Mission: Flight To Mars

Mission: Flight to Mars

  By V. A. Jeffrey

  Copyright © 2014

  All rights reserved.

  Artwork by Streetlight Graphics

  An Epistle Publishing book

  The stories contained in this book are works of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, past or present is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved.

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  Mission: Lights of Langrenus

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  Epilogue

  1

  "I've put in a good word for you, Bob. Don't know how much good it's actually done, but. . ." he trailed off. He had that doubtful, pitying look again that drove me nuts. I hated being pitied, even if I was a pariah. I guess people couldn't help it whenever my name was tossed around the water coolers. And there were a whole lot of water coolers at Vartan Inc.

  "Don't worry about it, Fred," I said, putting on my well-worn, brave face. "It will just create problems for you. I'll either get fired or I won't." If I was fired, which was very likely, I wouldn't be able to work in the industry again. But I tried my best not to think about the magnitude of the issue I was facing. I had dared to call out, continuously, the chief financial officer of Vartan Industries for theft, fraud, embezzlement of funds and selling company secrets to our biggest competitor, Whitney Corporation. I'm still not sure what I was smoking when I decided to go on the warpath against Bradford Teely. Even though I had TRUTH AND JUSTICE on my side it seemed a lot of folks around here thought the truth was relative, justice was over-rated and that I had forgotten my place.

  I got the dreaded call again. Fred looked destroyed. I threw him a tired and exasperated look and he got the message. After he left I took a pill with a drink of tepid water, slowly rose from my desk and started off toward the head supervisor's office. I could feel sharp sparks shooting throughout my body with each step. My blood pressure was through the roof! Would I even make it home today without having a stroke? I focused on the gleaming surfaces of the ceilings and walls of the corridors down the long, bright halls. I concentrated on the thousands of employees working below in the assembly rooms. All busy as bees. I focused on the heavy doors leading from the department I worked into the air-sanitized section that led to the sterilized lab rooms of the micro-chip processing units and fabs. On every gleaming surface I could find, I focused my attention, to distract myself, to bolster myself.

  That was how I made it to the supervisor's office. I felt as if I were floating in a dream. It was strange but even though something was rotten deep within this company and I'd tried to bring attention to it, my focus on external surfaces kept my mind clear and calm. Behind those doors, my career was going to end in a toxic meltdown. Perhaps I could at least salvage what remained of my dignity before I was mauled and everything I'd worked for left in blasted shreds. . .

  "Okay. I'm going to ask you again, Robert," he said, his voice full of frost. I thought I could detect a faint bit of a smirk in his expression. "at what point did you begin to notice that products from the assembly lines in Section C-30 were going to Recycling instead of to their intended destination?"

  "As I've said many times before," I kept my voice level and calm, "the latest VPHILM model android? You know, Will?" I said pointedly, still angry over that incident.

  "Yes, we're aware of the last VPHILM model," he said dryly. The others sitting around looked on, stony-faced.

  "When he worked with me on the floor he first alerted me about the problem. This was about three years ago."

  "I also remember that model being destroyed because of too many malfunctions in his programming," he said. The others in the room nodded, concurring like sheep. I couldn't believe this. After three years, they were still holding to that lie.

  "I found it interesting that he was destroyed after I revealed the discrepancies found between the assembly line floor and Recycling and a certain someone's computer logs, that Will discovered!" I said. I was no longer allowed to accuse the CFO of what I, and I'm sure others, knew he was doing.

  "Careful, Mr. Astor. We don't intend to go down that road again. Mr. Teely is a well respected and highly influential man at Vartan. He has a well-regarded reputation in the industry. He is not the one in danger of losing his career here," he said coldly. For the past two and a half years they had been trying to get me to admit to something I knew and suspected they knew, was false; that I was responsible for robbing the company.

