore than they had been for the heart speech.

“Was it? You always have kept everyone separated doing their own job. I barely know we have a Security department. Except they are there instantly if you need them. I thought maybe it was bluff, but Hiroshi saw me last year, and started reminiscing about when you flew out to talk to him. Funny how people remember and replay a visit with an important person, when mundane things are forgotten. A fellow might be in the army, and sixty years later what he remembers is the day the President visited his outfit, and shook hands with him. Hiroshi said how impressed he was with your decisiveness. He remembered how you dashed to the plane in order to get there for a breakfast meeting, and then called him, when in the air, to make the appointment, not the other way around. ‘How can you turn down a person with that force of will?’ he asked.”

“Well it’s been two years, those things get kind of hazy,” Aaron allowed, and looked at Tim with honest affection. “You know, I told you I wanted you for my business guy. It wasn’t really your concern who took care of other matters, or how. I’d say everyone did a splendid job. It’s time for me to hand over the rest of my stock in the Beanstalk like I promised. You’ve had your fill of running back down here for little problems these last couple months. I expect I’ll come up for a weekend, and see how you are doing. You can show me the sights, take me to Apollo Park.”

“I’d love that, but don’t dawdle. Things are so much cheaper now, and building up so fast, I expect to be able to buy commercial passage to Mars pretty soon. I think I’d like to see it before it is all crowded.”

Aaron nodded agreement, but had that distracted look he always got when he was really thinking. “I expect you already know, it would be much easier to build an elevator on Mars than Earth. I mean, as long as you are going there anyway,” he pointed out.

END

Rights reserved

New Banner

Mr. Lutz posted this art to FaceBook and invited anyone to use it. Note I left his attribution and copyright in the corner. His space station seemed much more science-fictiony than my flower photography. I did stretch it a bit to make it a banner. It retains the feeling really well.

Another Big Snippet of “Conspiracy Theory”

Chapter 2

The rental car clerk acted like he was a criminal for wanting a small pickup truck. He kept a two seat electric run-about for commuting to work and shopping. If the young woman was such a strict environmentalist, why was she even working for a car rental company? His little commuter car wouldn’t make it half way to Sacramento on a charge. Not to mention he’d be cramming his junk in the passenger foot well, and on the seat to bring his camping and fishing gear along. That meant it was visible, and a target for theft every time he stopped, even if he locked up.

He sent an e-mail around to his entire address book, offering to haul anything north with him that folks needed moved. No price being mentioned, so nobody could accuse him of running an illicit business. He got two jobs lined up, both this side of Sacramento. One a college student who wanted his dorm furnishings moved back home, and a lady friend who wanted him to haul a couple boxes of specialty dry goods and groceries to her mom up north. The price differential between LA and northern areas made it well worthwhile. Even in a town the size of the Capital, things ran higher.

A third offer to send a sealed box he turned down, when the point was strongly made he could not open it to see what he was hauling. They must think he fell off the turnip truck yesterday.

The little side jobs covered his fuel costs for almost half the trip, and gave him a bit more to spend up north. He’d be able to eat in restaurants a couple more times if he wanted and still be in budget.

He had a tarp over his load although rain was unlikely. Another truck slowed down, passing him once along the way, and the passenger looked him over, more than the vehicle or the load. Old guys had a reputation with the younger criminals. Far too many of them still had guns stashed away, from when you could buy them legally, and worse they knew how to use them. A worry that had some basis with him. The young fellow turned and said something to his driver and they pulled away. Jack was older, but he didn’t look soft or addle brained, and he favored a buzz cut like ex-military, which he was.

The retired lady was grateful for her supplies, and fed him lunch. She was so friendly he was glad of the furniture on the back of the truck, that still needed delivery. She had that look in her eye, that said with a little training he could be cleaned up and domesticated. He’d had enough of that thank you.

