by Newbiel
A flicker of surprise passed in Marcus' eyes but it was quickly hidden behind an impassive facade. Marcus was going to talk when Nathaniel stopped him and raised his hand.
"Don't worry, I will not tell anyone about this." Nathaniel said.
"I did not say that your idiotic rambling was accurate."
"Of course you didn't. I will just remind you that the CIA does not have the authorization to operate on American soil by multiple executive orders coming from the Attorney General. And utilising government resources for personal uses, like let's just say for the sake of argument, investigating his niece's new boyfriend is illegal and the person involved could go to jail for a very long time. Not even mentioning the mediatic fallout if the press were to learn about the brother of a US Senator using his influence to investigate a young popstar." Nathaniel shrugged.
"You are much more than what you appear to be either." Marcus realized.
"You know what people say Mark, young people have unlimited potential." Nathaniel smiled wolfishly before refocusing his attention on Jason who was almost done with his birthday presents.
*****
The next morning, Nathaniel was getting out of the shower wearing only briefs when his grandmother knocked on the door of his bedroom. Quickly putting a shirt on, he opened the door for her. Looking at the bed already made and the clothes folded on the side, Diane wanted to shake her head.
"Dear, you know we have maids. Can you be a little messy like every teenager on this planet?"
"It's not because someone can do your job that it must prevent you from doing it yourself." Nathaniel answered.
"You are really worse than your grandfather sometimes." Diane laughed.
"Mom said the same thing to me not too long ago." Nathaniel laughed back.
"How did the party go last night?" She asked, sitting on his bed.
"You were right, the senator was less than welcoming and his brother was the same. I did meet some interesting people and it was kind of fun so it was still worthwhile."
"And with the girl? Madison is it?"
"Yes it is. Well, at the end of the evening she was kind of thoughtful and a little distant. At first, our relation was only about sex and now that I met her family, especially as they were calling me her 'boyfriend', it is normal. She must think about it, I sent her a text this morning and she did not answer as of yet. I will not force her to do anything and if she wants to stop, that is fine by me."
"Really? Just like that?" Diane said, surprised.
"We were friends before becoming something more. We are basically free to do whatever we want except betraying each other. We made a deal that if one of us met someone else, he could just tell the other and we were going back to be just friends. I always respect my word."
"Good. The Lyndon family has a long history of never betraying their words. Even your grandfather despite having done shady things in the past when we created the company, never broke his. What did you think about the senator?"
"Charismatic, smart, dubious and thirst for power. The typical politician, the fact that he came from an illustrious family does not add anything to him." Nathaniel said after thinking about it for a moment.
"It sounds about right. It's good instruction for you, blood does not make people great, it's just an advantage for some. We were never in that category but that never stopped us from accomplishing great things. Now dress up, I want to show you the files of the creation of the Lyndon Tower and our empire."
"Coming right up grandma." Nathaniel said, dressing quickly. He was hyped to see those files, maybe he could find things in them to help him in his future plans.
Chapter 102: :
New York. Lyndon tower. 07/11/2012. 09:30.
"Hello grandpa." Nathaniel said, walking into the office of Robert Lyndon.
"Ah my unfilial grandson. When were you going to tell me that you are dating the favorite daughter of the most influential man in the state?" Robert grumbled.
"Probably between never and ever. I'm not seeing her because she had a wealthy family and we are not dating."
"Yeah yeah, your grandmother told me about this, it does not matter. Just make sure to keep the girl happy, I don't want my relationship with that family to become tense. Why are you here by the way? I'm busy with work if you can't tell." He said, making a movement with his hand to encourage Nathaniel to leave.
"I'm staying but it's not to mess with you grandpa, although it is a very fun thing to do. I have a business proposition for you."
"Business?" Robert asked, his interest picked.
"Yes, I want to create my own business. Well, not exactly. I want it to become a subsidiary of our company but with total autonomy and ownership."
"What is your business going to be about?"
"Officially, security informatics."
"You planned that from the very beginning did you? Since you learned that Ryan was stealing from us. I did not understand why you wanted to steal all of his computers at the time beside payback obviously, but now I do. Wait, you said officially?"
"Yes but please don't ask anymore grandpa, there are things that are better left unsaid."
"Fine. What's in it for me and the company then?" Robert said he had learned by now if his grandson did not want to talk about something, nothing could change his mind so he decided to move on.
"Rent money and discount on the software protection I will provide."
"Discount, you are really going to make your own flesh and blood pay?" Robert said indignantly.
"Well, you were the one who launched the subject of the money so you had it coming. Moreover, nothing's free in this world, you told me that yourself."
"Alright, since it is your first idea on a business, I will help you this once. I'm going to ask the IT to accommodate a place for you and your employees to work freely."
"IT? I never talk about IT, I found the perfect place for us to settle in. Here." Nathaniel said, fishing out blueprints from his bag and putting them on the desk, pointing at a specific place.
