Plane of the Godless

by Peter Hartz

  The huge form seemed to shift his weight onto his back legs, then he performed a prodigious leap that cleared the fence easily, landing with another, louder thud before trotting off towards the pickup truck and horse trailer parked near the garage.

  Derrick gaped at the impossible act that the unicorn seemed to carry out almost nonchalantly before hurrying along after to try to prevent any mayhem that might occur. Although, he thought to himself, what he might be able to do to stop the impossible creature from anything escaped his thoughts at the moment. But Llellondryn seemed to content himself with just looking at the truck and trailer in front of him intently, circling around to the far side away from the house as Derrick tried to keep the pure white being in his sight.

  Then he heard the back door close, and his wife’s voice came to him. “Honey, what did you want me to bring the camcorder for? Katie said something about a white horse with a funny point on his head, but…” Her voice trailed off as Llellondryn came around from the other side of the trailer, but at least she had the presence of mind to whip the camcorder up, turn it on, and start recording.

  Llellondryn, for his part, stopped cold at the sight of Derrick’s wife. He stood stock still for a moment, just staring at the woman holding the camcorder in front of her as she looked back equally in awe over the top of what she held in her hands. Then he shook himself, and walked slowly towards her. What happened next caused her to nearly drop the expensive electronic device she held so carefully in her hands.

  “My Lady, you are a vision of beauty and perfection. I am awed to be in your presence. Even in your peasant raiment, you are obviously blessed by the gods themselves. What are you doing with a bum like this on a farm? You could be holding court in the Elven Queen’s city, taking your just due from worshippers that would come far and wide to simply behold your incredible features and your radiant beauty.”

  Shock did not really come close to what Miranda was feeling, a small part deep inside her decided. Later, she was amazed that her hands were so steady that she didn’t miss any part of that statement the unicorn laid on her. It was too much. She started laughing.

  “Derrick, where did this… what is…” *gasp* “Oh my. Oh my.” She found she couldn’t form any rational sentences.

  Derrick laughed at seeing his wonderful wife so taken aback. He turned to Llellondryn and put his hand on the unicorn’s shoulder. “I see you have a fine appreciation for what really matters. Flatterer.”

  Llellondryn turned to the human. “What? Too much? She is really fine, I must say. You must have had to hit her over the head and run off with her before she woke up to get her to like you. Did you get her with child before she knew what happened so she would stay with you? Or, it must have been gold. Did you buy her affections? Pay some huge dowry to her father? Or perhaps rescue her from a dragon? I don’t see you as the knightly sort, so that couldn’t really be it. You look kind of… well, not up to THAT task, I must say.”

  “Hey, that’s not very nice. She chose ME! I was just lucky she even liked me!” Indignation warred with laughter, but mirth was winning. It was just too funny. Derrick had a good sense of humor about himself. He knew he would never win any contests, but his ability to laugh at just about anything, and not let problems upset him, had won her heart his junior year of college.

  He glanced happily at Miranda, remembering the stunning beauty his roommate had introduced him to at that student mixer nearly ten years ago. The green eyes and dark brown hair framed a face that was perfect, with a soft skin tone and fine bone structure that would make a supermodel blush. The rest of her was just as perfect. She was a three sport athlete in high school and attended college on a full-ride athletic scholarship. He was still astonished to this day that they were so incredibly compatible on so many levels. He definitely married up.

  “My lady, I am Llellondryn, and I am at your service.” He bowed his head low and bent on elegant leg in a dashing pose for a moment, then looked up at her. “Do you wish to go for a ride? I promise to be gentle for your first time. Of course, the second time, I make no such promise…”

  “Hey, that’s my wife, you animal. Be nice.” The look on Llellondryn’s equine face turned from one of lust to one of contrition pretty fast.

  “I was just casting a joke. Don’t get your tail in thorns.” He turned back and trotted off to the paddock.

  “I suppose I must return to those that appreciate my company and the refinements of life and love that I have to offer,” they heard as he headed away from them. As he neared the fence, he executed another prodigious leap that carried him easily over the fence and back inside.

  His wife looked over at Derrick as Katie spoke up. “I told you he was a pointy head.” Llellondryn snorted as if he had heard that, which he probably did, Derrick decided. Horses have sensitive hearing; there was no telling if Llellondryn could hear even better than that. Probably.

  Miranda put one hand on her daughter’s shoulder while the other held the still-recording camcorder. “Hon, what was that? Did that really just happen?”

  “You saw it. Heck, you recorded it. We can watch it back to confirm it really did.”

  She turned the camcorder in her hand, and then stopped the recording, closing the screen. Then she spoke up.

  “What do you think would happen if we put that up on YouTube?” She laughed at the shudder that seemed to come over him. Then Llellondryn’s voice carried to them from the paddock.

  “What is YouTube?”