  "You've been here for fifteen years, Mr. Astor. We expect competence from someone in your position." Said one of the supervisors. This one, his last name was Grant, had a permanent sneer fixed on his face and made me want to punch that smirk right through his face. Grant's eyes always made my skin crawl. I couldn't figure out why. He intimidated people every time he decided to fix that icy, raw gaze on them, which was why he was always at every disciplinary hearing in section C-30. He had the ability to unnerve people with that odd stare; a stare that made you feel as if he were flaying you alive. I held his gaze for a few moments and then looked away from him back to the smirking chimp flunky heading this farce. I used to hear my father talk of unions. I was sorry they had all finally been done away with decades ago. I could use a representative now.

  "Don't presume to point fingers at others for what is clearly, from what we have found in our fact-finding investigation, your own negligence," he bristled.

  "Or deception," added Grant, his voice low and sly, that sneer returned. This time I threw him a nasty look, holding his gaze longer, trying my best to match steel for steel. A dangerous shadow fell across his face. He didn't like that at all. But I was so angry by this point that I refused to allow him to throw me off. I wasn't going to be here much longer. I rolled my eyes and shifted my gaze back to the other one.

  I steamed silently through the hearing even though I was ready to launch a volley of accusations and reasons for why we were bleeding product and money suspiciously.

  "I told you before. It's done in such a way that the computers I use to monitor the product coming through on the floor in my department are unable to detect the issue."

  "Why? Your machines are working fine. We went through your logs numerous times and saw no such difficulties. In fact, we found odd discrepancies in the data streams. . ."

  "Oh, right! Discrepancies in the data streams that led you to believe that I'm responsible for the problem. So then why would I not bother to cover up my supposed theft if I knew it could be traced back to me? If I knew an investigation was going to require my machines to be examined? I was framed!"

  "Always the resort of the conspiracy theorists and the guilty," sneered Grant and they laughed at this. I felt myself breaking out in a sweat. I decided to keep silent as much as possible for the duration of the meeting. My hands trembled slightly. I balled them up in fists to keep my temper under control.

  "You have been working with state of the art machines and software, yet you have no explanation for these discrepancies?"

  "Here we go again," I said.

  "No answer?" He asked again, expectantly. Once more unto the breach, dear fiends! I had a hard time seeing this group as true friends of anyone.

  "Rather, he refuses to give the obvious one," Grant goaded. His strange eyes flashed d
angerously. I remained quiet. Someone had set me up because I had unwisely, pointed the finger at the true culprit. Mr. Vartan, whom I had previously thought would address the issue was himself fighting for his own position as CEO with the board of directors. Word was he was on his way to being ousted. He'd left me with no protection from the CFO and his lackeys.

  "I told you before, I have no answer for that. However these things are getting through, it's not coming from my end," I insisted.

  "And yet, our investigation indicates that this problem is definitely coming from your end," said the lead supervisor. Trembling slightly, I was ready to blow my stack.

  "I wasn't hired as a security agent to monitor or prevent theft. I was hired to make sure the products coming through this department are of excellent quality. I'm a quality assurance agent." They all smiled at each other knowingly.

  "It is part of your job description, whether you acknowledge it or not. We can no longer see any reason to keep you on, Robert. We've gone over this too many times. And besides that, there is much concern over your mental stability. That is not a safe and acceptable combination here." Well duh!

  "Be thankful we don't bring the law down on you. We would be within our rights to bring charges of theft," said Grant. The lead supervisor finally released the last volley. With a little too much glee, I thought.

  "You are not able to fulfill the duties for your position, Mr. Astor. We're afraid-" he was cut off abruptly by a shrill beeping. There was a call on the intercom at his desk. Why couldn't you just send me an email or a text? I thought. I could see that hateful sneer twisting round Grant's face again. Insufferable ass. I felt my face growing hot. So it was done. The intercom beeped again. The lead lackey answered it. He shot me a brief, quizzical look, tapped the intercom screen on his desk and picked up the receiver.

  "Yes?" His face changed from a smirk to a frown and then surprised dismay. "Ah. . .yes, yes! I understand. No. . .uh, well, yes. I understand. Yes." His face turned bright pink, then purplish until he looked like a head of purple cabbage. Well! This was certainly an interesting development. Grant narrowed his strangely colored eyes. And I was sitting here wondering what in the world was happening. I was tired. I was ready to be rid of the harassment. At least I'd get my sanity back.