"Where did you get those blueprints from?" He asked vehemently.
These blueprints represent the Lyndon tower before and after its refitting nine years ago. Robert had to buy the entire decrepit tower at a never seen low price in Manhattan and had remodeled it to his liking. He had made sure that the copy of these blueprints got 'lost' from the city hall and other governmental agencies. Robert was a little paranoid and liked to stay hidden from public view.
"From your study in the Hampton. Grandma allowed me to keep them and work on it for my project."
"Well, I believe you did not look at these blueprints right. The place that you're pointing at has been sealed when I refitted the tower." Robert said. He knew how much his wife doted on Nathaniel so he was not overly surprised to learn she let him take them out.
"I know, I want to re-open it and renovate it to meet my needs. It is basically an empty floor that we are wasting away. This is New York, no space is allowed to not be used."
"You know what this underground floor is, don't you?"
"Yes, this is an anti bombing shelter built in the early fifties, there are a lot of buildings in the city that had one like that, albeit not this large. Why did you choose to seal it instead of renovating it?"
"For starters we found that the bunker is connected to the underground sewer and the subway. It represented a security problem that I did not want to deal with at the time. We also had all the places that we needed and more, so spending more money to fix a floor that I did not know I would have any use for, sounded like a bad investment."
"That's where our opinions diverge. You see a potential security problem, I see a way to leave the tower without being detected. It can be useful in quite a few situations. Especially here, you see that wall? If we were to breach it and build a tunnel for one hundred yards, we could link the tower to a maintenance electrical tunnel. It could be advantageous for a couple of reasons."
"Like what?" Robert asked, dou
btful.
"We could connect our electrical network to the city line. If we were to be cut off of electricity, we could still power up the tower." Nathaniel said, preferring to hide the others reasons it will be advantageous for him.
"What's the point? If we are cut off of power, it means the block is too."
"That's where you are wrong. Look here. That maintenance tunnel power up the west side is not our block." Nathaniel said, showing a new file to his grandfather.
"Where did you get that blueprint? It was not in my study." Robert asked.
"I visited City Hall yesterday to find out exactly what was below the surface. Fun fact, did you know the blueprint of the tower is missing from it?"
"No I did not but I'm not surprised, it has surely been misplaced, this is not the first time it happened and not the last when you see the state of our administration."
"Yeah right. Grandpa, this is me, not a reporter, you can say that you made sure it was never there in the first place to be lost. I will not report you, you know. I did go there for that exact purpose, I was pleasantly surprised that you took care of that already" Nathaniel complimented.
"Like you think this is so easy. They have back up on paper and on a database for every blueprint in the city. Just destroying the one they gave you will not be enough and I remind you they look at the state of the document when you give it back, if it's damaged, you need to pay a fine."
"I never said the building was open to visitors when I was there. Our administration really needs funding, no security camera, no pass. Only a key is needed and dodging a snoring fifty year old guardian." Nathaniel shook his head.
Looking at Nathaniel for a couple of seconds, Robert was going to say something but ultimately chose to abstain. Sighing, he got back to the original topic of conversation.
"This is going to cost you a lot if you want to do everything and getting authorization from the city is going to be troublesome, you will need bribery funds to get everything that you want. I know a couple of people I can suggest to help you with that if you want."
"Thanks but giving dirty money to dirty people is not really my style grandpa. If my plans are going like I expect them to be, I will have all the authorization I need."
"Good, they are here if you end up still needing them. One more thing, you will not get Jean and Amal in whatever you are trying to create. I'm keeping them."
"Don't worry, you need them more than me. Moreover, they are used to your character by now, I don't think we could find new bodyguards to stay beside you 24/7 even if we offer them a million dollar a year."
"And I believe this is your cue to leave. Now." He said, his eyes narrowing dangerously.
Picking up his blueprints, Nathaniel put them back inside his bag and made his way to the exit.
"Bye grandpa!" He shouted before leaving.
It was only after the door of his office closed and Robert was back alone in his huge office that a good natured smile formed on his face and he let out a chuckle.
Chapter 103: :
New York. 11/11/2012. 18:30.
Lina Campbell was enjoying her sunday calmly looking at her favorite anime on her computer. Her feet on her desk and wearing jeans shorts and a white top, she was the very definition of a casual sunday.
After what happened with the society who had messed with the Lyndon network, Lina had worked around the clock to make sure that their internet security was flawless. She had taken the responsibility that her employer put on her very seriously. That was the first time that her superior trusted her enough to put her in charge and she wanted to prove herself.
She had worked so much that she had pulled all nighters three days this week until Nathaniel appeared in her office and sent her back to her home with interdiction to work all weekend. Since then, she managed to watch the episode of her favorite anime that she had missed.
