Bootstrap Colony 5 Snippet 4

 So, an update from Goodlife: Shelley said that she'll have the manuscript back to me sometime later this week. :)

I'm also almost finished act 2 of the latest book. :)

On to the Snippet!

 

Montana,Earth

 

StewartYellowknife downed his drink and then poured another. He glanced over to theothers in the room and silently sized them up.

There were eightmen in the room. All were movers and shakers. They all owned a stake in variouscompanies. But a few stood out over the rest. When they spoke, everyonelistened attentively.

Their groupwas set to take over the world. It sounded melodramatic, like some sort of bad-actionflick, bad guy, but it was true. They were on the cusp of taking over anotherworld and with it securing control of Earth.

Or, at leastthat was the end goal. But to do that they needed to figured out how to solve afew problems. At the moment, it was Mitch Chambers and the new aliens.

He had beento the other world, the one that Eugene Ryans was on. It was rich withopportunities. He’d failed in his mission though; he had been sent to get Ryansto sign over control of his company to the Cabal. They could of course fake it,that was on the table, though Ryans had set up protections against that.

The fact thatthey were exploiting natives of the other world wasn’t lost on him. But it wasa new world, and this time he and the people he represented would be on top.Besides, the real exploiters were Ryans and his group. They were just going tomake sure everything Ryans had done was fixed.

At least,that was how he sold himself on the project. But first they had to get back tothe damn planet.

“We need tofind a way to get Chambers’ help. He’s on the fence,” Rajani said.

“Hell withthat,” Farook said. “I’d like to get my hands on the tech of those aliens,” hegrowled. “They are light years more advanced than we are.”

“Good luckwith that. So far no one can understand what they are,” Ian said with a shakeof his head.

The meetingwas at Senator Crandal’s place. The senator had unfortunately been stuck in DCfor a vote so he couldn’t attend. The others had decided to continue themeeting without his presence. By their rules, he would have to abide by thedecision of the collective since he hadn’t attended the meeting. They needed away to lay out their goals and the problems to achieve them.

It hadalready been determined that Chambers was the key to fixing the wormholeproblem. But how to do that was still on the table.

“How do weget leverage with him? We tried to get control of his company but failed. Itisn’t public,” Farook Aziz stated flatly. The Saudi didn’t look happy at thatstatement.

He had deep pocketsand was known as one of the money men of their corporation. The others in theircabal suspected he had ties to terrorist organizations as well as certainpowerful Middle Eastern governments. No one wanted to know how deep he was intothe various organizations. Just as they did not want the others in their cabalto know their own skeletons.

Yellowknifesuspected that Farook was a money manager for many shady groups. Eventerrorists and revolutionary groups needed funding. Some washed their money invarious ways, even going so far as to invest in various things that wouldgenerate a steady income to fund their causes.

They werenormally targeted by various secret agencies in the west. Farook, however, hadties to the Cabal so he was immune from such unwanted attention.

“There areother ways to gain control of his company,” Rajani Bakshi stated lazily. Heglanced to the shadowy figure in the corner of the room. A dark hand with ringson it made a slight motion as if to say yes and no.

Rajani wasfrom India with ties to various call centers and industrialists. He had ties tovarious governments in that region of the world.

“No,” Ianstated flatly.

“No? Justthat?”

“Too muchmedia coverage. If anything happened to his company, it would come out. Evenwith our control of some of the media outlets. We don’t need that sort ofspotlight.”

“There isliterally a gold mine there. Plus platinum, and then the biologicals …,” Farookshook his head.

“And don’tforget the hunting. How much would someone with deep pockets pay to go to analien world and see, let alone shoot and import back, an alien or dinosaur?”Ian McMaster said with a sniff as he poured himself another whiskey. He was apower broker. He had a slight Irish brogue in his voice but he was actuallyfrom Chicago. He had just cultivated the accent to hide his true past.

The dark manin the overstuffed chair in the shadows snorted softly. McMaster glanced hisway and then over to the others.

“If they canget asteroid stopped, won’t need another world.”

“You aren’tlistening. We have a golden opportunity here. One we can exploit for incredibleprofit. Two of them.”