  Chapter 24

  It had been almost two weeks since he had gotten the call that the Michelle situation had been handled and the David situation would be resolved shortly. Since then, nothing seemed to be going right. David had shown up back at work the following Monday as if nothing had happened, and he brought in a new member for his “team”. He hoped that he had not let anything show on his face when David held a company-wide meeting to talk about Michelle taking a leave of absence. He also stated during that same meeting that Michelle had temporarily transferred her control and duties to David while she was away, something she apparently had set up a while ago.

  He had smiled and nodded like everyone else, as if it was a good idea, when inside he thought it was anything but. Michelle and David both refused to take advantage of the lucrative government contract business that was just waiting to be exploited. It would have made everyone rich. Well, richer, he thought to himself. The upper management and execs were all getting bonuses every year that were significantly higher than the industry standard, and that trickled down to the workers at every level, as well, not that it should have. He firmly believed that workers should be just happy to have a job with such a wonderful company. The benefits, including the health insurance plans, the more than generous 4.01(k) matching policy, and everything else, were extravagant.

  His careful suggestions that the benefits be trimmed back to further profitability, and thereby enrich the executives and higher-ups, had been jerked hard to a cold stop. It was almost like Michelle and David were running a charity for the middle class here! But the look on Michelle’s face had been clear enough as she stated to him that they all had enough money, and that the company was not built on the work of the “leadership group”, but on the efforts of the front-line employees. Even the private security teams that patrolled the building here in the U.S. and the building in Ireland, and manned the front desk and the surveillance monitoring station, including the off-site team that managed the remote security monitoring center, were included in this foolishness, which he internally found to be ridiculous. Everyone knew that you didn’t build wealth by sharing your profits with everyone under you. But, the look on both David and Michelle’s face indicated that the subject was closed.

  A few weeks later, Michelle had all but ordered him to go off to that new-age joke masquerading as ‘leadership training.’ Inwardly, he had laughed his whole time there, all the while nodding at the appropriate places, and saying all the right things. But it was clear that whoever
thought up this bunch of crap had their heads up their collective asses. ‘Servant Leadership?’ Really? You serve the needs of those who report to you? Not hardly. More like not ever. The employees needed to just follow direction. If they weren’t capable of it, they could easily be replaced. Hell, the HR department got resumes by the basket full every time an ad was run.

  He was not sure how they did it, but Michelle, and then David when her brother had come on board, had built this piddling little company into the darling of the local business community. It didn’t make any sense to him. Empowerment? What the hell does that really mean? Employee engagement? If they weren’t engaged by themselves, they needed to be reminded that they were here to work. And all those amenities were wastes of space, including that eye-sore of a climbing wall all those gung-ho veterans swarmed over all the time like beetles on a massive mound of feces.

  When he got back from the new-age, incense-snorting, campfire sing-along calling itself leadership training, he almost gave away his real opinion when she asked him how it went. It had been a huge waste of his time and the company’s money. But when he opened his mouth, the look on her face said that she believed all that crap, so he had said nothing about his true feelings. Instead, he mouthed something about that it was interesting, and he would have to think about it. Or something similar to that. He didn’t really remember what had come out. But she hadn’t seemed that upset by his response. She had just nodded knowingly, as if that was the expected result. It should be. All that stuff would need a lot of syrup to be poured on it to make it go down easier.

  But all that left him with a problem. He desperately wanted the company to expand into providing services for the Federal government. And he knew, because his friends in high places (as he liked to think of them) had told him all about their plans. It would bring in money by the truckload, something that would have enriched everyone, down to Michelle’s precious janitorial staff. But when he tried to bring that point up to justify his position, always respectfully, of course, she had shot him down. There was no way, she’d said, she would allow the technologies that had been developed by their incredibly bright programmers and mathematicians to be used by ‘them’.

  And when that NSA contractor had committed treason in releasing all that highly secretive and classified information to those reporters, it had solidified both hers and David’s resolve to never do business with ‘them,’ while the sounds coming from his government contacts seemed to grow more insistent and strident.

  That’s when someone had whispered an idea in his ear. If Michelle and David were both out of the picture, he would be in effective legal control of the company. If such an amazing coincidence were to occur, would he sign on the line and let the government in? What a dumb question. All he could think about was the millions of dollars that would line his own accounts when he nodded firmly. That had set the plans in motion. All he had to do was get the tracker onto her Maserati, and tell them when she was planning on going to that cottage that David and Michelle both believed no one else knew about.

  His eyes had narrowed when they told him about it, and he wondered if they had used company funds to build it. In fact, that had been one avenue his special friends had asked him to investigate surreptitiously. Even though it was a privately held company, a case could be made for embezzlement if they had siphoned off corporate funds to build something like that and they later registered the deed in their own names. In the end, it would be dicey to take that all the way to court, but in the meantime, both Michelle and David could be arrested and charged with embezzling from their own company. That would transfer their corporate authority to him for the duration of the investigation.

