Tehom: The Tehom Legacy Book One

by S. Abel de Valcourt

  “We are going into full commune mode, company store, company dime, and company cause… This is a project that will take the rest of our lives. Understand the level of commitment here. Sell your houses; I have new ones built for each of you in Texas. My family is moving into our new house today. They are smaller than some of you are used to, but we may very well need the money one day. But we will be closer to work and to family, something all of us will benefit from.”

  I did it, somehow I kept everyone. Hal was a wash.

  The exodus from California was chaotic and troublesome. The crowds burned Daniel Tehom in effigy and the press ate it up. The politicians from California were quick to demonize him in ways reserved for tyrants and genocidal dictators. It was as if single handedly Daniel Tehom had ripped the economic heart out of the entire west coast.

  I’m taking my ball and going home.

  The arrival in Texas heralded a new age in the life of Daniel Tehom, he finally was working on his life’s calling and it fulfilled him. He was just as happy at work as at home, and his employees became his friends. Years of deception and secret plans melted away into a drive and fervor he hadn’t been able to muster since college.

  The company simply bled money, spending billions upon billions of dollars on construction and scientific research. As the coffers of the company poured out upon the world, Unions began to form within the company. However, these Unions were unlike the traditional pre-economic collapse anti-business monstrosities of the late twentieth century. Employees banded together for promises of retirement income and healthcare, and instead lived in the company towns that were built. The employees lived in company houses, on company land, and shopped at company stores. Eventually there were no payroll costs at all, only retirement payments, healthcare and upkeep costs for the various communities.

  When the bottom finally fell out of the economy of the United States, a process that everyone knew was coming but ignored for decades, Tehom Acquisitions had evolved into the Tehom Consortium or just “The Company”. When the Texas government in Austin finally became leaders of their own nation, it only put a pen to what had already been in place for years.

  California turned to true Communism with their massing of states with sadly chaotic results. The northern states became abandoned and returned to wilds, braved only by the immense street gangs turned cartels that started in Detroit. New York and the bulk of the north east turned to socialism and total government control. The south fractured from the union much along the lines of the civil war of almost 200 years before. Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma and New Mexico were all absorbed into the Republic of Texas. The only true recognizable remnant of the once proud and great United States of America stood alone in the world as a beacon of freedom and democracy. The Company took almost no notice.

  Chapter Three: Fifty Years Later

  The cathedral had been lit brightly with a warm orange that flowed over the pews and assorted guests. Everyone wore black, high fashion black veils and black ties. For the Republic of Texas this was an event everyone knew was coming and all steps had been taken to make sure that the passing of Daniel Tehom would cause as little chaos as possible.

  For fifty years since Daniel Tehom had stepped into the dirt of west Texas nothing had been the same. The economy had grown by leaps and bounds, turning the new fledgling republic into a nation that mirrored the might of that of its mother nation.

  Daniel Tehom had rammed a new and different industry down the throat of humanity and it had nearly cost him everything. In the darkest of days things had looked bleak and hopeless. At his death rumors swarmed like bees of who would lead the company into the next era.

  Only a single news camera had been allowed into the service and not a single reporter had received an invitation. Coworkers and subordinates spoke publicly about the great man that Daniel Tehom had been, how his genius changed the world and how he had saved the lives and freedom of millions. Coworkers and subordinates spoke of how ‘their friend’ had changed their lives. That was Daniel’s way, everyone saw him as a friend or father figure. Daniel had grown amazingly lonely in his later years after the death of his wife after thirty seven years of marriage. While the successes of his gamble finally began to pay off, even Daniel Tehom had stated publicly that his imagination had died with his wife.

  The front of the cathedral held three large paintings of Daniel in his various stages of life that the guests could relate to. The young entrepreneur who had caused such a stir in his empire building had been done years ago by a bold and modern artist, the same picture had graced a series of magazine covers decades ago. A second painting had been done in the darkest days of The Company, Daniel looked stern and resolute, a mountain of a man unfaltering in his mission. The third painting had been done recently, it showed a grandfather warm and smiling, a grandfather whom everyone knew and had cared for everyone he possibly could.

  A young man stepped forward and approached the podium. He was not a planned speaker. Several security guards took a step forward and then a chirping in their ear drove them back. His hair seemed a bit wild, a reddish auburn color that instantly betrayed his bloodline. The manner with which he walked and presented himself at the podium seemed awkward, the young man was as brave as he was awkward.

  The crowd stared up at him in a sort of questioning and perceived offence as they searched their funerary programs for the name of the speaker. The glare of the lights beat down on him and the lens of the camera illustrated the scene to millions upon millions of people both on earth and on the lunar outposts.

  “I…” He stopped and looked as if he were about to stop and sit down. “We have listened for the better part of two hours of how great a man my grandfather was. How he made people rich, how his great works have changed the world. How he made our country a living breathing place that people could be proud of again, rather than just a broken piece that would always be less than what came before.” Simon Tehom was little more than twenty three years old and had never been in the public eye. His manner of speech was not one well practiced in public speaking and it only increased the perception of his awkwardness.

