WE WILL BUILD

by Michael Anderle

  Frank hung up the phone. Smiling he leaned back in his chair. He noticed Barb almost right next to him for the first time and looked over, but she was staring at him in shock. He reached up to his mouth and wiped around it, “What? Do I have jelly from breakfast on my face?”

  Barb slowly shook her head. “You’re him.”

  “Him who?” Frank asked, puzzled.

  Barb whispered into the room, “You’re the hundred-year-old Government Agent!”

  Outside TQB Base, Colorado - USA

  Agent Terry DeLeon was two and a half miles from the front gates to the new TQB Enterprises Corporate Retreat sitting on the side of the road in his rented silver Nissan Sentra.

  Retreat my ass, thought Terry, this was a former Army base and his boss wanted to know what was going on. They had a lot of satellite photos of massive changes being made at the base, but nothing close enough to discern more than new housing, or new buildings and modifications. They could tell some things were being placed around the base under tarps. His group was not authorized to work inside of the U.S. and for now, his boss didn’t want to task the super high-resolution passes to focus on U.S. soil.

  Terry was pretty sure the company would claim the tarps were sun protection for something benign, but he was a suspicious sort. The company was being run by the previous general and he had his top people overseeing most of the changes.

  His boss was right, something was fishy here.

  Terry had been down in Costa Rica on a bad op a while back and had run into a group that used a Black Hawk. The same type of helicopter was seen flying through these hills fairly frequently. It was painting a fairly good suggestion that this might be the same group that he and his partner tussled with down there. He had been shot in the leg during an acquisition and extraction operation and that damned thing still hurt when it got cold and damp. Every time it hurt, it only added more wood to the fire to bring that group to justice.

  And by justice, he meant massive flames with no survivors.

  When his boss pulled him aside to talk about an operation that might lead him to those bastards, Terry was anxious to go. He wrote up that he was asking for a vacation to go back to the states and would provide everything to his boss through a cut-out. This operation couldn’t be tagged as going back to his group at all.

  Making sure he had his credentials, as a reporter, in place Terry pulled the car back into the driving lane and headed for the base.

  It took him almost five minutes on the switch back road to make it to the secured stop area. He had been warned three times that there was a security gate ahead and if you did not stop, force would be used to stop you.

  Terry was a little surprised at the setup. It looked more like a border crossing than a simple company guard shack. There were implanted tire shredders that only allowed movement in one direction and a method of protecting the guards should someone try to ram anything and push their way through.

  Almost like they were designed to protect against a frontal assault.

  He slowed as he approached and the guard was already out putting up his ‘halt’ signal while Terry rolled down his window and noticed the man’s name tag. He smiled and said, “Hello Mr. Barrins!”

  “Good afternoon, sir.” The guard allowed, “I’m not showing any appointments on base at this time.”

  Terry wasn’t sure how the guard would know he wasn’t a base employee and was wanting an appointment, but he let that go. “No, I am a reporter for the Post, boss sent me up here for a feel-good story on how the company has helped the members of our military and their families, coming to the aid of this area when they leased the old base. So, I figured there must be a PR person I could speak to and it wouldn’t hurt TQB Enterprises to have some good press, right?” Terry smiled his widest, most disarming smile.

  But, it didn’t work.

  “I’m sorry, but the PR Person only has one approved reporter on the list and you are not that person.”

  “I see.” Terry’s face bore a frown, “So no chance to call and ask him?”

  “That would be ‘her’ and no there is not.” Barrins was getting irritated with the man. “Kindly go to your left at the split twenty feet ahead of you. It will allow you to turn around and leave without ruining your car. Should you make the mistake of trying to force your way onto the base, the car will be destroyed and possibly you in the process. Have a good day.”

  Terry smiled and nodded his head and was very careful to follow the guard’s directions. He waved like he didn’t have a care in the world and started back down the road.

  Ten minutes later, Barrins walked out of the guard area and put up his hand to stop a dark green Toyota Camry. He looked down at the dark haired woman and said, “Good Morning, Senorita Oviedo. Welcome back this morning. Cheryl Lynn is expecting you. Let me run your pass again to confirm your entry.”

  Moments later, the dark green Toyota Camry continued into the base.

  ‘The Pit’, TQB Base Colorado - USA

  “So,” Bethany Anne asked Jeffrey, “Are you saying that the teams are progressing according to plan or what? I’m sensing a lot of waffling here.” It was just Jeffrey and Bethany Anne at the main table at the bottom level.

  Cheryl Lynn with Giannini Oviedo were up two levels above them. Giannini was taking notes and had a camera, well two actually, trained on the two down at the table.