The parents of the college student were unprepared to unload his truck. He’d made clear his price did not include moving heavy furniture. The man looked to be about fifty-five, but if anything he was in worse shape to move furniture than Jack. It took the father driving somewhere in his car, and returning with two young men who didn’t speak English, to get the load off. He must know a place day laborers hung out for work. The fellow was smart enough to have them put the stuff in the garage. Letting casual labor case the inside of your house was dangerous. He saw them being paid cash, and shaking the fellow’s hand. He didn’t look all that happy about it, but they did.

The little motel he went to next was off the beaten path now. It hadn’t been when it was built. It survived the loss of traffic on the road by being cheap, and having minimal services. The bed was decent though, not broken down, and everything was clean if worn. The man was obviously a handy-man, and maintained the place himself. It was so old they gave him a brass key for his door.

Like the day laborers, the owners took their payment in cash, and that was good for a one-third discount from the price they quoted the first time he’d come here. They never asked for cash, or quoted a different price in case he was wired. They just wordlessly left a fifty on the counter, after he laid down three. If they stopped doing that he couldn’t complain, but he could, and might, look for another place to stop.

There was no TV, no wireless, and no ice machine. There was a sign saying unscrewing any of the LED lights would set off an alarm in the office, and if the room was unoccupied for more than a half-hour the air conditioning shut itself off. The bath had no soap, a single half-sized roll of toilet paper and one bath size towel. It wouldn’t surprise him if the towel had a chip sewn in it. It certainly would if he were owner.

It was early in the fall and he was content to ignore the heater unit, and let the room cool off. He spread a camping ground cloth on the bed and brought in a sleeping bag, using them on top of the bed linens. Everything was so clean he doubted the place would have bed bugs, but why test it?

He had a stout hardwood 2×4, cut with a notch in the end that went on all his road trips, and jammed that under the door handle. It would take much more than a good hit with your shoulder to open the door with that in place. He put his own smoke and CO detector on top of the dresser, and laid back on the bed to read a little before sleeping. The place was quiet, and he finally turned in when his reader beeped at the time he’d set.

Chapter 3

With everything delivered his time was his own now. It was a pleasant drive around Sacramento. He bypassed the downtown and got through between the noon traffic and the evening rush. They claimed the air in LA was clean now, but the air up here sure smelled better. LA air might not have sot, and aerosols, and other crud in it now, but it also lacked sage and pine trees and wild flowers. It was more relaxing to drive here too, the streets not all jammed. The first time he drove right up to a cross intersection, and didn’t have to join a line and inch up until it was his turn, it felt strange.

Tangent Fabrication was not a hole in the wall shop, in an industrial park. It was a campus of buildings, with greenery around it that would have been extravagant down in LA. As much for the water allowance as the idle square footage. They had three gates into the complex and fencing all the way around. No signs, just street numbers. A lot of businesses did that now. The only thing not behind chain link was about ten meters of façade, that was the public entry to their offices.

The gates were all manned, not automated, and the loading docks were completely hidden from public view. He did another circuit of the property going the other way, looking for somewhere he could park and observe the facility. There simply wasn’t any. All the adjoining businesses were of a nature that they wouldn’t want a strange vehicle on their approaches or parking lot. There was no street parking, even if it wouldn’t be painfully obvious.

He hadn’t learned much, except they seemed well funded, had good taste in architecture, and liked their privacy. There weren’t a bunch of security cameras hanging everywhere to intimidate would-be burglars, but they could be very small and well hidden now, if you weren’t into putting on a big security theater.

That’s all he’d learn today for sure. Possibly he could check out the satellite view of them later. He was running out of daylight, and wanted to get a few miles north, and get a room for the night. There was an independent little place that looked good online. They posted a few pix and it looked like his kind of place, cheap.

The motel was just like the online pix. They unfortunately didn’t show the sports bar next door, favored by some sort of convention of loud motorcycles. The parking lot was full of bikes, whose owners had already gotten rooms, far from home, or anticipating they would be too drunk to ride home when the bar closed. The few not at the bar yet, were ripping up and down the parking lot, showing off their ride to new friends, or old friends who hadn’t seen their latest acquisition.