“Oh?”

“Not justaliens …”

“They don’thave tech we can exploit.”

“True, tosome degree. What I am pointing to are entire worlds. Why go to space when we can jump to another world? Possiblytwo of them?”

“Ah …?”

“Mining andresources are tight. We’ve got bleeding hearts everywhere. Pollution, globalwarming, don’t step on the butterflies, that sort of thing. Think about it!Entire worlds! We could find gold nuggets like back in the olden days!”

“Which do usno good here.”

“Ourinvestors would beg to disagree. Especially if we shipped back some of it.”

“How? Andwouldn’t that affect the markets here?”

“So, we do itcarefully. Control it. We control what comes and goes. We’ll be the onesto control trade between three entire planets,” Rajani stressed.“Possibly more over time! Who knows what else we might find? A new material?New drugs?”

“ThatChambers character was making a killing selling materials from his world.Dinosaurs … the kooks and science geeks are eating it up!” McMasters said witha shake of his head. “Imagine what collectors would pay!”

Yellowknifesnorted. “That they are,” he said. There had been a recent story in the worldnews of scammers getting involved.

“Can youimagine tourism? Or emigration? A theme park on an alien world?” Farook stated.

Ian suddenlylooked thoughtful.

They all knewthat the money for a theme park wasn’t just in the park but also in everythingleading up to and from it. Logistics, travel, lodging, food, gifts, all sortsof money could and was made from any good theme park. They were revenuegenerators for an entire region.

Farookchuckled and shook his head. “Are you seriously thinking about a Jurassic Parkscenario? That didn’t work out well in the books or movies …”

“That’sfiction. This is real life,” Ian said dismissively. “Everything that happenswill be there. We’ll control the narrative here.”

That wascertainly true, Yellowknife thought. They had managed to control the narrativeabout Ryans and how he had killed American and UN personnel before forcingthose who had surrendered back home and then destroying his side of the gate.

That wasn’tgoing over well in many circles. The standing story that Ryans had turned outto be a power hungry tyrant who had raped and then married the local teenagequeen and was controlling her and her kingdom was holding up very well.

“True. Whatabout alien pathogens? Crashes? Another revolt?”

“Ah, that’swhere your mercenary friends come in. They will be our problem solvers.” Heglanced at the retired colonel in the corner.

ColonelGaylord Smith smiled ever so slightly as he shifted in the chair. The smile ofwhite, even teeth briefly lit up his dark face. “If it is a problem, we can solveit,” he said affably as he selected a cigar and began to roll it between hisfingers. It was Cuban, rather expensive. A humidor was nearby with severalcases of other cigars to imbibe with.

“There speaksthe true patriot. We can set up dog and pony shows about how we’re liberatingthe savages. Show us bringing modern education, healthcare, and such whilecatching and kicking out the bastards who took over their country in the firstplace,” Ian said with mock innocence and virtue.

The otherssnorted. It was a well-played game, one they all had experience in.

Yellowknifedidn’t say anything.

“Okay, I havemy reservations. If you can find a way to handle the alien pathogen problem …”

“We didn’tfind anything in Chambers according to the medics,” Rajani said.

“I stilldon’t want another Covid. Though many did profit from it,” Ian said, rollingover the other’s protest. “I definitely do not want to be saddled with theblame for bringing an alien pathogen over or whatever else. Like that wormthing.”

Farook nodded.“We’ll take it cautiously. But this is an opportunity. One with riches beyondbelief. Without risk there can be no reward.”

Yellowknifehad to wonder if there was an element of religious expansionism in Farook’smotives. He wouldn’t put it past the other man. Then again, it was said thatFarook’s only religion was money.

Ian held up afinger and then pointed to the colonel who was puffing on his cigar and wavingthe match off to snuff it out. “He’ll be the first to tell you that we needaccurate and up-to-date intelligence.”

The colonelsat back, lifted the cigar out of his mouth and blew a smoke ring.“Definitely,” he said. His voice was gravel and bass. “We definitely need tolook before we leap. But I’ve got my contacts working on it.”

The others inthe room nodded.

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