  You call that waffling? I call that an inconclusive response.

  TOM, it means the same thing.

  A food means the same thing?

  Go look it up, I’m working here.

  “Yes.” Jeffrey answered, “To both. They are both progressing well and I’m waffling. We have officially moved beyond anyone’s experience.”

  “So, what are the hang-ups?” She asked him. “Are we talking people, knowledge, time, materials, resources ... what?”

  Jeffrey looked up to the ceiling and considered the core of his concern. “If we want to do this in front of the World, I’d rather be damned sure we don’t get it wrong and have some of our people die in the process.”

  “Well, then why aren’t you practicing first?” Bethany Anne asked.

  “It isn’t like we have a moon gymnasium to tweak the process with.” Jeffrey said, exasperatedly.

  “Really?” Bethany Anne replied, “I’m pretty sure anytime I look up at night the fucking gymnasium is staring me right in the face.”

  Giannini covered her mouth and turned to Cheryl Lynn and said in a whisper, “Oh my God, she can’t say that!”

  Cheryl Lynn looked up from her research she was doing at the computer, “Hmm? Say what?”

  “She said ‘fucking’!” Giannini hissed.

  “That?” Cheryl Lynn looked at her in surprise. “That’s pretty tame. Wait until she really gets going.” Cheryl Lynn seemed to go inside of herself before continuing, “Let’s see, I’ve heard ‘You flaming pile of rutting cock shit’, and ‘gold digging scrotum blender’” Cheryl Lynn looked at Giannini, “That was to a woman, then there is the completely curse word free ‘out of all the sperm you were the fastest?’ then we go back to ‘Aggravated Rotating Shit Eater’ or ARSE for short. Following that we have ‘complete unadulterated fucking cunt’ and the short but succinct ‘butt twunt’.”

  Cheryl Lynn paused, “Still not sure what the hell that means. We continue with ‘fucking DILF mower’ which sounded rather painful to me and the ‘goat demonizing milk producer’ another curse word free variant and ‘lord of the unimaginable cock maggots’, a particular favorite of mine.”

  Cheryl Lynn waited as Giannini just stared at her for a moment before blinking, “In how long a time did you hear all of these?” Giannini asked.

  “Oh, probably the last week?” She replied unperturbedly, “You get pretty immune to them after the first few days.”

  “Oh,” was Giannini’s only reply.

  “Hey!” The two women focused back down at the two talking at the table with Bethany Anne looking up to them. “You fo
rgot a few, do you want me to mention them?” Bethany Anne was smiling as Giannini furiously shook her head ‘no’. “Ok, just checking.” She turned her focus back to Jeffrey, “So, you understand what I’m asking you to do?”

  “Yes, and in it’s own way it’s brilliant. I’m not sure why we didn’t think of it ourselves?”

  “Probably still thinking ‘earthbound’. Not a problem, but you need to get over it. Tell you what, why don’t you move your practicing down to the new land in Paraguay?”

  “You do know about the weather changes and winds, not to mention the rain, the government...” Jeffrey got started.

  “What I know,” Bethany Anne replied, “is that Paraguay is not part of the Outer Space Treaty, that Boquerón where Filadelfia is located has about 2 people per square kilometer and that we have purchased over 1,000 acres in a remote area. We have at least a football field worth of space we can land our shipping containers on. I’m thinking that moving them from here to there and then practicing with tree cover is a good idea, and then sending them up to outer space from there and back down for testing is a hell of a better idea than doing it from here.”

  She continued, “Security will be an issue, so contact Dan to get that setup and tell Team BMW to move people as appropriate. I know William is going to have to keep his machines here. For that matter, so will Marcus.” She let that hang.

  “You’re shipping Bobcat down there with me?” Bethany Anne didn’t respond.

  “Ok,” He clarified, “You are telling me to do whatever is needed. I get it.” Jeffrey nodded, “There has to be a downside for getting ready to play in outer space.”

  “Right!” She smiled to him, “It’s called roughing it. Just consider it good practice for roughing it in outer space. It isn’t like you’re going to be able to drive out and see a movie on the Moon, either.”

  “We will have Pods for that!” Bethany Anne raised an eyebrow to Jeffrey, “Right, like we won’t have Pods in Paraguay.”

  “Just think about what you want to build and have down there; build it here and send it down at night. How cozy do you want it?”

  “Pretty damned cozy.” He replied.

  Bethany Anne stood up, “Good, because there is NOTHING in Paraguay. No electricity, no water that you would want to immediately drink, no gas, no entertainment, no plumbing. It’s almost like I’m asking you to build a livable moon base right here on earth.” She winked to him and then turned to walk out. Ashur got up and traveled alongside her. She didn’t have either Eric or John with her at the moment as they had left for Australia an hour ago.