  How I would tell my wife that I no longer had a job was going to be much more difficult.

  He set the receiver down with a decided, hard click and looked me up and down slowly. The other four gave him questioning looks and then they glanced back at me. With a slow release of breath he finally spoke. The air in the room had changed.

  "Robert Astor. Go back to your office. You will not be let go. Make sure these shrinkage issues do not happen again. I have nothing more to say to you. This meeting is over," he said abruptly. The others gasped. Grant nearly jumped from his seat or looked as if he wanted to. The first lackey gave him a warning look.

  "E. Vartan," he said simply. Grant's face turned white with anger. I looked from one supervisor to the other. That call had changed something radically.

  "Sooooo, what? I'm not being fired and marched out of here?" I asked.

  "We have nothing more to say. Please go back to your office. Good day, Mr. Astor," he snapped. I frowned, got up and left the office, hoping to never see the inside of it again. A part of me was jumping for joy at this strange turn of events, the other part of me was dreading having to come to work in this place. A place I was once proud to be a part of.

  . . .

  Let me explain what came before. Will was an android known as a VPHILIM, which stood for Vartan Pragmatic Heuristic Impression Linear Model. He was built and put online September 7, 2147 A. D. A minor but historic day for technological progress. You see, he was the first android we'd built that could truly think for himself. In fact, the first android built, period, that could. The thing is, most people didn't realize this. Only I and a few others at the company knew it. Will began working with me soon after in my quality assurance department monitoring some of the products being created in this very department. We were making and shipping parts for spaceships, space station housing units and housing unit modules for future colonies on other planets. These were being made under contract with the U.S. government, Canada, and Great Britain. Will had found serious discrepancies in perfectly made products going to Recycling. Then these products were picked up illegally from Recycling and they completely disappeared from the system. By whom? No one knew. There were also problems with how certain allotted funds from the company were being used and where they were going. This all led back to the CFO, Bradford Teely. All these discrepancies Will detected and examined with accuracy and he relayed these problems to me. I, in turn, relayed them to the now embattled CEO, Elias Vartan. He made a show of seeing about the matter but what happened instead was a nightmare of epic proportions that unfolded right in my lap. The word got back to Teely that there would be an investigation of his accounts and his activities. Things went downhill for me, fast!

  First, Will was destroyed and the excuse given was that there was some kind of irreparable malfunctioning in his programming. The next three years turned out to be the worst years of my professional life. The CFO made it his mission to make my life miserable. For whatever reason, he wasn't able to get me fired immediately. So he resorted to attacking me through his minions. I soon found myself in "progress" report meetings and disciplinary hearings with my supervisors almost every week. I never heard from the CEO again. My work was sabotaged. Sometimes my computers had mysterious viruses and I was blamed for the system wide issues they caused, not only in my department but in others too. I'd been suspended from work without pay on four occasions, months at a time. I was accused of holding up and disrupting workflow. I was accused of intentionally being lazy or slow, incompetent and also accused of theft. My reputation as a team player and a good, loyal employee had steadily been destroyed. Loyalty to the company was everything around here. In fact, it was right up there with patriotism, no matter what company you worked for. People stopped speaking to me and some even grew to loathe me.

  I was nearly a nervous wreck by the third year and started taking anxiety medication. Two weeks ago I'd received a letter through company mail that because of my insurance reporting to my employer of my new medical prescription for anxiety, that I needed to come in for a mental health evaluation. Folks with mental health issues weren't qualified to work here. Yet, they couldn't simply fire me like they wanted to. They'd tried their best to hound me out of my job and failed.

  Which explained the farce that had become my work life.

  Then one day, over a mysterious intercom call, it was over. Most people avoided eye contact with me these days except Chip, Jerome and sometimes Fred. Others stayed far away, not wanting to share in my plagues. But finally, I'd received a victory.

