“You know, Samuel. I’m pretty sure that Gabrielle would have been explicit about the whole not taking a bite before we bring them in. How about we do this?...”
Terry turned and fired two shots where he thought the person speaking was coming from. He was starting to sweat at the matter-of-fact way they were talking about eating him. It was starting to get past his calm.
“Well,” the voice named Richard said, “I was going to suggest that if you put your gun down, we would be obligated to bring you in without a scratch…”
Terry looked around as fast as he could. The voice had simply moved during that whole conversation and Terry couldn’t tell where it was.
He froze when a hand reached down from above him and grabbed his pistol hand. He screamed when he got yanked up the tree and felt hot breath and teeth entering his neck…
Seconds later, the night was quiet again.
--
Terry woke up, groggy from something… He stilled immediately. Letting his body relax. Perhaps he could listen to see what he could figure out before anyone was aware of him being awake.
“Good early morning, Agent Terry DeLeon.” A contralto voice spoke to him. “While you are welcome to continue with your eyes closed, your body gives lie to the fact that you are still asleep.”
Terry considered his options. They had him tied to a chair and the room was dim. It wasn’t causing him issues with his eyes closed. Fuck it, he wasn’t getting anywhere faking being asleep.
He opened his eyes to see he was in a small meeting room. The chair he was tied to was metal and a common beige fabric cover just like it’s five other brothers and sisters around this crap table. The walls seemed a little odd. They mostly looked to be cut out rock and someone had affixed a TV and whiteboard to them. There was a door that led out right behind a woman seated at the head of the table.
“Good,” she said, “I’ve got to be in China within the next hour for a quick pre-operation setup, so I appreciate you manning up and opening your eyes.” Terry tried to see if he could deal with the knots on his arms when he heard a deep growl behind him. He tried to twist far enough to see what was there, but couldn’t in the chair.
“The beast …” Terry heard a distinct ‘chuff’ behind him and the lady corrected herself, “Sorry, the German Shepherd behind you is named Ashur. If you continue to try and get out of your bindings he will take a bite out of you. Now, we can do this the easy way...” Terry was fixated as the dark haired beauty seemed to go from boardroom CEO to backroom brawler in the space of time it took to blink. “Or the hard way. I, of course, much prefer the hard way. In fact, you petulant pouch of horse shit, times up.”
Terry watched her get up from the chair. She was a little tall for a woman, but then he looked down and noticed she had on short heels. When he looked up to see her changed visage the screaming began.
Her eyes were red, her teeth were out and then he remembered the vampires in the tree…
--
“This is Channel 11 with breaking news.” The older newsman came on. He was usually there for the six o’clock news, but this was early.
Jamil Williams was working on his freshman homework in his dorm room when his small tv interrupted a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air rerun.
He looked over to the tv because it was a handy excuse not to be dealing with physics. Hell, anything was a handy excuse not to deal with physics right then.
“We have live video on an open feed right that is being provided to us by an independent news service. We have not ... I repeat ... not, been able to verify this report. We have been informed that there are semi-professional astronomers on the web who do verify that these containers, are in fact, in outer space at this time.”
Jamil moved his books to the side and pulled up his laptop. Jamil was interested in everything to do with outer space and if something cool was going on, he wanted to know about it.
He had been following the Space-X efforts to land a reusable rocket back on earth and had been cheering out loud when they had successfully landed one on land after their third commercial attempt and one at sea just five months later.
Now, something completely new was happening.
Jamil pulled up Twitter and various chat rooms and they were going nuts! There was a hashtag #WEWILLBUILD that called out a new company based in Paraguay.
Paraguay?
It seemed that the legal entity for the operation was a recently created company in Paraguay that listed their address as latitude and longitude coordinates out in the middle of a jungle.
The video switched to a conversation between a national American news anchor and a … Jamil tried to read the small text under her name, a Costa Rican reporter?
What the hell was going on? He turned up the volume while continuing to read the tweet streams
“That’s right, Ken. The company is based in Paraguay. They are using a new form of propulsion and are presently moving their first base to the far side of the moon.”
“The dark side?” The anchor asked, “Giannini, why on the dark side of the moon?”
“Well,” The lady reporter replied, “calling it ‘the dark side’ is a misnomer of course as it receives sunlight. But they are doing this for their own efforts and desire to move out into space, so they care to point ‘out’ not in towards earth.”
“But, how can they do this?” Ken asked as he watched the video intake. “I don’t see any rockets on this and if I didn’t see all of the other video coming in from all over the internet, I would say you guys are perpetrating a large hoax!”