  She did get to have a talk with Dan however, so maybe momma bear would get to have a little fun after all.

  So long as her team didn’t know it.

  Cheryl Lynn and Giannini grabbed their stuff and quickly followed the two.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  QBS Ad Aeternitatem - Mediterranean

  Bethany Anne translocated with Ashur to the Ad Aeternitatem. She exited from her arrival room and was surprised to see Ricky Escobar outside of her door, “Tell me you aren’t standing here in the off chance that I show up?” she asked.

  Ricky repeated back to Bethany Anne in a monotone voice, “I am not standing here in the off chance that you show up.” He finished with a large grin at Bethany Anne who slapped his arm.

  “Ok, funny. Now tell me the truth?” She started walking towards the stern of the yacht. It was night here and she wanted to go back up to check out outer space. Ashur chuffed to her so she told him, “Go on, go get spoiled in the damned cafeteria.” Ashur didn’t wait, but took off with Bethany Anne calling after him, “You're lucky you don’t gain weight!” She got a one bark response before he tore around a corner.

  “That dog is scary smart,” Ricky commented.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty sure if I could figure out a way to talk with him, I’d have a smart but bratty teenager on my hands.” She thought about it for a moment, “Then again, not dealing with a bratty teenager is a nice thought at the moment.”

  They arrived at the stern of the boat where TOM’s ship used to be held. Now, there were Pod’s all setup to go up. She waved to Todd Jenkins who was at the other end of the area making sure nothing seemed amiss. He walked over to them, “Going up?” He asked.

  “Yes, I want to check something out. While I could see it on the monitors, it helps me to have this big-ass blue ball under me. It centers me.” She shrugged.

  “Ok. You prepped on opening the roof Ricky?” Todd asked.

  “I’ve been checked out. Pete wants us knowing everything we can about the running of the ship while we are on it.” Ricky explained to Bethany Anne when she looked at him questioningly. “He and Todd are putting into place plans that have Guardians cross-training.” He winked while Todd acted like he would backhand the Wechselbalg.

  “Hey, want to go up with me?” Bethany Anne asked Todd.

  “Really?” Todd asked.

  “Sure tweedle-dick, like I offer and don’t mean it?” She smiled and went to one of the Pods.

  “Well, it isn’t like we get asked to go in these often.” Todd came over.

  Bethany Paused and considered his statement, “That’s a problem. Let’s get in and I’ll have a note sent to Dan.”

  ADAM

  >>Yes?<<

  Please compose a message to Lance, Dan and both captains about getting all personnel a chance to ride the Pods into space. They all need to understand what we are doing this for.

  ADAM told her what he had written for her to those mentioned.

  Sounds good, please send it.

  She pulled all of the belts into place and locked in. Todd closed the doors and Ricky opened up the door above them.

  “Have you eaten recently?” Bethany Anne asked Todd as she set her foot against a ledge on the door. Since she tended to just ‘grab’ pods, William had made an effort to go around to all of the Pods and install the special Bethany Anne foot rest.

  “No, why?” Todd asked.

  Bethany Anne leaned forward just a touch to confirm the door above them was open.

  TOM.

  Yes, oh Mistress of the Dark.

  Gott Verdammt! What the hell have you been watching recently? Wait, never mind. I don’t have time for that shit right now. Get ready to take us out of here and set the speed dial to ‘11’.

  Your wish is my command.

  Bethany Anne leaned forward and rested her elbow against her leg and set her chin on her hand.

  Todd leaned forward a little, mimicking Bethany Anne not sure what to expect. As he leaned forward she smiled to herself.

  Punch it!

  Todd thought he had just left every atom of his body back on the ship as they screamed up through the hole above them into the night. He reached to his left and to the door in front of him to push against as the extra gravity hit him in surprise. He looked over to Bethany Anne who was acting like this wasn’t a big deal.

  For her? It probably wasn’t.

  For Todd, he was doing everything he could not to scream in surprise. Even so, he grunted at the acceleration and the view out of the glass instantly showed him lights that he knew were a hundred miles away.

  Then, they hit high cloud cover and quickly starlight illuminated the sky above them and he slowly released his grip on the Pod itself. “Oh, my God.” He exclaimed.

  “Pretty much what I think every time.” Bethany Anne commented. Todd looked over to the woman next to him. “I know, you forgot I was here for a second. Happens most every time.”

  “Most?” Todd asked.

  “Well, Kevin had a hold of me near my crotch, so I was a bit pointed in telling him he needed to move it, pay me … or lose it.”