Uplift (11 page)

But that hardly pays for manufacture. I only make ten percent profit.

(Chuckle). I’ve been fudging on manufacturing costs; which have been dropping since the quantities have gone up…economy of scale…also…

…also? Don’t leave me hanging Corey…if I knew how to take you out of my head I’d beat you up…

…yes…but in only one of my eleven dimensions.

Quit messing with me. Are you going to tell me, or what? Also…

India, China, and all your allies licensed your weapons technology – they have been unable to reverse engineer the shield technology. They just announced to their upper echelons that they’ve been unable to duplicate the hydrocarbon energy conversion portion of your rifles so they are buying as many as they can, at whatever price we set.

That will certainly increase our profits, but that doesn’t make me uber rich.

Ah. You see…I’ve been investing a large part of your overseas profits. You are fast becoming one of the richest people on the planet, and you need to hire more of a team to help you – protect you.

How will I find the people?

I’ve already started placing ads, hiring people. You have the beginnings of a mercenary army. I hired the people, and wrote them instructions. You have close to 40,000 employees now all over the planet.

Who hired them all? Who do they think they’re working for?

They’re working for you. You wrote each of them personal letters, and recorded personal messages (in your voice of course). You have many loyal people working for you – they are getting wealthy too.

How is the government – the other companies like Sigma Max taking it?

The government loves you. Unemployment is down world wide because of you, and you don’t try to hide all your profits – you actually pay your fair share. Your legal contributions in political campaigns have swung a few elections. You have honest lobbyists working for you.

Why are you telling me this now? Is there such a thing as an honest lobbyist?

Well. They are persuasive, and follow the law to the letter. Now – its time for your next uplift. You also have an appointment to meet your test team.

Test team? My uplift? What gives?

So many questions… You need personal protection because we are entering the most dangerous portion of the planetary phase – the consolidation.
Corporations, and the established powers-that-be do not take kindly to newcomers usurping their turf. You also need physical enhancements beyond what you have. Here come your people.

There was a knock, and in walked the biggest, baddest guys – excuse me – two women too. They wore expensive looking business attire (with body armor – Corey remarked), and they seemed a bit nervous.

Why are they nervous? I’m the one that should be nervous. I don’t know any of them, but as soon as I thought that – in flooded the files about them. Wow. Why are they nervous though?

Richard. They’ve heard of you – lots of rumors about you, and that video ‘smuggled’ out showing you taking rounds from a pulse rifle, and a railgun would make anyone dubious about the man-eating tiger that was going to employ them – with ‘if he liked them’ as a qualification.

I held up both hands, and announced – you are fine. You wouldn’t be here if I didn’t like you already… though you are free to walk away at any time. I will say the non-disclosure clauses will be strictly enforced – to the point of physical enforcement if need be. You will see, and hear things that you cannot let others know about. You have just finished your probationary period, and I want to welcome you personally.

I then went to each person, and shook their hands, called them by name, and praised them on their skills. You could see the tension leaving their bodies. Mel Brown (named after his great grandfather who was Army, and SWAT) would lead the test team. He had great combative skills, dignitary protection, driving plus skills with tools – might be as good as his great grandfather. Roger Thurman was the leader of the cyber protection team. I told him I would get him up to speed in no time – he looked at me like ‘you’re gonna show me somethin’ – I laughed at his expression, and told him I would show him how to read Chinese, Russian, and Indian intelligence files without them knowing…really. He looked like I had taken him down a notch with that bit of trivia.

“Now that we’ve gotten acquainted – this will be one of the rare times for you forty. You will be working in shifts with ten to twenty on, and twenty off duty, or training. You are salaried workers, and I don’t want to hear grumbling about overtime – we will sometimes work long hours, but ask if you need off. We will monitor whom you contact – consider everything we do as ultra top secret. I won’t ask you to punch a clock, or fill out under-time vouchers – we do the work when it needs to be done.”

Let’s go meet my new engineering team. Corey had done exhaustive checks on every employee, and had found all types of ringers planted to get information out of my companies – everywhere. We kept some of them because having some spies we knew about would be better than having no information sources we could control as easily. We had some Chinese, Indian, French, British, Brazilian, Russian, and Nigerian spies. Some very attractive females married my engineers – I figured it would help their work having beautiful wives who showed them how loving they were. Some of those guys couldn’t have gotten the family dog to lick them without a pork chop hanging around their necks. They’d get laid by talent, and I could block them talking about secrets.

Corey had introduced a head net of transducers that was described as a new form of transcranial direct current stimulation. We told the engineers that this net would stimulate creativity, but we’d really download alien advanced ideas that they could ‘dream up’ themselves. It gave us a limited method of direct knowledge transfer. We enhanced what they knew, and conditioned them to be unable to tell any secrets about our organization. Torture would switch off their brains, their pain centers, and they’d turn into zombies any time they were abused. They couldn’t… knowingly tell – say – an adorable wife, anything vital – just enough information to keep them getting laid. Same plan was used with the gay employees.

This was my first meeting with my entire elites of the engineering team. Their subordinates were unstimulated, but they were all classically talented. This meeting would initiate the dismantling the sources of power for the Earth oligarchy. The water, oil, agro, and drug barons would be threatened, as would most of the worlds’ financial elite. Corey, and I were going to destroy their power in an effort to prepare the Earth to meet a supposedly implacable foe.