Jack took the parking lot exhibition to be a preview of what would be happening at three AM, when the bar let out. It was easily into dusk, but he didn’t even go in, he decided to head on down the road anyway, hoping to find something not too ramshackle, and not extravagantly expensive either.

Two young fellows in a nice little burgundy SUV had pulled into the office check-in lane behind him. They sat briefly, looking unbelieving at the spectacle in the parking lot, and he could see them talking to each other. They didn’t go in the office. When he left they weren’t far behind. They must want to sleep, and had apparently figured out the same thing he had, that they wouldn’t be doing much of that here tonight. Thank goodness he didn’t have reservations held by his credit card.

It quickly became apparent he was near the edge of the suburbs. There were fewer commercial buildings, and he could see he’d be back out in the country pretty soon. When a non-chain place had a vacancy sign a couple miles along, he pulled in. The young fellows apparently were pickier, and continued down the road. It was near dark and he was happy to be off the highway after dark.

The room was one-eighty, and when he counted out the money in twenties the fellow gave him no discount. That was OK, once, but he’d find a cheaper place if he came this way again. It did have a few amenities though. Two towels and washcloths, and a coffee dispenser in the 24-hour lobby, that mixed each cup from liquid concentrate. A sign promised there would be donuts in the morning.

The bed was decent, and he could park right in front of his door. He left nothing in the truck to steal, so that made it a little more to re-pack it in the morning. He wedged his board under the door knob, and positioned everything on the night stand to find in the dark if need be. His flashlight the first item at hand, to help him recover the rest.

In the morning the compact burgundy SUV was parked next to him. He was amused, and wondered how far down the road they’d continued, before giving up finding a room, and turning back last night. However far, they still hadn’t roused out when he was loaded and pulled away. The donuts were local made, not factory food. The clerk hadn’t batted an eye when he took two, and loaded up his small thermos off the coffee machine. That was worth ten bucks against the cost of the room, making him feel a little better.

He found a tiny restaurant along the way that had a decent breakfast. When he did a web search it didn’t come up on the search engine. The young woman who took his order called it out to the older man cooking in some foreign language. Even recent immigrants usually knew the advantages of being listed online now. He briefly considered speaking to the man, it looked like he was the father, and the place was a family operation. However he reconsidered after reflecting that almost every seat in the place was filled. They seemed to be doing fine without his marketing help.

When he went back to his truck the sun was up a little. It made very visible that his rental had a film of dust on it. He’d parked away from the other cars deliberately since his stuff was in the truck cab. Nobody wanted to mess with a vehicle sitting all alone where you were obvious. In a full lot nobody paid any attention when there were people between cars, you couldn’t really see what they were doing anyway. Standing off alone everything you did was visible, even from a distance. There was a big palm print where somebody had leaned on the front fender, by the right wheel, on the side away from the restaurant.

Jack hesitated, thinking about getting out and checking his tire before moving, but the truck wasn’t down at that corner. If he’d done something to a fellow’s truck, he’d watch to see if he drove off normally. Unless it was a bomb of course. He’d had some adventures as a young man, but nothing that should follow him this many years, and nothing worth a bomb, at least in his mind. Sitting too long would make it as obvious something was bothering him as getting back out and looking, so he started up and headed for the road, feeling carefully that the truck was level and steered straight. Stopping hard well before the street, to make certain the brakes didn’t fail.

When he got down the road a bit he saw a self-wash place that let you rinse your vehicle off with a high-pressure wand. It might be ten bucks wasted, but the wash bays were narrow, and there was a high block wall separating the wash from the residential area behind. On the opposite side of the road there was a fenced off industrial area, right up to about three meters from the curb. Nobody could see what he was doing in the narrow bay, except by driving past, and that gave them just an instant’s view.