  And by the way, my doctor just put me on light duty and this was enforced without complaint. After that fateful meeting, my workday was temporarily reduced to four hours per day, four days a week and I didn't have to go to meetings unless they were the mandatory, Green Room kind. Mysteriously, I found when I'd signed into my company email that on my future paycheck statement I would be receiving all my back pay owed for those months I was suspended without pay. Plus, I'd received a shocking and exciting surprise when I got back to my office. One that completely turned my world inside out.

  . . .

  Vartan Industries was now the main contractor to the U. S. government to build housing modules for the new cities that would eventually be sprawled throughout the solar system. There were plenty others, of course (like Whitney Corp.!) But so far, Vartan had the best contracts.

  The moon city was already old in name as it was plucked from an ancient Moon map: Langrenus.

  And it was on everyone's lips as the place to be; our forward destiny. Even with all of the stress I'd endured the past few years at work it was hard not to feel wistful about the starry frontier.

  Langrenus was turning out to be a fast-gro
wing city and it was built around the titular crater named after Michael Florent van Landgren, a Flemish astronomer.

  I was sitting back on the couch, sipping a micro brew and watching the live progress being made in its building on the WSEL channel feed. That's short for World Space Exploration Live. The city was crawling with sub-contractors. About fourteen thousand people already lived there and more were coming. Langrenus was being peopled first by those specifically there to work either in the mines or in the continued creation of the city. There were a few bio-dome farmers there as well, architects, masons and carpenters, scientists from different disciplines, a small force of security and police and medical personnel to attend these people. A few colonies had already sprung up farther south of the capital.

  I'd received a mysterious company email message some days ago inviting me to be one of the Vartan delegates to Langrenus. Me, a nobody! I was going to get a chance to visit the moon on a special mission! After all, those gleaming buildings and most of the civilian spaceships docked there were built by Vartan Inc.

  I was of two minds about it. Part of me was excited and another part of me felt a pit in my stomach every time I recalled the letter to memory. The letter was simply signed: E. Vartan. So the old guy finally came through for me. I 'm not sure how I felt about that. Why did he wait so late to exonerate me when I was going through hell for the last three years? It didn't make any sense. I was supposed to be grateful. And I was. But I got the feeling that things were happening around me, involving me, that I couldn't understand. Nothing was making sense anymore which put me on edge. I wished I could go back to the happy-go-lucky guy I once was, who simply went to work, talked with his friends over coffee, did his job happily and then clocked out and went home to his family. That feeling of innocence and carefree life was lost and I wanted it back. Will and everything that happened after him was a gross intrusion into my life that I never asked for and at times I deeply resented it. On the outside, everything seemed the same. But it wasn't. And it unnerved me.

  Many things unnerved me. Things at work that involved me which I couldn't see. People whispering about me. Avoiding me or averting their gazes whenever they saw me coming. I was known as a troublemaker now. A label I had never sought or looked for. And I had powerful enemies now. Me, a quality assurance cog. But I found that I also had unseen allies. Maybe. I couldn't make out if they were allies or if my continued presence in the corporation served some other purpose for them. I just felt these things. It was something I took after my maternal grandmother. She was one of those empathic, hyper-sensitive types that felt emotions and hidden presences others didn't discern. It's no fun being this type of person, but I inherited this from her. I've never liked it. This was the first time in my life that I felt myself going through a major life crisis and actually having to rely on these hyper-sensitive senses.

  I turned the channel feed off, set my beer down and went out to the patio. It was a late, pleasant spring evening. The sun was finally going down at nine o'clock. My wife and kids were visiting her folks. The quietness of the house gave me time and space to think. Far above near the upper levels of the city I saw the tiny shapes of small spaceships, air taxis and fliers and the great, colorful sails of the airships passing by. We moved out here near the country to avoid the sight pollution of all the city lights and its vehicles that obscured the stars. I could still see the stars from here. The water in the pool was still and the lights underneath glowed softly. It reminded me of what some said about the gas emissions around the Langrenus crater. Soft light emanated from the crater at times. It was a known event there, a beautiful sight, like the Northern Lights. It would be nice to see it, to take the wife and kids one day and vacation there.