  “Daniel Tehom was a great man. History books, documentaries, and biographies will ride his name into immortality. I do not think a single person in the world could say that he was not a great man.” Simon paused a moment and shook his head sadly as the camera lens in the back zoomed in on his face showing the tears that flowed from his eyes.

  “I never knew the man so many of you speak of and say that you knew. The Daniel Tehom that I knew did not build a colony on the moon or mine the Amor Ivar asteroid for Helium 3. He did not employ thousands or wrap the entire cloak of the Republic of Texas around the Company. He is not the great man you see in the pictures behind me, or the great man people are debating and idolizing on the news reports.”

  The crowd began to get restless and uncomfortable; they seemed to collectively sense the awkward angry rant of bile and irresponsible angst so common in youth. Simon Tehom surprised everyone.

  “This great man, this great man that all of you have worked with on these grand projects over the many years before I was born, I never met him. The man I knew was not a great man, the man I knew was a good man. You do not have to be a good man to be a great man, history is full of terrible and great men. My grandfather was a good man, he was the heart of my family. My grandfather was the moral compass of the entire Tehom family. With a single look of disapproval he could shake the rebelliousness out of a teenager or a single sentence could make you realize your mistakes. He could also lift you into the stars with a single word. He did not need a rocket or a machine. My grandfather might have been a great man, I don’t know. I never met that man, I wish I had. I can tell you that my grandfather was a good man. The world may have lost this great visionary, this great titan of human progress. But I lost my grandfather. My family has lost its rock and anchor. I do not think any of us here will
ever be the same, no matter which man we knew. I will miss him very much.”

  Simon Tehom stepped down and rejoined his mother Flora on the pew reserved for family and a scant few friends. Flora Tehom and her only son Simon sat on one end. Oliver Tehom, the long estranged son of Daniel sat alone on the other end with greed in his heart. Upon his lapel Oliver wore a red diamond shaped pin, something that set him far apart from the others in the crowd. Between them, an elderly but still sharp Rich Goddard sat with his wife Claudia and nodded to Simon with approval.

  The remainder of the service continued without incident. Honors and praise for the great man that had done so much for so many. The President of the Republic Senate announced a national day of remembrance and the flags would be at half staff for the remainder of the year.

  Simon disliked the level of praise and worship that seemed to shower upon the side of his grandfather he never knew. Flora had allowed him to speak for her, Oliver said nothing and Rich Goddard spoke only briefly of needing to continue the dreams and daring ideals of his long time friend.

  By the time the camera had been turned off and the crowds emptied there had been little talk of the future, it was as if the end of a single life had put into question the promise and success of the entire world. The entire service had made Simon uneasy and uncomfortable.

  Simon Tehom had been sheltered from most of the successes of his grandfather. There was an occasional ride on a private plane, or reporter that attempted contact with him. Simon had grown up in northern Louisiana along the river in what he thought was a normal house outside of Benton. He had always been an awkward and unusual child with his head consistently full of imaginations and suspensions of reality. Due to his family’s wealth the common realities of the world never touched him. The modern wall screen television was foreign to their home, radio and personal computers were a more effective method of instruction. Libraries of books constantly streamed onto his tablet and Simon Tehom learned of the world through his little tablet computer, a window into the past, present and future.

  Flora had maintained a close relationship with her father, even caring for him in the twilight of his life. She never married, due to the constant and ever present greed that assaulted each and every suitor that came to call upon her or got close. Simon’s father had been no exception and the long fight over custody of Simon had caused its wounds. The fight had been about money and jealousy, sprayed across every newspaper and celebrity website in existence. The experience had battered Flora and caused her to go into hiding with her Son.

  Oliver Tehom hated his father, they had long grown apart and seen differently for as long as anyone could remember. Oliver was about power, greed and success. He lorded his name over anyone and everyone he could and had used the name to create his own political machine in California. Under the guise of Communism and the pride of the laborer Oliver Tehom had become President of California and third in line to the dictatorship of the California Communist Party.

  Oliver had long seen Simon as competition; he had sent a cadre of spies and potential suitors for him in an effort for control. There were rumors that Oliver had been the money behind Simon’s father’s custody fight. Somehow, Simon had survived the onslaught and stayed mostly to himself never been corrupted, bought or blackmailed. Oliver hated him.

  The strange dynamics of the Tehom family had been a popular subject in the reality driven pop culture that had somehow persisted throughout all the political and sociological chaos of the past half century.

  Simon had attended college close to home and studied degrees in both aerospace and geology, concentrations that decades before would have been a ludicrous pairing. He graduated on time and even had a steady girlfriend until she had put a bullet in his stomach. The incident had caused an international incident and nearly resulted in the first North American war in two centuries. When the girl fled to California there was no doubt where the plot had originated.