He went over the truck thoroughly, figuring if anybody was following him, and looked in on him they would make one pass quickly, and position themselves well off the road further along to watch for him to resume his journey. When it was all rinsed off he knelt and felt inside the fender by where the hand print had been. High up was a boxy shape, candy bar sized, with a wire hanging from it. When he pushed on it pretty hard it slid on the metal, so it was magnetic. He didn’t pick it off for fear it would sense that and report it. He just left it there, hung the wash wand back in the wall bracket, and resumed his drive.

The more he thought about it, the tracer might as easily have been put on at his motel last night. He hadn’t noticed the palm print there, but it had been in shade, and with other vehicles parked close to him he might not have thought anything about it back there if he had seen it. If so he was really fortunate not to have noticed it earlier, when he’d have dismissed it easier.

So, who would care where he was going? Could the police suspect him of hauling more than used dorm furniture and few boxes of groceries? It didn’t seem likely. If they did, he’d expect it would have been the fellow offering him the sealed box who was a cop, trying to entrap him. If so he’d passed that test with flying colors. No way they’d expend the resources to track him. It wasn’t the bug, you could buy those cheap. Rather it was the time and manpower to follow the bug and document his moves. The police had never tracked him before, on a half dozen other fishing trips, when he’d hauled other stuff.

The only thing different about this trip was Tangent Fabrication. Maybe driving around their place twice opposite directions hadn’t been so smart. A lot of big companies orbited a drone overhead now for a security overview. And if he hadn’t seen any external cameras, that didn’t mean they weren’t there. Even a cheap one now could read his license plate easily. That just confirmed to him that something smelled about Tangent. They had something to hide. Something oddly enough to do with space, and he wanted to know what, but didn’t see how he could find out with his limited resources.

He’d been interested in space as a kid, wild about rockets, following everything about the space program in the news. He’d just assumed the future would be one where he as an adult could buy a ticket to low Earth orbit, if not the moon. It had been a bitter disappointment when there wasn’t a moon colony, and at least a voyage of exploration to Mars by now. The various sub-orbital flights one could buy here and in Europe didn’t excite him. He felt anyone who bragged on being an astronaut for anything less than an orbital flight were deluding themselves.

First chapter of a possible book

See if you can tell where this is going. Tell me what you think.

HooDoo

Chapter 1

The cab was in a queue of much nicer cars. There was a canopy from the door of his destination clear to the curb, and very much needed today, with a steady cold rain. A uniformed doorman with a huge umbrella shielded guests, as they stepped across to shelter.

The cabby was angry, scowling at him in the mirror. He’d pretended to not understand English very well when he’d picked David up at the airport. Then he’d taken off on a circuitous route, designed to inflate the fare. David checked the man’s license to confirm his name fit his appearance, and then corrected him in harsh terms in Farsi, producing a shocked expression, and grudging compliance. Then he’d wanted to drop David off at the curb, well away from the door. He would have been soaked through before getting to cover.

Not that he wasn’t eager to leave. The well entrenched stink of garlic and sweat seeped around the bullet-proof partition, and infused the whole cab. The insult was compounded when they pulled up, and the uniformed doorman tried to open the door. It was locked, as if David was some deadbeat who might skip on the fare. It remained locked, until David swiped his pay card past the pay-point bolted on the partition.

He stepped out of the cab, but declined to do more than leave the man with just his fare and no tip. The cabbie glared at him, but voiced no insult. He had no idea how lucky he was today. David had other irons in the fire, and other players of immediate concern, starting with his half brother, who had exited the limo in front of him in line.

Mark was already at the front door of the office building as David exited the cab. David hadn’t seen him in years, yet the sight of him stirred stale animus. The man radiated arrogance in his every step and gesture. It was a mark common to the entire family. He watched another liveried worker ease the massive brass and glass door shut behind his brother, keeping his hand on the door as David approached.