“That is why they chose to inform everyone in the middle of their efforts Ken. It is hard to ignore the proof of hundreds or thousands of semi-professional astronomers as they all point their telescopes to the location listed at
http://www.wewillbuild.space. That’s not ‘.com’ but ‘.space’ for everyone who would like to join in. We encourage you to tweet the hashtag #WEWILLBUILD and provide your encouragement for every commercial company that is moving humanity into the future.”
“That’s a very altruistic suggestion right now offering to let everyone join you. Why is the company doing this?”
“They are not able to share their technology for now, Ken. Therefore, they want everyone to get excited about what is happening right here, right now on earth and how we are closer to making the dreams of so many across the world happen soon.”
“So, the company is not going to license the technology?”
“No, they are not.” She replied.
“Why not?” Ken asked.
“I’ve asked their Press Representative and she explained that the company is not here to compete with existing companies nor are they going to obtain business and/or contracts for anything from earth to inside the Lagrange L1 point. This L1 point is between the earth and the moon where the gravity forces balance. It is a common location to hold a satellite in a rotational effort around this point to minimize fuel usage.”
“They don’t want business? What are their intentions? Is this strictly scientific?” Despite himself, Ken was getting pulled in by this story.
“The company, Lair Technologies, is using the moon base as a research and development location for building and living in outer space. Their plans are to build an additional station out at the Langrangian Point L2 on the other side of the Moon.”
“So, this station will not be seen from earth?” Ken clarified.
“Correct, in order to use the gravity of the moon to help the station stay in orbit, this station will need to stay on that side of the moon.”
“You say you have been with this company for the last, how long?”
“I have been working on this report for the last two weeks, Ken.”
“How did you acquire the relationship?”
Giannini thought back to the night she was running from monsters thinking she needed to get a story to get ahead. “I worked my tail off and got noticed, Ken.” She smiled at the camera.
“Fascin
ating,” Ken asked, “I see we are getting what looks like video from very close to the containers. What are those containers made out of Giannini?”
“Believe it or not, Ken, those are International shipping containers and now you might call them Interplanetary shipping containers which have been modified with a special coating, ice internally and other methods to protect those inside from the harmful rays of the sun and micrometeorites.”
“You say they have ice in them?” Ken asked.
“Yes, there are multiple ways they are carrying the necessary air, food and water to live on the moon.”
“Speaking of air, food and water what would happen if further supply ships are not able to make it up to the moon? Are those astronauts going to be able to survive?”
“Why would further supply ships be unable to make it to the moon, Ken?” Giannini asked, a frown on her face. “Are you asking if the same company that is accomplishing this right now is incapable of delivering additional supplies, or are you suggesting that perhaps a country would try to forbid it?”
“Well, I seem to remember there is an Outer Space Treaty that was signed by the US and Russia and the countries around the world.”
“That is true, Ken. However, Lair Technologies is a Paraguayan company. Paraguay is neither a member nor has signed that treaty without ratification. Maybe half of the countries around the world are a part of the treaty. Therefore, there is no reason for any of the larger, more developed countries to be upset is there?”
Ken was stymied for a moment and those watching could see him open and close his mouth a couple of times before continuing, “Well, this small company has to … what?” Ken looked off screen for a moment and turned back. “Apparently, one of the containers has a message written in the lower corner and one of the video producers has grabbed a screenshot and we are pulling it up right now.”
Giannini kept her professional smile as she heard Ken’s comment. Inside she wanted to stomp back over and kick a certain someone in his kneecap. She knew just which three had to have pulled this stunt.
“Here it comes up now, we are zooming in and the message states…” Ken kept his face straight, “It says ‘Bite Me NASA – Marcus’.” Ken looked around, “Do we have any idea who Marcus could be?” Ken turned back to the camera. “It seems that one of the team members might be a little upset with the folks over at NASA, Giannini. Do you have anything to add to that?”
“Other than I’m sure it is actually three individuals, not just one, Ken.” She kept her smile going.
“But, you do know who this Marcus is, am I correct?” Ken pushed.
“Yes, I am very aware of this gentleman.” She replied.
“Why do you not think it was only him involved in this?”
“Because I know the other two individuals who make up the core of Lair Technologies and they are all in cahoots with each other. That is the correct American idiom, am I right?” She asked.
“Yes, although with your accent you make it sound exotic, Giannini. Do you believe that the sign was approved by their boss?”
Giannini had to think about that one for a second and she came back speaking slowly as she thought on the fly, “You know, Ken. I’m not sure. I’m positive that if it is a problem, it won’t happen again. However, I’m pretty sure knowing the people involved that they do feel comfortable that their boss will be ok with the prank.”
