Punishment

by Guerin Zand

  “But it would be a normal human child, right?”

  “Well as normal as me, if that answers your question.”

  “So?”

  “Well you know I’m already concerned about watching you grow old while I don’t age. I don’t know if I could bear to watch a child of mine do the same. I’m considering asking at some point if they would give you the same enhancements they gave me, but I don’t know if they would or if it’s something you’d even want.”

  “I’m not sure if I would want that, Guerin.”

  “I understand, Anna, but if our child is born with these enhancements maybe they wouldn’t want them as well. What do you think?”

  “I want a child, Guerin.”

  “Well so much for a discussion. You could at least try to make it seem like I have a choice you know. Maybe instead you could have said I’d like to have a child.”

  Anna just repeated herself. “I want a child.”

  “Ok.”

  “We can deal with what comes as it happens just like any other parents, Guerin. No one is guaranteed anything when they decide to have a child and I don’t understand why you think we should be special.”

  “I said ok.”

  Anna opened her robe and looked at me seductively. “Well then, you have some work to do.”

  “Well it doesn’t work that way, Anna, I mean, it does but you have to stop taking the pill for a while before we can conceive.”

  “I stopped taking the pill when we first had this discussion.”

  “You what?”

  “I just let you talk about it so you’d feel better. You just said it yourself. It’s not like you had a choice. Now stop talking and get to work.”

  So, for the next month, I came home every night and performed my husbandly duty. Anna didn’t like that term since I also included taking out the trash and mowing the lawn as my husbandly duties. I joked that it was at the top of my list although mowing the lawn was more relaxing and taking out the trash took slightly less of my time. Maybe if I had said that the other way around she would have liked it more, but I didn’t. This, of course, won me no favors but I had to show her who was in charge after her playing me like she had. In order to make clear who was in charge, she would often look at me after sex and tell me to go take out the trash. Even after Anna became pregnant, I continued to perform my husbandly duties, mostly taking out the trash and mowing the lawn. I told her I didn’t want her to feel neglected. She obviously knew that was a load of bull but she appreciated the thought.

  In slightly less than nine months, on August 9, 2021, Maria was born. We’d argued about names and I finally made a deal with her that if the child was a boy she could pick the name and if it was a girl I got to choose. She took pity on me and agreed to this without any argument.

  I was happier than I could have ever imagined. With Diane taking a large load of work off my back I started to work from home again. I couldn’t stand being away from Maria. Anna knew this but resisted saying I told you so. The dogs were in love with Maria as well. Kat, who normally took no shit from anybody, put up with all sorts of abuse from Maria. Mouse became her favorite pillow and Maria loved to sleep on the floor curled up between the two dogs.

  Work was going well. The number of member countries in IOET continued to grow and when Maria turned one-year-old Russia had joined. This was a major success for the team. Sure, we were still adversaries in many respects but the cooperation in IOET was unprecedented. Roger and the team decided to set their sights on China. The international group had formed a secure committee that consisted of one member of each participating nations security community. It was this committee that I would address, when necessary, to pass on information from our friends. This committee would decide how that knowledge would be disseminated and would also enforce penalties for any nation that broke the rules set forth by the committee.

  Everything in my life had become associated with some event in Maria’s life. On Christmas day, when Maria was two, we landed the next man on the moon. Six months later we established a base on the Moon as a first step to moving on to Mars.

  Her favorite pillow, Mouse, had passed a little after her third birthday. Although Mouse had been with me for almost fifteen years, what broke my heart the most was how devastated Maria was. She had no idea of death and at the age of three, there was no explaining it to her. For a while, she wouldn’t leave Kat because she thought if she did Kat would leave her too. It was a little more than a year after that we lost Kat as well. I thought having gone through the same thing with Mouse that Maria would handle it better. I was wrong.

  For the next year or so, she would sometimes make me bring her to the local dog park in the afternoon to play with other people’s dogs. I think we were the only people without a dog who went to the dog park, but it would always make Maria so happy. I couldn’t help but look forward to each trip to the dog park as much as she did. She kept asking me to buy her a puppy and I would tell her that we should wait until she was old enough to take care of a dog on her own.

  On Maria’s 5th birthday we decided to move back to Tokyo. Anna had wanted Maria to go to school in Japan and I had no real argument against that. We had called Florida home for over five years and Maria was already fluent in English, Japanese, and Spanish. I was pretty sure this was an indication that my child had inherited some of my mutant DNA. I was hoping that we wouldn’t see too many differences like this because we all know how children can treat others who are different. Although she was still too young for elementary school we thought giving her time to acclimate to life in a different country would be best. Anna explained there was a Japanese equivalent of kindergarten. I really didn’t understand what she was talking about, but I acted like I did. It would help prepare her for elementary school. We decided we’d move that September and Maria could start school at the beginning of the new year.