His half brother was black as a piece of coal, and proud of it. The whole family was fiercely proud of the fact they were not the descendants of slaves, but had come to America as immigrants. Around the turn of the previous century, when legal entry for their race was near impossible, they came in as household servants of a French diplomatic family, and stayed to the astonishment of their employers. A very unusual history, but not one he could personally see as relevant today. Yet they all retained the French language, and made a point of teaching it to the children.

He was probably the only one of the family in town, who hadn’t been met at the airport by a driver, and treated with dignity. No private limo had been available at the airport, so his only choice had been a grimy hack, that smelled like a Basra slum. As it was, he wouldn’t have been on time if he hadn’t been able to intimidate the driver.

The doorman greeted him with a friendly, “Good afternoon, sir,” but the man didn’t know his name. He nodded pleasantly, the cabbie dismissed from his thoughts in just a few steps. He’d been in the building once when he was seventeen, and never since. That made it eight years since he’d been here, and the place looked exactly the same. Pale Italian marble walls and intricate terrazzo flooring didn’t lend themselves to a remodeling every few years, like a modern office building with steel stud walls and carpeted floors. It contained the offices of his father’s attorneys. They fancied themselves the family’s attorneys, but David retained another firm, who he was certain would not mistake his father’s interests or the family’s as his.

He was here to hear his father’s will read. Crenshaw, of Henry, McPherson, and Crenshaw called him in Atlanta just yesterday, and told him he was a beneficiary. That’s all he would tell him, suggesting strongly he be there. If he’d interrupted his schedule to receive the equivalent of a posthumous raspberry from his father, he was going to be seriously pissed. To the point he’d find some way to make a certain attorney intensely unhappy. It was possible he had been left a final scolding, and the nominal dollar that made it more difficult to contest a will’s provisions.

His mother died six years ago, and he’d ignored the hostility from the family to attend her funeral. When his father passed recently he’d been in Germany, and they managed a memorial service so quickly he hadn’t been able to get back. He was pretty sure that’s exactly what they had in mind. With the reading of the will, he doubted they could exclude him without dangerous legal consequences. They had still failed to notify him by letter, rushing him with a phone call just a day ago. He had to wonder if he’d been overseas, if he’d have been notified at all.

The high ceilings and marble made the sound of his hard dress shoes on stone echo in the corridor. The elevators were old fashioned, with a brass arrow above each door indicating the floor it had reached. He’d hung back to let Mark get ahead of him. Neither would fancy sharing an elevator with the other. He punched a call button and took his coat off, giving it a little shake to rid it of any water beaded on.

The law firm entry was slightly more modern than the building. It had a single glass door, with a glass panel on each side. One bore the name of the partners in gold letters. The Secretary inside looked up at him, expectantly.

“I’m here for the Carpenter reading,” he told her.

“Thank you,” she said grabbing a clipboard. “You are?”

“David Carpenter,” he supplied. “The son.”

“Excellent,” she said, checking off a line on the document.

She pouted a bit at the list. David wondered if the family relationships were noted, and what it said beside he and Mark’s name.

“Everyone is here now.” She didn’t seem inclined to take his coat, or direct him where to go.

David thought of his offices, and wondered if their own receptionists were ever as clueless. He’d have to have a friend test them. It was certainly a security issue too.

“So, if you could find somebody to take my coat, I can wander around until I find the family,” he suggested. If that didn’t give her a hint, he’d have to be blunt.

“Oh, let me take that. There’s a rack in the conference room. Just follow me,” she said coming around the desk.” As far as he could tell, she just left the front door unmanned and unlocked, while she took him out of sight. There was no security here at all.

The conference room had the normal long table, but it also had a nice lounge, with upholstered furniture, and a table with a coffee maker and fixings. The family had all the soft furniture occupied, and a couple of the cousin’s children sitting half way down the conference table, were playing some hand held computer games.