  I watched the last of the sun's rays set and then went inside, took a shower and got ready for bed, writing a note on the digital pad on the fridge door to my wife not to disturb me if I had already gone to sleep. The next few weeks would be insanity at work as the delegation was readying for the trip. Teely's war on me had fizzled out. But I had a feeling that a whole lot of misfortune was still hurtling my way. Just a feeling. So. . .

  I needed my beauty rest.

  2

  I was at Chip's place helping him put the finishing touches on our secret project. The android that was trashed a few years ago, Will, we were rebuilding him. I found all the junkyard scrap metal, thrown away plasti-flesh reams and singular sheets that hadn't rotted away, and other parts needed, some I found in computer graveyards and used tech store warehouse garbage bins. Even the perennially bearish machinist in Odd Parts Lab helped us out with some rare, obscure parts. Chip managed to convince one of the higher ups at work to let the Odd Parts Lab bleed out into obsolescence even more slowly than its originally planned demise into Recycling. We both managed to find some mighty interesting stuff there.

  The body, a hodgepodge of metal wires and screwy looking metal limbs that looked like something out of a steampunk film, wasn't ready for its brain. Chip was in the middle of a second rebuild for the body. This current incarnation was not to be the final look. Which was good because currently it looked monstrous. Something finally had come of all this, though. Chip had managed to use the chip I gave him that housed Will's mind into a gadget he called an eavesdropper.

  "You know, sometimes I think about resigning and looking for a position at another company. I think the well's been poisoned, Chip."

  "That would be rash. I say that because I think that even with all the trouble you've been in, there's someone at work who supports you and wants to see you do well. In fact, I think they want you to be their eyes and ears," he said. I frowned.

  "Why do you say that?"

  "Well, this person has kept themselves hidden. Teely has an incredible amount of power. Did you hear that Vartan is finally being ousted out of his own company, the company that his own family built from the ground up seventy-five years ago?"

  "You know what? No one tells me anything anymore."

  "Fred didn't tell you?" Chip looked at me incredulously. I shook my head.

  "No, he didn't," I said, feeling instantly offended at this omission. Fred was usually at the hub or near the hub of news and filled me in on just about everything floating around.

  "Well, it's brand new news. Maybe he just didn't get around to it yet."

  "He'd better hope that was the case! I rely on him for the real news." I said in growing irritation. Chip watched me, grinning.

  "Alright, alright. I didn't mean to get Fred into trouble. I'm sure he didn't forget about you, Bob. Anyway, my point is that through all the nonsense, you are still working there in your same position. And not only that, you are on the delegation to the moon. Someone wants you to stay. That's my thought."

  "Sometimes I think it's just dumb luck."

  "I don't know about that. Luck shrivels in the presence of Teely. You would have been fired long before now if there wasn't some kind of intervention going on behind the scenes."

  "Yeah. I just wonder what for." I said. Chip shrugged and gave me a resolute look. I leaned against the wall and folded my arms, narrowing my eyes.

  "Do you know something?" I asked. He shook his head.

  "No. I'm just good at making connections. That's all. I don't know anything. I'm locked in Engineering Prison, remember? It's just obvious to me. You seem to be pretty good at picking up on things. Don't know why you haven't seen it. I have no idea who supports you and maybe there is a good reason for it." Actually, I did suspect someone powerful was behind it but I was on a fishing expedition and fishing holes at work had dried up, for the time being. I was walking blind when it came to informational gossip.

  "Maybe," I said pensively. Chip changed the subject back to our project.

  "For now, until we can get the body finished, Will lives inside this audio device," he said. "The eavesdropper." I moved in for a closer look

  "What kind of trouble can I get up to now?" I asked, feeling extremely pleased.

  "Well fo
r starters, we can find out what's really going on at work. Too many things don't add up and I'm not just talking about what happened to Will, either."

  "So, do I put this in my ear?" I asked. It was as thin as a cotton swab, a golden square-shaped device. A tiny swab-sized ball, the ear piece, was hooked up by wireless connection to the gold-encased chip.