  I knew that Maria was not happy about moving to Tokyo. I knew because I remembered moving away from my first home when I was a young boy. The day before we left I flew out to meet a breeder. They bred border collie puppies from the same line that Kat and Mouse came from. I bought Maria a puppy. We took the corporate jet and just before we were ready to close the cabin doors I had one of the ground crew bring me the kennel. I introduced Maria to her new puppy and, well, she forgot about being sad. The puppy looked so much like Kat that Maria wanted to call her Kat. I explained we shouldn’t because each dog is different, and it should have a different name. Maria’s second choice was Kat2. I suggested K2 and she liked that so that’s how K2 got her name. Of course, bringing a puppy from America to Japan required more paperwork then obtaining a top-level security clearance.

  Chapter 15

  The Dawn of the Cold War

  As I said, my wife and child had become my everything and I was starting to pay less attention to my job. We had only been living in Tokyo for about 5 months. It was nearing the end of January 2027, when Roger decided to travel out to Tokyo to talk with me personally. He didn’t say why he was coming. He wanted to have that discussion in person.

  While IOET was expanding and things were progressing well, the role of NFT had become a source of irritation. First, I was an American, and they viewed NFT as an American company even though we had moved its headquarters to Geneva a few years after Russia joined. The other problem was NFT was doing the research to bring the new technologies to fruition and then passing that technology on to the IOET. We were a very large company at the time and we were flush with cash. We made the older Silicon Valley companies look like street vendors. As any idiot should know, any international organization, such as the IOET, would one day become just another bureaucracy. A bureaucracy must be fed to grow and they all grow. This bureaucracy was hungry for NFT. It felt that NFT should be absorbed into the IOET and the member nations were trying to figure out how to give the IOET the international authority to simply take NFT from us.

  At this point, the IOET had absorbed many other international age
ncies. Like I said, it was a hungry bureaucracy. The original JAFI was just one division of the IOET as well as the International Space Agency, ISA. The ISA, in addition to the International Space Stations, yes there were multiple space stations now, was also in charge of the first station based on the Moon and the agency responsible for the upcoming Mars mission. From their standpoint, absorbing NFT was just the next step in consolidating all the technology under one organization. The truth was much simpler than that. Taking over NFT would make the ruling committee members of IOET rich and there are two things these types of people wanted, money and power.

  Yes, the members of my team, as well as myself, were wealthy beyond our wildest dreams, but we also shared that wealth with our employees. Jobs at NFT were coveted in every nation. A job at NFT, any job, including maintenance and cafeteria services meant your future was secure. The IOET could not match the salaries we paid for top talent. They couldn’t compete with NFT, even though we made the same alien information available to them as we had. Finding a way to steal NFT away from us was their only option. The problem was that along with our money, NFT had significant political power in all the countries where we had a presence. The politics of the individual nations did not, for the most part, align with the politics of the IOET bureaucracy. But what really was the burr under their saddle was me. And that is why Roger had come to Tokyo.

  Rather than come to my home to discuss the issue, Roger asked me to meet him at the Tokyo office. We met in one of the executive conference rooms.

  Roger looked hesitant to say what was on his mind so I started. “Is there a problem with the amount of time I’ve been spending with my family, Roger? Is that why you’re so hesitant to say anything?”

  “No, Guerin. I wish it were that simple. The problem isn’t you, it’s the IOET and their politics. First, they’re trying to find a way to steal control of NFT away from us. They’re trying to convince all the nations with an NFT office that it was a national resource and should be nationalized. Of course, after each nation nationalizes their local NFT branch it would only make sense to bring these branches under IOET control. They have a nice little sales pitch. Instead of earning a profit for NFT’s private owners, their scientists should be working for their national esteem.”

  “Do you think they can pull that off, Roger?”

  “No, but that’s just part of the problem. This political movement is being pushed by the IOET general council. As you know, they don’t actually have knowledge of your connection or your friends. The real threat, and who I think is actually behind this, is the IOET security council. They want you out. They want direct contact with your friends and they see taking over NFT as one way to take your power away, but bypassing you altogether is what they really want. They can’t control you and that scares them.”

  “Ok. I had heard the rumblings about wanting to take over NFT. If they had made any progress on that front I could easily shut that effort down. This is the first I’ve heard about wanting to remove me, but I guess I should have expected that. Is this the first you’ve heard of this, Roger?”

  “No. I haven’t meant to go behind your back, but with your wanting to concentrate on your family, I thought I could handle this. I talked to our friends about direct contact with the IOET security council and they made it clear that this was not open for discussion. I was hoping that there would have been some flexibility on this, at least I hoped that they would agree to one meeting, but they were insistent that you were the emissary and you spoke for them.”

  “So why did you need to fly out here to discuss this?”