David grabbed a high backed executive chair from the conference table, and wheeled it over by the windows. The noise level in the room had gone down a notch when he entered, and the receptionist removed herself without a word after hanging his coat. David looked around at his relatives, but didn’t greet or acknowledge any except Mark, who nodded, and he nodded back, a neutral sort of gesture. Everyone else avoided his eyes. Mark was looking older. He’d be thirty-five now, a full decade separating them. There were a few uncomfortable strangers, being ignored just as thoroughly as him.

Dave went over and helped himself to the coffee. He poured a bit in a cup and sniffed it. It smelled good enough to take a taste. Not bad, he decided, surprised. He poured, and then added cream, playing an old game his father had hated. He tried to get the coffee the same color as the back of his hand. It came close, but no match. The few times he succeeded seemed to require evaporated milk, and that was rarely offered except in remote areas, and private homes.

The rest of his family couldn’t play the game. They all matched a strong espresso straight up, as his father had. That was one thing they had against him, but there was more than that. They resented his independent success, and the fact he didn’t knuckle under to his father, as almost every one of them had at one time or another. His father had made fortunes in food service, real estate, and property management. David had dropped out of collage early, and formed a company around several patents he owned. Space based com, and aerospace electronics, was what he designed and sometimes actually built. His hardware was all through LEO and the moon. Someday he hoped to get out there himself.

He sat in the chair sideways to the windows, watching the rain hammer down, and sipped his coffee. Some of the family were fidgety, but patience was something he’d taught himself.

Crenshaw came in with several folders. He looked at the children playing at the table, and everyone comfortable in the lounge, and decided to drag a chair over like David, instead of uprooting all of them. He pulled up close enough they were a half circle before him, and he could speak normally. He distributed copies of the will. By the time he was seated some were on the second page. He was very casual crossing his leg over his knee to make a desk for the folders. David thought how his tailor would be outraged, to see him stretching the knees of his trousers out.

“Thank you all for coming. I’ve been instructed to read Joshua Carpenter’s will as he wrote it, with no abbreviations. I will say, he made conditional bequests, which we encouraged him not to do. They complicate matters, and sometimes result in the final disposition of the estate being delayed. Mr. Carpenter therefore said that I should remind you, and I quote. “If my family decides to contest the provisions of my will, I have instructed the firm to fight it vigorously in the courts, sparing no hours or effort. If you are collectively so foolish as to see the money wasted on extravagant billings to lawyers, rather than let someone else get a chunk of it, so be it.”

Crenshaw looked over the tops of his half glasses at them. “I think you will find the body of his will, has the same blunt economy of expression.”

“I, Joshua Carpenter, being of sound body as I write this document, and more importantly of sound and undiminished mind,” – ‘Here he attached certification from his physician and an attending psychologist as to his condition,’ Crenshaw noted, “do make this my true and final will,” he droned on through more boiler plate.

“To the following blood relatives I leave the sum of one-hundred dollars instead of the traditional dollar, to establish I did indeed remember them, but felt this was an adequate bequest. I do this because if any of you answered the call to the reading of my will, I don’t wish to insult you with a dollar for your morning. Most of you have not spoken with me in years, and a hundred dollars is adequate compensation for a morning lost.”

“There is a list of thirty-eight recipients of a hundred dollars, only two of whom have come in today. The rest will be sent a check by certified mail.”

Well, at least I’ve got a hundred, even if that wouldn’t pay the air fare, David thought.

“To my cousin Queena’s children, I leave two-hundred-fifty-thousand dollars each, conditioned on them attending a university, starting sometime between the age of eighteen and twenty-one.” Neither of the children at the table looked up. Nor had they been given hard copies, although their mother had. “Henry, McPherson, and Crenshaw shall disperse funds sufficient to cover their documented expenses while at university, and a lump sum of any remainder upon graduation.”