  "You put the ball in your ear and lodge it there and put the chip under your clothes. See this thing here?" He pointed to a tiny white dot on the side of the chip.

  "Yeah."

  "This is an automatic cloaking device. It doesn't work as well as an official government issued one. It's weak as cloaking devices go and rather unstable. After all, I'm working with dumpster-diving junk and found materials here, but you touch this and the device disappears from view and can hide from detection sensors and scanners at work. Mostly. And through most run-of-the-mill security checkpoints. Except military checkpoints. I'm sure it'll do the job we need." he said, that wicked look again. I'm sure my own grin was just as wicked.

  "Bob, Quality Assurance super-spy. At your service." I saluted and took the device.

  "Chip," I asked, turning it around in my hands. "Where is Will, exactly, in here? He can't communicate, can he?"

  "He can when you turn the cloaking device on. That is how you switch on the speech capability. He can communicate, but only you can hear him through the piece."

  "Sounds good to me."

  "Just remember, buddy. It ain't perfect. It's still not as stable as I'd like it to be. Experimental, you know," he warned.

  I walked away with a new purpose. We'd been working on this project for three years. In that time span, things had been moving at lightening speed. The first city on the moon was nearly ready for its second influx of full-time civilian inhabitants. There were already thousands of people settled there and working, mining, farming building, creating, mating, amongst other things. It would be another five years before tourists could travel there and more civilians could take up permanent residence. And now I was chosen among other employees for a delegation to represent Vartan Industries and reinforce to the local inhabitants and to the world Vartan's importance and prominence in this milestone for human colonization of space and space travel. We stood on the edge of forever, a bright future. I believed in it once again as I left Chip's house.

  The air taxi dived and zipped nimbly through the first level of traffic, the "slow" level, only five hundred feet above the ground level of the city. I was concentrating so closely on the eavesdropper that the taxi's near misses and hairbreadth maneuvering around other air cars and frigates actually didn't bother me. Only slower frigates making short distance trips and air cars traveled the first level of city sky space. The second and third levels, much higher, were reserved for incoming space ships and private and public transportation ships.

  Vartan Inc. was working in tandem with an energy company named Sunsee, that was sending employees and contractors to Langrenus to harness solar energy and also H-3, a light isotope of Helium, on the moon's surface. Vartan was also newly in the business of producing solar cells for Sunsee.

  On the way home I wondered what Chip meant when he said that things weren't adding up. The taxi flew down below the line of traffic at the signal toward the terrace of my neighborhood.

  Well, the new Will might be able to help us sniff out what is wrong. There was a little voice in the back of my mind telling me that I needed to leave well enough alone and do my job. I was given a reprieve. Did I really want to tangle with Teely again? Not directly. I wouldn't make that mistake again. But I now had the power to listen through walls and you'd better believe that I was gunning straight for his.

  . . .

  At work I went through my usual exercises of stretching, had my coffee and maple bacon doughnut ordered and brought to my office overlooking the assembly room floor and started up my computers, watching and monitoring the screens. After that, it was another day at work. Fred was on vacation this week, so as nine o'clock came and went he didn't appear. I was jittery and I had the eavesdropper in my pocket. Its cloaking function allowed me to slip through the scanners with the device at the front desk beautifully.

  I finally settled down to work. After an hour, I glanced at the white, gray and black-suited workers down below in the assembly room. Busy as bees. I slipped the wireless ball into my ear. At first I heard nothing but a faint buzzing. Thinking it was interference coming from my computers I stood up, acting as if I were stretching and went to the other end of my office. Voices eventually came through from the background white noise. Many, many voices. I couldn't make out who they were or where they were coming from. Well, this won't work! I need to get out of this room!

  I knew no one would call me on it any longer so I took an early break and went down the open walkway toward the elevators. The windows to Teely's office were darkened, but I thought I detected the movement of a shadow by one of the windows. I wasn't sure. However, I was picking up fragments of conversations.

  "Never mind him. It's not to my liking, but that problem has been resolved. He's no longer a threat. We have far more important things to focus on." There was another voice, lower, filled with static as if coming in from a great distance. Then the first voice spoke again.