Back in a small building in Paraguay, Bobcat looked over to William while Marcus did a dance with his arms raised in the background, “God, I hope so!”
William smiled and added, “No shit. If not, it’s the doghouse for us.”
They both turned as Marcus yelled in the background, “NASA kiss my hairy white ASS!” The two men watched as he held his eyes closed and they noticed a tear roll down his face.
The two turned back to face each other, “Fucking worth it.” Bobcat said and the two high-fived each other as the turned back to watch the TV.
Ken continued, “Giannini, the Internet is going nuts over this. We are showing that Twitter has their servers practically melting. That it is based in a South American country has a lot of people, Americans mostly, crying ‘foul’. Does the company have anything to say about that?”
“Ken, you can imagine that to accomplish everything that Lair Technologies is doing right now was done through the creativity, hard work and resources from companies around the world. There are Americans, South Americans, Romanians, Japanese, British, Europeans and many others involved in the testing, tools, and technology that accomplished this feat today. Over the next few weeks, I will be releasing additional footage of the continued efforts of this Moon Base One to rapidly become operational.”
“That almost sounds like a press release right there.” Ken said.
In a building in Colorado, Cheryl Lynn yelled to the tv, “That’s because it WAS written by a press rep, bitch!” Cheryl Lynn laughed hard and then looked over to see Bethany Anne staring at her with eyebrows raised high, “What?” Cheryl Lynn asked trying to calm herself down, “Too much?”
“Hell no!” Bethany Anne replied smiling, “I’m just wondering how you got her to say that.”
“I made a bet with her that I could make her pee in her pants. If she did, she had to work my paragraph into the interview somehow.” Cheryl Lynn replied.
“And if you didn’t?” Bethany Anne asked.
“I had to go ask Darryl to go out with her.” Cheryl Lynn admitted.
“She wants a date with Darryl?” Bethany Anne, leaning forward, asked.
“Yes, why? Is that a problem?” Cheryl Lynn looked confused.
“Fuck no!” Bethany Anne retorted, “I just wanted to make sure that I got that right. We will get them hooked up, trust me.” She looked down at her watch. “Well, fuck. Make sure someone records this would you?”
Cheryl Lynn grabbed the remote and made sure the ‘record’ button was punched. “Got you covered boss.” She never looked up from the tv, but waved a hand at Bethany Anne as she stepped around behind her, grabbed Ashur by the scruff of the neck, and walked through the Etheric into her closet in Florida.
From there, Bethany Anne changed clothes and slung one sword over her shoulder and belted on her pistols. “Time to make sure no one leaves the party my Own are throwing.” Reaching down, she grabbed Ashur once again and walked to a building over in Shanghai China. She had visited it hours earlier via a Pod delivery. Then walked the Etheric back to Colorado to see the beginning of the news coverage. She would in place hours before anyone should be around. It might make for a boring time, but she wasn’t going to allow that certain someone to escape if she could stop it.
At that same time, there were three pods moving smaller hunks of rock and rapidly approaching the earth’s atmosphere on the other side of the world from the show going on approaching the moon.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Aboard Moon Base One Command Module
“I’m telling you, let’s not fuck up on national television Coach.” Penn told his second, Steve Hewgley.
Steve came over from the Navy as a retired Navy Avionics Electronics Technician. He was in his early fifties, or if you believed him, his ‘late late thirties’. Whatever, Penn didn’t care because he was hell on wheels getting things going on the electronics side and was a master with the video equipment.
“What?” Coach asked him from container two, “You don’t just want me to run the video with a fifteen second delay, that way if something goes wrong I just loop it?”
Penn looked at him, “That’s great!” he exclaimed, “how fast can you make that happen.”
“Now.” Coach replied.
“Now?” Penn answered, confused.
“Yes, as in I’m running it that way right now. It’s common in situations like this.”
“Oh, I’m used to ‘live - live’, not ‘mostly live’.” Penn retorted.
“I’m used to captains of ships not wanting a fustercluck to show up on the news at six.” Coach
replied.
Penn thought about his own feelings as the captain of this effort, “Smart people,” he said. Coach just nodded his agreement.
The team brought their containers around the moon to the most level location that they could find. It had been pre-surveyed two days back and the locations for the seven containers had been programmed in and ADAM had checked everything.
Twice.
For global PR support, there was a video camera in each of the seven modules and the insides of the containers looked more like true science modules than what the team would have brought along if they did not have the cameras involved. There was no reason, the team felt, to give away too much by showing how little of this stuff they needed. Most of it was just pretty dressing done up by William.
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