  The problem was, none of it would stick, because it was a privately held corporation. Michelle and David controlled over ninety percent of the company by their direct ownership. And while he had been granted a small percentage of the company, and the highest level outside the two siblings, it amounted to almost nothing. Employee stock ownership programs were notorious. The shares issued had no real, tangible value, and while laws tried to prevent some abuses, there was very little employees could do, short of taking the company to court, which guaranteed that said employee would get a glow-in-the-dark target painted on their forehead, and a sign taped to their back that said ‘Kick me (to the curb)’ on their back.

  The stock program at Michelle and David’s company was limited to executives. The rest of the employees all received direct bonuses and retirement fund matches, which in his mind, was only slightly above downright dumb. It meant that the employees couldn’t get uppity and make inappropriate demands, like he had seen elsewhere all too often with plans like that.

  And now, things were at a stalemate. Obviously, David knew that someone had tried to deal with Michelle. She had signed her control and duties over to David, and gone on an extended leave of absence. She had announced it on a conference call to upper management the following Wednesday. While her voice had sounded a little different, it was clearly her on the phone. Then, she had hung up, and David had taken over. And he’d seen all his plans get tossed in the trash.

  He’d called his friends to ask what came next, but they had put him on ice. They’d seemed surprised at his information, and for the first time, had seemed indecisive and unsure of their next move. Apparently things hadn’t gone as planned, and they didn’t know what to do next. But David seemed to have some plans of his own.

  It was a subtle thing, but the special team David had assembled from his fellow military veterans seemed to close ranks around David and the new guy that had just joined them. That wasn’t unusual. He had tried for a couple years to get more information from David about how he ran the team, and such. But David had simply told him that it really wasn’t any of his business, since he had nothing to do with HR, and HR reported up through David. So, new members came on all the time, as other members left for greener pastures as they completed their year of training and their first year of real work. Another waste of company funds that could have gone to better causes, in his opinion, but no one asked him. And he wasn’t about to chase that goose. David could be downright scary at times, probably because of his military experience.

  His thoughts turned to the new team member. His appearance was a little unusual, like he never got out in the sun. His eye color was also unusual – a vivid amber color that he couldn’t remember seeing in anyone else. And his hair was a uniform grey color, almost the same as his skin. He couldn’t remember ever seeing anyone that looked remotely like the new guy previously. Where does David find these bozos?

  When the new guy, Gil something, looked him in the eye, it was almost like looking at his wise old grandmother. It was almost like looking into a deep pool, or having Gil look through him all the way deep into his darkest secrets. The effect was somewhat disconcerting, but if he hadn’t been trying to maneuver his way into a better position in charge of the company on at least a temporary basis, it wouldn’t have upset him. As it was, he needed to try to keep his calm. Some things were going right. Michelle was somewhere off being detained by that team, and David…

  Why wasn’t David on ice with Michelle somewhere? How had that team not gotten them both? He had been assured that the team sent out to help with the situation was some of the very best, and had never failed to complete its objective. From what he had been able to deduce during the meetings to plan the moves, they were supposed to grab Michelle, secure her, and ‘take her off the board’. David was supposed to then be intercepted when he went to join his sister at the cottage. Then Allison was supposed to join her husband and sister-in-law. He thought they would be held out of contact for no more than a month, which should have been sufficient to him.

  With no one around to oppose him, as the number three person in the company, he would have been free, after two weeks or so, to sign off on the contract he was so eager to get for them.

  He turned to look out his corner office window as he thought his way through things once aga
in. Where had the plans gone wrong? It obviously had, because David showed up that Monday morning, and had promptly taken over. David had been in charge before, and no one batted an eye when he came in and announced that Michelle was on an extended and well-deserved vacation. They had been concerned, because all the little peons and minions loved her like some ancient nature goddess from whom all good things flowed. He snorted inside at that. She was just a lucky bitch who used every ridiculous advantage she had to try to wheedle her way into any opening, no matter how small or inappropriate.

  His father had always told him that some people are destined to be in charge of the great unwashed masses of mindless sheep that made up the vast majority of the population. His family was old money, he was proud to repeatedly say, and were above all the rabble that wandered aimlessly through life making more squalling brats to play in the mud at their day care centers while their parents both went off to dead end jobs that never gave them the opportunity to advance their careers, their finances, or their children’s futures. His future was assured, thought. His family’s money would see to that.

  So when someone approached him about a meeting with a U.S. Senator about a serious issue with which he could provide assistance, he didn’t hesitate. He was appalled at what the Senator told him about what was really going on in MDST, and wanted to help with the situation any way he could.

  The Senator and his aide had laid it all out in front of him. Michelle was using a new cryptographic technology that they would not let the agencies of the U.S. government have access to. As far as anyone was able to tell, it was an entirely new cryptographic technique that the NSA had not been able to break. They couldn’t even figure out how it worked, let alone decrypt it. And while it had only been detected on the private links between the two data centers the company had here in Ireland, they assured him that it was only a matter of time before Michelle and David decided to sell it on the open market.