  The day that his grandfather died, Simon Tehom had come to Texas for a job interview with Rich Goddard. The interview had been a formality, but never occurred. When Daniel Tehom died it was as if the whole world had been turned upside down.

  Oliver, Simon and Flora had been called to the Tehom Consortium boardroom. The room consisted of a black round table that doubled as a large computer screen with a large desk set slightly above it on a sort of higher tier where the departed namesake had sat for decades.

  “Why are we here Goddard, this better be good I cannot stand The Company long.” Oliver crossed his arms in a proud defiance.

  “Screw you Oliver, were not kids anymore. You’d think you would have grown up by now.” Flora chided her brother.

  “Your bastard son doesn’t even deserve to be here, that show he put on at the funeral, was that for your benefit? Neither one of you have the balls to run this company alone. This time next month I’ll have Californian troops dragging Tehom Consortium property back to California where it belongs. Let’s have it Goddard, where are the papers for me to sign?”

  Simon stood quietly behind his mother and didn’t take the bait.

  “As executor of the will of Daniel Tehom I am charged with not only the letter of his last will and testament, but also with his wishes and spirit of the document to make sure that things and responsibilities are divided in a way consistent with his desires. “ Rich Goddard seemed unfazed by Oliver’s outbursts.

  “I will spare you the legal section, I am sure you will like your lawyers to review it later but for now we will skip it. To my daughter Flora Tehom, I leave her home in Louisiana and my portion of the annual income from the cellular property sale. I ask that she open her heart and her home to a companion so that she is not so dreadfully lonely in her old age.”

  “I’ll go buy a dog.” Flora smiled and winked at her son who laughed slightly.

  “To my son Oliver I offer my hand as a friend and father and apologize for not being as near and present in his life as I should have been. I leave to him the international patent for the Tehom Tri-Six fuel distributor that he designed and sold to me to secure his independence. I wish to part from my son with no business between us, only family. The income from the patent will secure him for many years.”

  “What? That’s it! That patent was rightfully mine in the first place, is this your doing Goddard?!” Oliver shouted in frustration.

  Without acknowledging Oliver he continued. “To my grandson Simon Tehom I give nothing.”

  “Ha! Ha! Ha!” Oliver cackled.

  “To my grandson Simon Tehom I give nothing. Rather I charge him with the responsibilities of the Tehom Consortium of companies. The Company can only benefit from his rich imagination, forward thinking and passion for space exploration. The groundwork is laid; I leave the future to you Simon. You alone have been untouched by the greed and strife of the world and can lead the company into a new and grander era.” Rich Goddard spoke evenly and coolly.

  “He cannot give the whole company to a kid! This is madness, he is barely out of college. This is a farce.”

  “To Rich Goddard I charge with the full rights and moral judgment to these matters and disavow all legal court and political jurisdictions as right granted to me by the Constitution of the Republic of Texas, Article 87 sections one, two and three.”

  “This will not stand, you will regret this and I’ll send all three of you to the grave with the old man!” Oliver Tehom stormed out of the room and slammed the door, his violent outburst left Simon shaken and visibly distraught.

  Rich shook his head and looked up at Simon from his wheelchair. “Simon, your grandfather was a gambler. He gambled the future of the world many times on long shots and always ended up on top of it all. He has given you all his chips. There are a few things you need to know first.”

  Simon leaned forward half scared, half in deep sadness.

  “Daniel was a good man, you know that already. But he loved you, despite your distance from him. You have an imagination and a passion for the impossible m
uch like he had back before Rachael died. These last years, we have grown stagnant. The progress has stopped and we are falling back into our capitalistic roots. The money rolls in and many of us forget how many gambles have lead to this success. The Company almost broke, just before you were born. We had spent everything, every penny on the sprint to put the colony on the moon. The money was gone and we had drawn up all the documents to declare insolvency and put an end to this experiment. Daniel had saved nothing for himself, his entire fortune was spent and he had me write a letter to the President asking for state support for a retirement home for him. It was the only time he ever asked a favor of anyone with nothing to offer. I thought he was near suicide, things were that bad. You were born two days after I wrote that letter and it gave him hope and a reason to keep going. Rachael was your grandfather’s entire world beyond his work. With the failure of the company and the loss of your grandmother there was nothing left in the world for him. Then you were born, and he had a sudden but brief second wind. It was enough to get him through to the mining discovery on the Amor Ivar. When the income for the patent for the first Helium 3 reactors hit the banks from the international governments it was as if the heavens had opened up and rained after years of drought. There will be dark times, and good times. Make sure you taken them both in an even stride. Your aloof nature and imaginative mind make up for your lack of business knowledge. The job you came here to interview for was not a planetary geologist. You came here to be Daniels replacement. He just didn’t plan to die so suddenly.”

  Simon sat back in his chair and tried to wrap his mind around the job he had been charged with by his grandfather, the single positive male role model in his entire life.

  “What am I supposed to do? Run the entire company alone? My uncle is right, I cannot replace my grandfather!”