TKG08 WE WILL BUILD Rel 01 (26 page)

“Understood, Gabrielle, understood.
 
I’ll get you what you need.
 
Give me twenty-four hours and I’ll have everything sent to our contact’s house there in Australia.”
 
Dan paused, then continued, “And Gabrielle?”

“Yes?”

“There had better not be a root of that tree left.”
 
He commanded.
 
“I don’t care if you knew them in the past or not.”

“Understood.”

She hung up and left the house they were renting, fairly slamming the door in her anger.

TQB Base, Colorado - USA

Jeffrey was sitting in his office, a nicely furnished room with his desk and two chairs plus an area with a table and six chairs and a whiteboard for discussions.
 
Presently, the whiteboard had six columns listing different areas of concern he had related to the moonbase project. Then the names of people he felt would be good candidates to run a specific group were listed under each column.

There was a sharp rap on his door and he barely had enough time to look up from his laptop when his door opened and Bethany Anne entered, followed by her huge German Shepherd.

“Hey boss,” Jeffrey said to her and noticed Eric poking his head in and then retreating back outside.

“Hey, yourself.”
 
She said, “What did you want to talk about?”

“Them.”
 
He said, pointing behind Bethany Anne who turned around and studied his board.

“This is your short list?”

“Yes.”
 
he said, getting up and walking around the table and putting his hands on it. He studied the names one more time. “People from all over as you requested.
 
vetted by ADAM and almost all by Frank…”

“Why not all by Frank?”
 
she interrupted.

“He hasn’t gotten back to me in the last twelve hours, I figured he was sleeping.”
 
Jeffrey answered.

“No, he was off playing spy in DC,” she retorted.
 
“He found someone we needed to talk to and felt she needed to be rescued so he decided to do it by himself.”
 
She continued wryly, “He got in a little over his head so we did an extraction and the two of them are back on the Polarus where Dan can have a talk with Frank’s new best friend.”
 

Bethany Anne seemed more bemused than upset, so Jeffrey asked, “I take it Frank is in the dog house?”

“Nah, well, not much.”
 
She replied, “I’m thinking the rejuvenation has affected him and he felt all young and spry. You know how that makes men?”

“Dumb?”
 
He answered.

“Pretty much, even if they are one-hundred years old, it seems that hormones can ruin a positively normal guy in all other ways.
 
He admitted he might have been wanting to become the guy that he didn’t get a chance to be back in World War II.”
 

“Go and rescue the damsel?”

She cocked her head, “That’s exactly what he told ADAM, what is it with you guys and damsels?”

“Hell, we are brought up on it!
 
Rescue the pretty damsel and they fall in love with you and shower you with kisses.”

“You would think they would create new stories for this generation.” Bethany Anne considered.

“Not everyone wants to see complete equality.
 
Many ladies still want to feel ‘saved’ and special.
 
It’s romantic,” he responded.

“It seems at such cross purposes with ‘I am woman, hear me roar’.”

“Eh,” Jeffrey shrugged, “There is equality in work and at the workplace and then there’s what happens in relationships during courtship. Not always the same thing.”

“Ok, I can see that.
 
Stupid fucking hormones can screw up everything.”

“Well, hormones aren’t here to make society perfect, they’re to get a male and female together and have children.”

“Yeah,” Bethany Anne quieted down as if in contemplation, “that is true.”
 
A moment later, she changed the subject back to the board, “So, who do we have?”

“Starting in Hydroponics, we have…”
 
Jeffrey began and for the next hour he went through the people he thought best for each major section of the base.

When they finished Bethany Anne told him, “Get with Michael about your trips and see if he is willing to go along.
 
We need him to make sure these people are one hundred percent trustworthy.
 
Anyone he says ‘no’ to, it’s
no
- understood?”
 
Jeffrey nodded so she continued as she got up and started for the door, “How is the family?”

“Good,” He replied, “excited to see their new place and the amenities.
 
My wife is happy to know that the base cafeteria is available in case she doesn’t want to cook and she’s looking into what she wants to do while the children are in school.
 
She’s decided the base school is better than any off base.”

“Should be,” Bethany Anne commented, “considering the caliber of the teachers and the guest lecturers they pull from our R&D groups to come chat. Not many Universities have this caliber of participation.” She pursed her lips, “Besides, didn’t I promise you a great school?”

“That you did,” He quickly concurred, “But, in everything school related, I defer to my wife.”

Bethany Anne winked at him, “Smart man.”
 
Then she and Ashur stepped out of his office.

The Pit, TQB Base, Colorado - USA

The table had most of the participants from Cheryl Lynn’s last meeting, with the exception of the two ship Captains.
 
She was a little more prepared, but only slightly less nervous than last time.

Last time, she didn’t have any time to worry about the meeting before it started. Now she’d had a couple of days to worry about it. “Ok, let’s get started,” Bethany Anne rapped on the table, “I’ve got a hot date tonight so let’s move it, people!”
 
She smiled at the catcalls coming from the table.
 
Jeffrey’s ‘here here!’ was the loudest so Bethany Anne pointed to him, “Hey, I’m doing this so Michael will work with you to vet those people!”