  “I wanted to meet you face-to-face when I told you this. I think you, and possibly even your family, are in danger. I haven’t gone to the security council and told them what our friends said yet. I think when you or I do, there are some members who may think that removing you will force our friends to reconsider, or at least allow them to pick the next emissary.”

  “I assume when you say remove me you mean kill me?”

  “Yes.”

  “I guess I was just naïve to think we could actually get these countries to work together in the name of progress. I created my own little monster and now they want to get rid of me.”

  “I wanted to talk to you first, but I want to send Katie and Steve, or at least one of them, to provide security for you and your family.”

  “Roger, that’s not necessary. They have more important work to do.”

  “I disagree, Guerin. You need to take this threat seriously.”

  “I do take it seriously. Have Katie and Steve start full surveillance on the entire security council and their immediate families. I want all the dirt we can dig up on each and every one of them. We haven’t had to make a show of force up to now but perhaps it’s time we show them exactly what they’re up against. As soon as we have enough dirt I’ll address the security council directly and I’ll make sure they realize the foolishness of this little uprising.”

  “Until then, you’re still at risk.”

  “Who is behind this move? Do we have supporters in the security council?”

  “We believe the main power behind this is the Chinese. They have a large block of support but the USA, and most of our allies, even Russia, are supporting you. I don’t think the Chinese are going to wait for a consensus from the council before moving on you.”

  “Call our friends. No one is on station currently so see if we can get someone out here ASAP. They can help with the surveillance and we should be able to have enough warning if they do try anything. Increase the surveillance to include the security services of all the nations on the council, including the USA and all the allies. They can process the data and find any actions that are suspicious.”

  “We’ve already contacted our friends. You need to request support, they said only you could authorize that.”

  “Great. Another bureaucracy. I’m sorry about that. I’ll make sure next time they won’t question you, but you should have called them out on it.”

  “Why? They wouldn’t have listened to me.”

  “They would have if you’d have been a dick about it. Trust me. If you don’t fight them, they won’t do what you ask the next time either. You got to fight for every inch with them. Next time they say you don’t have the authority, tell them you want to talk to somebody who can give you that authority. Push them.”

  “I thought you said that the aliens were your problem?”

  “I think they’re our problem as well now. You and the rest of the team have been working on this project long enough for them to be familiar with all of you. You guys are as much a part of this project as I am.”

  “They will always look to you for the final say on anything if it’s important, Guerin.”

  “Yes, but as you just pointed out, something could happen to me. I want you to go back to them, better yet, have Steve contact them and tell them to send someone out here. Tell him to not take any of their shit and that the authority comes from the committee, whom you all work for.”

  “You think that will work?”

  “Yes. If they want to be dicks we just have to show them we can be bigger dicks. I think that having Steve do it they’ll take it as an insult at first. Then they’ll realize I’m sending them a message.”

  “Ok. Back to the problem at hand. What if we find something with all of this surveillance?”

  “We’ll get my family to safety and then I’ll convene an emergency meeting of the council. I’ll personally drag the ones responsible out of their beds if need be. I promise there won’t be any doubt afterward who is in control.”

  “There’s something else.”

  “There always is, Roger.”

  “The Chinese may be planning to use the alien technology for military purposes.”

  When each nation joined the IOET we provided their security services one of the alien batteries as a show of good faith. The same conditions were made clear to all. Use of this technology for military purposes was forbidden
and any infraction would result in suspension of that nation from the IOET. If the IOET would not enforce this rule, then every member of the IOET would share in the punishment. All alien technology, and any alien knowledge, would be removed from their systems. They would be cut off from any alien assistance for a minimum of ten years. After that time, they would be allowed to petition for this isolation period to end.

  “Do we have proof of this?”

  “No. They have openly announced that they plan to use their battery to power a satellite that appears to be for non-military use. The IOET has reviewed the satellite designs and concluded that this is the case.”

  “Then why do you think they have intentions to use this for military applications, Roger?”

  “Because, we think that they’ve found a way to transfer the power output from the battery in this commercial satellite to actual military satellites. We have seen plans for such a power distribution scheme.”

  “We need proof that this is in fact true before we can act. We’ll have to wait, and if they should try and test this, we can shut them down. Until then we can only watch.”

  “Maybe I’m missing something, Guerin, but why won’t our friends send a representative to address the security council?”

  “Exactly because of what’s happening now. If they are willing to use force against me, why wouldn’t they use force against one of our friends? I’m their emissary, I’m not Earth’s emissary. If I get killed, they can just walk away and it’s just another case of humans killing another human. They don’t trust us enough to risk their own lives.”

  “But don’t you also represent the Earth when you talk with our friends?”

  “Yes and no. They have set up communications with Earth to only flow through me. You can ask me questions about them, but I can only answer what I know. This way they keep a tight control over the flow of information. The security council needs to see me the same as if I were one of them because, in essence, I am.”