****

The engineers were a little anxious to be meeting with the ‘great’ Richard Patterson. I was getting a bit anxious myself about what we were about to do. It would throw millions out of work, collapse economies, cause widespread war, start plagues, and famine – you know – business as usual. It would start with this meeting.

“Ladies, and gentlemen. Lend me your ears…we are about to embark on a new age for mankind,” I said, and they all looked at each other, raised eyebrows, or shrugged with looks like ‘wonder what he’s smoking.’

“I intend to give the world cheap, affordable energy. I want to build small, portable energy generators. The technology comes from a problem I had with the railgun project. Last year there was an issue when I misaligned the magnetic fields – kept getting anomalous readings. This was the result,” I said, and pulled out a 30 cm long white cylinder from under my chair. It had a household duplex wall plug on one end.

“Fred. Would you bring me that heater from under Sheri’s desk over there? Susan. Would you get some high amperage 110 volt appliance from the lab please?” I asked. Fred brought the heater, and I plugged it in, and turned it on. Susan brought an electric shop vacuum, and I plugged that in, and turned it on. I let them run for five minutes while we just sat there. Guess they were thinking this was just a battery, and inverter deal. I turned off the vacuum, and heater, and just sat there a minute ‘til someone spoke up.

“Is that a battery inverter system?” Andy asked.

I shook my head…”not…”

“A new supercapacitor?” someone asked.

“Warmer,” I said.

“How much wattage is that device capable of?” asked one of the engineers in the back – think that was Eric Lovell. “How long can it supply that current?”

“Now we’re getting somewhere,” I said. “Indefinitely… I think, and 25kW at 200 amps…real zero point energy – I think.”

Some of them laughed. Others looked incredulous. I heard a ‘bullshit’, or two.

Susan asked, “You want us to do what? You’ve already built this thing – what do you need us for?”

“I want you to thoroughly test this thing. Copy it. Make do-it-yourself, easy to construct plans. See WHY it works. I have an idea, but I want your ideas. Find out if we can make 50kW devices, megawatt devices. Find out how this thing works – as far as I know – it may be a fluke. I put plans on the lab server for you. Don’t let this get out – don’t mention it,” I emphasized. “You will be killed if you do.” Boy, that statement stopped them in their tracks, I thought to Corey.

Corey chuckled.

“Not by me – well maybe by me if you try to go public before we’re ready. Think about it. Let’s say you sell petroleum for a living. You manufacture gasoline engines. What if desalinization becomes a very cheap way to get plentiful fresh water? Will the water barons fight to keep their death grip on water rights? What about all the fracking, and nuclear plants? What will happen when the smallest village in Africa can have cheap power, or someone in subsidized housing doesn’t have to decide between staying warm in the winter, or buying food. What happens when ships, or airplanes don’t need fuel? I expect you people to come up with what industries you think will be affected, and how. I want plans we can put up on the web to self manufacture these…yesterday people. Divide up. Chop chop people.”

You know this news will leak out don’t you, Corey said – ah selling short is still legal in some places. You will make a fortune.

My plan Corey… Every now and then a blind hog will find a truffle.

Very apt analogy for you Richard (chuckle)…

If we send the plans out worldwide – it will start with a few making them, and they will work. We could sell kits at 10% above cost, or assembled for a lot more. I thought we’d need electricians to pull the power meters off homes, but I’ll let the power companies come do that for the people. What used to be a dire threat for people will become a new type of protest. People have been held hostage to utility companies for such a long time – they will take some convincing.

Corey, I continued. Would you figure out marketing, and such to install these power devices? We’ll need shops to convert people’s electric cars, and new training modules to teach people how to do new jobs. Let’s set up skill training centers to ‘quick teach’ new skills at really low prices. No more ‘stimulation.’ Something like $20 for basic high school education, and electrician $20, politician 25 cents, I thought.

Funny. I’ll give you a list that is a bit better organized, and thought through. You feeling any different lately?
Corey inquired
.

I have been itching, and sneezing some. I thought I was immune to viruses, and bacterial infections now?

You are…that’s just the nanites I gave you this morning in those nose drops.

You said that would make me feel better. I feel like crap.

They are just rewriting some of your DNA. You will soon have more natural intellect, faster reaction times, more stamina, more strength, more vigor – what age do you want to appear?

Hum-m. Keep it in the early thirties, but keep that gray streak in my hair. People don’t want too young a guy making decisions. I’ll be seventy years old next month. How long do you think I’ll live?

‘Til the horde gets here, or the water barons kill you – a few more months.

Funny. Corey. Real funny.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

I went to the military guys first, and offered them the same old ten percent above cost, and they thought it was a good idea, but General Stephens surprised me.

“These will be great, and you say you have them in any capacity I need? Are these costs correct? These don’t cost nearly anything, but they create another problem. All our weapons use flammable hydrocarbons, and even though we have a lot of that now – we have to ship that to the forward units through hostile territory. How about coming up with another power source for our weapons? Something that would only require changing the recharge units on the weapons instead of all new weapons,” he said.

Corey was quick on the uptake, and I had missed it, supercapacitors…doable. I’ll send information to the next engineer, or two, when they’re doing stimulation training.