Jeffrey replied wryly, “I would like to personally tell you, I appreciate you sacrificing your body for the good of the team.”
 
That was followed by more catcalls and this time Bethany Anne just rolled her eyes.

Patricia spoke up, “I don’t think you are fooling anyone, dear.”
 
Patricia’s knowing smile caused Bethany Anne to blush.
 

Bethany Anne turned to Cheryl Lynn, “Would you please begin before I start sacrificing a few of these people as an object lesson for the others?”

Cheryl Lynn nodded her agreement while she listened to the chuckles die down. “Ok, we have looked at different options including telling others about the launch in advance, telling them after the launch or waiting until someone finds out what we’re doing and starts telling people about us.”

“Kind of my preference,” Bethany Anne interjected.

“Duly noted.”
 
Cheryl Lynn agreed. “However, there are a lot of good reasons for other options. Including the one I’m presenting as our best option, which is to go live during the event.”

“Really?”
 
Marcus interrupted.
 
“You want to tell people about the stuff as we do it?”

“Yes, and here are my thoughts. First, let me go with my reasons to ‘not’ do it the other ways.
 
Telling others up front, we run the risk of too much interference during the operation. Which is the same justification for not doing it during the actual start of the operation.
 
For not telling them after the event, we would suffer too many issues with people assuming complete fabrication of the video.
 
If we wait until someone figures out that we are up there we are going to suffer from people wondering why we are being so secretive? What are we hiding? We will have a hard PR slog to get through that mess and it will take a lot of time.
 
Finally, the ‘why do it during the event’ pros.
 
First, as long as we start the live coverage after the beginning of the event we won’t get stopped as no one can tell us to bring it back.
 
Second, if our materials are on the way to the moon, we will have a substantial number of astronomers who can see the shipping containers in space and those who will want to say it was a fabrication will have to fight them as well.”

She paused, “Any questions so far?”
 

Getting none she continued, “So, if we schedule the trip to take long enough, we can get worldwide coverage and get everyone involved in cheering for our scruffy little group doing something even the big bad nations of the world couldn’t.
 
We get public sentiment behind us to help overcome the pressure from certain nations that we expect to receive.
 
Further, we are going to need people.”

She stopped to look around the table to help emphasize her point. “Lots and lots of people are needed for the next stages of our efforts, and we can’t keep finding and hiring people on the sly.
 
There is no way to hire thousands quietly, so we should go public to build a large database of excited people and I’m sure,” Cheryl Lynn grinned, “that Bethany Anne will appreciate not having to go on dates with Michael every night for all of the trips that would require.”
 

The group laughed when Bethany Anne stuck her tongue out at Cheryl Lynn. “So, notwithstanding our boss’s rather juvenile response, I propose this idea will generate the most positive reaction for PR purposes moving forward.”

“Unless,” Bobcat replied, “We pancake into the Moon and everyone dies on television for all to see.”

“Then I suggest you damn well don’t kill people on the moon.” Cheryl Lynn bit back, “Not only for PR issues, but the people in those containers would really appreciate living longer, I’m sure.”

“Yeah, there is that,” Bobcat agreed.

“Ok, let’s make this simple to start.”
 
Bethany Anne started, “Does anyone want to vote for ‘tell them upfront’?”
 
She got no hands raised, “How about when we start?
 
Ok, nothing for that one.”
 
She put up her hand, “How about for ‘let’s wait for the last minute?”
 
Bethany Anne and Bobcat were the only ones with their hands up.
 
“Ok, who is for telling them while we are doing it?”
 
The rest of the hands went up.
 
She turned to Cheryl Lynn, “Well done, you have now officially gone to the dark side, PR Vader.”
 

A few chuckles occurred before Cheryl Lynn pulled a small daintily wrapped bag and put it on the table, “Come to the dark side with me, Bethany Anne, we have milk and cookies!”
 
Bethany Anne had to laugh when the rest of the table produced the same pretty little bags.
 
Most of the men had already opened their bags.
 
Bobcat snagged a small round chocolate chip cookie from his and munched it.

He looked around at the people staring at him, “What?
 
I’m willing to listen, but it takes more than cookies to sway me to the dark side.”

“Like beer,” Marcus supplied.

“Now that’s a hell of a start.”
 
Bobcat nodded in agreement.

“Word,” William said smiling.

Bobcat looked disgusted as he rolled his eyes.

“Ok,” Bethany Anne interrupted the two before they could get on a roll, “If we are going to go live during the trip to the moon, we really need to make sure we can’t be stopped.
 
What are we going to do for a home base for those in command?”

“True,” Lance agreed, “it would be best not to be on base for the actual lift off unless they can’t figure out anything is happening from here?”
 
He looked towards Team BMW.

Jeffrey answered, “All communications are Etheric.
 
Provided no one spots the lift off from the base we have a shot.
 
However, all it would take is one person to blab and someone puts two and two together with all of our missing containers and the boxes up in space.”
 

“Unlikely we keep it quiet once it is on the news.”
 
Cheryl Lynn agreed, “What is the legality of building on the moon?”