  "Things are going forward just as planned. I have located the grail and the one who has it."

  "Who?" Said the other voice, the pitch rising as if in anticipation.

  "Richmond."

  "You are sure this time?"

  "Richmond. He's the one. He's carrying our great prize." Again, that name.

  "And you know what he looks like?"

  "What do you think I've been doing out here for the last few years? Chanting to Ancus? Of course, I know what he looks like! He's a part of the delegation to Langrenus. Remember the name. Richmond." The other voice said something I couldn't make out. Then static rose and both voices were drowned out.

  "Who the hell is Richmond?" I murmured to no one in particular. I wished Fred was here. Fred made it his business to know other peoples' business. He would have known - or found out for me - but Fred was in St. Croix with his wife and she'd made him leave all of his gadgets behind so no one from work could contact him. I would be leaving for the moon before Fred came back and I had to do without him.

  "Hey, Bob!" It was Jerome from security.

  "Jerome! How's it going?" I asked, suddenly feeling very nervous. I had the implant in my right ear I shifted my stance quickly to face him, turning my head slightly to the right. After all, Jerome was the head of security in this building.

  "You ready for the adventure to the moon?"

  "I've been ready since I was a kid for this!" I said.

  "I wish I was going up there with you guys."

  "It won't be long. I've been keeping track of its progress on WSEL. The city is exploding in population. They'll need guys like you up there soon enough or else it'll be the wild west."

  "True enough. I'll be looking to make a transfer one of these days."

  "Jerome, I'm curious. Have you ever heard of a guy around here named Richmond?"

  "I don't think so. Richmond who?" He furrowed his brow.

  "That's just it. I don't know the guy's first name. Or even if that is his first name. He's supposed to be on the delegation with those of us going to Langrenus."

  "Hmm. I don't recall ever hearing or seeing the name. But then I don't usually supervise security on this level. I'm headed to a meeting today. Several. Does he actually work here, you think? Maybe he's from Sunsee?" I hadn't thought of that.

  "I don't know. I just heard the name bounced around here and there. I'm familiar with most of the names of the people on the delegation, but I've never heard of this guy before."

  "You worried about security, Bob?" He asked. I gave him a sheepish grin.

  "I have no doubts everyone's been vetted. Don't worry about it. You know how we are around here. Just curious is all."

  "Well, if I hear anything I'
ll let you know." The door to the CFO's office opened and Teely came out, turned and left down the walkway above us. Whether he pretended he didn't see me or actually didn't see me, I don't know. I nearly jumped at the opening of his office door. And berated myself silently. He didn't appear to notice anyone below his office floor. Typical of him. After the fiasco that nearly ended my career here, I was relieved.

  "What's the matter?" Asked Jerome, frowning. I sighed.

  "Besides the fact that he nearly ran me out of here? Nothing." A look of realization dawned on Jerome's face and he nodded.

  "Well, I'd better get back to work," I said.

  "Yeah, I'll be stuck in meetings all day today myself. Talk to you later. If I hear anything about. . . Richmond," he said. "I'll send you a message. Might be important to check into." I nodded my head appreciatively. Silently my heart leapt at his mention of the name as Teely made his way down the upper walkway and turned the corner. Ears were everywhere in this company. The last thing I wanted was Teely or any of his toadies to find out that I was interested in who Richmond was.

  I turned and went back in my office. I had a month to prepare for the trip and hoped more clues would surface soon. Even though I had no idea what that conversation was about, something about it didn't sit right. It felt sinister. What's he up to now? You see, my mind tends towards conspiracies. Can't help it.

  Chip always went by an adage similar to Hanlon's Razor: "Never assume malice where stupidity will suffice."

  Usually, I agreed with him. He and a lot of people around here always thought of Teely as mean, dense and barely competent. I once did too, but these days I knew better. There are many malicious people in the world and sometimes it suits their purposes for you to underestimate their intelligence. They will let you go on smugly thinking what you like. You may not perceive the damage they've done until it is too late to fix it. Then, who looks stupid?