That's when her phone rang once, signaling a new text. Picking up her phone and looking at the sender ID, she abruptly took her feet off of her desk and straightened herself. The text was coming from her boss, Nathaniel. What was even more puzzling than him texting her on a late Sunday afternoon was the text itself.
'Look under your bed on the right end side. Work on that, no need to come to work tomorrow. Follow the instructions and have fun Lina.'
Reading the text for the tenth time, the content finally registered itself on her mind and she dropped down onto the floor. Sliding herself under her bed and going to the place pointed out by her boss, she found what he was talking about. There was a little hatch in the wood covering under the bed. Opening the hatch and putting her hand in it, she felt something there. Taking it in her hand and getting out of bed, she realized it was a chrome laptop.
She recognized it immediately as it was a high end laptop and it cost too much for her to even consider buying it. Powering it up, a text appeared on the screen.
'Do not connect this laptop to the internet. Try to break into the encryption, good hunt hacker.'
The text faded and a window opened, requesting an ID and password to enter and access the files in them. Smiling, Lina hurried to take one of her flash drives containing many of her hacking programs. Plugging the flash drive into the laptop and opening an executive command, her programs started launching one after another. A frown appeared on her face when they all failed to even open a registry file on the laptop.
Not deterred by difficulty and feeling challenged for the first time in a while, she started getting serious, forgetting her anime which was still playing in the background as the sun outside was setting.
*****
"For how long will you be in Washington sweetie?" Karine asked, Mary not far from her and listened intently.
They had just told Mary what Nathaniel wanted to do with his life. At first she had objected quite passionately but in the end she understood why Karine had accepted their son's wishes. As much as they wanted Nathaniel to live a good and free life, it was not worth it if he ended up miserable. After everything they had learned about the incredible thing that happened to their son, she knew if someone could do it, it would be him.
"For the week, no longer than that and possibly less than that. I have already noticed the school and I have classmates taking notes for me in class so I'm good to go."
"I can give you the company jet if you want sweetie." Mary offered.
"Thank you but not needed, I think I can handle a commercial flight in business mom." He answered laughing.
"Why do you need to go to Washington again?" Mary asked anxiously.
"Mom we talked about this." Nathaniel sighed. "If I'm going to do this, I can't do it as a vigilante. People will depend on me, I can't offer them a life in prison as a reward. Beside the CIA which is a big NO, I narrowed down a list of people who would be interested to have a highly trained black ops team to use in places other forces can't. Many of them are in DC."
"I still think it's a bad idea. What if they expose us? You will be found out and our entire family will be under a lot of pressure without even mentioning our company." Mary said.
"Mom, please. I know what I'm doing. I did a lot of work lately to narrow down that list of people and these people work in the military or intelligence. They are not the type to call Fox News and tell that Nathaniel Lyndon is a spy and if they do, It will be right up there with the Queen of England involved in drug trafficking. No argument from me, it would become a really good meme on the internet."
"Be serious sweetie." Karine said, frowning.
"Alright alright. Yes there is risk involved but I did my best to prepare for it. I would not go if I thought I couldn't make it." He reassured them.
"Just stay safe and do nothing crazy alright, please?" Karine asked.
"Of course mom, you know me, I will never do anything out of line." Nathaniel smiled.
Chapter 104: :
Washington DC, White House. 13/11/2012. 03:55.
William Matthew Hayes was the 44th President of the United States of
America, going on his second mandate since he had won the national election in a landslide victory early this month. As an ex republican senator in Texas, he had successfully managed to get the peoples recognition, passing diverse laws in his circonscription that improved the life of his constituant like restricting search and frisk against minorities. Fighting against conservative officials to stop bills against LGBT rights and reforming municipal law to create jobs in his district.
Pro-military, he had used his influence in the Senate and Congress to keep a number of military bases open in his states, going so far as augmenting their spending. He was also known to be anti immigration, voting on a lot of laws to stop them from entering the country. He was targeting especially immigrants coming from South America or Islam pro nations.
With a profile like that, it was not surprising that he was mocked by conservatives and liberals to be 'Too Democrat to be a Republican and too Republican to be a Democrat.' Even with a significant portion of the officials against him, he still managed to win the second election, their party getting not even 15% of the votes. At fifty two years old today, he was at the top of his power, having won the Nobel Peace prize last year.
Getting out of bed silently to not wake up his wife and putting a bathrobe on, the president exited his bedroom and started making his way to the kitchen on the first floor. He knew that there was a chef that could make him something at every hour of the day but he prefered to let that man sleep as he just wanted to eat something before taking his painkiller drug. Taking painkillers on an empty stomach was never a good idea.
Descending the stairs, a man in a suit was there, inspecting his surroundings.
"Mr President." The man saluted.
"Hello Leon."
Walking past the secret service agent, William was going to the kitchen when he noticed Mike wanting to follow him. Stopping, he made a hand motion that stopped Leon in his tracks.