“To my secretary, Eva Johnson, I bequest five-hundred-thousand dollars. Thank you for your loyalty, and the many times you put extra effort into your work. Now, I’d suggest you and your husband Bob can pay off your mortgage, and I hope this helps make you a little more comfortable. To my miserable family, no I wasn’t sleeping with her, or I’d have left her several times as much.”

“To John Harding, the bartender at Elaine’s, I leave an identical gift of a half million dollars. John listened when I wanted, and never shorted my drink or assumed he had a tip coming. Also he could mix the best vodka gimlet straight up I ever drank. I bet you didn’t even know I knew your last name, did you John?”

A beefy fellow who had a five o’clock shadow, and looked like a wise-guy, was sitting with his mouth hanging open in shock.

“To my son by my first marriage Mark, I leave the sum of ten-million dollars.” That cause a stir and a murmuring to pass around the room. “While this is not the bulk of my estate it should offer you security for the rest of your life, if you do not slip into the error of thinking yourself independently wealthy. If you fall into the trap of spending wildly on homes, cars, and boats, it will be gone faster than you can imagine. You are not receiving the bulk of my estate, because I judge you incapable of maintaining the businesses I’ve created over a long period. When major adjustments are needed, I don’t think you are the decisive, strong willed sort, to make them. There are thousands of people in my companies, depending on them for their livelihoods, and I couldn’t throw their futures away on the chance I’m wrong, and you’d rally to the occasion.”

“To my son by my last marriage David, I leave the rest of my estate conditionally. He must travel to Africa, and take a walking pilgrimage with a traditional healer in our Homeland. I found doing so the firm basis of much of my business ability. I believe he has the temperament, and genetic make-up, to benefit from the experience. If he is unwilling to do so, I leave him the same ten million dollars as his half-brother, and will have my counsel Henry, McPherson, and Crenshaw put the balance of my estate in a trust, with professional management, for the benefit of future generations of the Carpenter family. This will have the additional benefit of encouraging you to produce such future generations, instead of selfishly remaining childless.”

The crowd was making quite a bit of noise, several people with their heads together whispering urgently.

Crenshaw looked at David, seeming really interested for the first time. “These are the conditions of your undertaking the pilgrimage. If you decide to do so, you will receive an immediate payment of ten million dollars the same as your half-brother. You will leave and undertake your mission within thirty days. You must survive, and report back to the firm within three years, as to whether you were successful in accomplishing your duty. You must decide today, before you leave the building.”

“He gets to decide himself if he was successful?” Mark asked, incredulous.

“Yes,” Crenshaw confirmed, smiling.

“He can hole up in a hotel, and drink and whore, and never see the back country.”

“Indeed, he could, if he was so disposed. Mr. Carpenter must have made the judgment he was of a character not to do so. We were not instructed to hire investigators to check on him. I imagine some of you might.” Something about the way he said it made it an accusation.

“I have my own company, and people depending on me. I’m not sure I want to do this,” David protested. Most of the family were looking at him like he’d lost his mind. “I’ve not kept up with what my dad was doing. May I ask what the remainder of his estate amounts to, over the minimum bequests?”

“After the twenty-one million-five-hundred-three and eight-hundred dollars of bequests, the total value of all stocks, properties, and insurance, will approximate one-hundred-seven million. The total will vary with market conditions, expenses, and we have ongoing hours billed. But that was the value yesterday, give or take a million.”

The murmur from the relatives was loud, and Crenshaw frowned disapproving.

“I had no idea,” David told him. “I thought a few tens of millions at most.”

“Three or four years ago, yes,” Mr. Crenshaw confirmed. “The market has been kind.”

“In that case I shall undertake to complete his request,” David told him.

A Different Pespective is uploaded

It should be propagated in the system and searchable in 12 hours. It may take a bit to show up in my links at the right or on my author’s page.

A Different Perspective

I finally have my proofed document and am too sick to go through it. I have a nasty intestinal infection that is likely from a bad salad, and am taking really strong antibiotics.