Terra
Scotland
January 23, 2739
"The First Lord died last year, but today I retire," thought Allard Campbell with satisfaction as he stepped off the transport. "But then again, no one in this line of work ever retires," he thought, dampening his otherwise bright mood. "Whatever, after this meeting, I'll have my papers and disappear. It'll be the quite life for me," was his last thought before he stepped into the terminal. Allard's last day was overcast, with a miserable-for-many drizzle of moisture. After over 40 years with Star League Intelligence Command he has reached the brass ring so many failed to, his last day. Of course on his last day they send him across the planet for his exit debrief, an unusual thing that had him rather worried.
Allard had served a long time, much longer than most. He had worked with nearly everyone who passed through the ranks into High Command. Starting out as a field agent, he had been adequate, but his talents really lied in Analysis, so for the last 15 years he had been in an office on Terra. He was happy with his job, and vehemently refused passage into high command, some times taking steps to ensure he wouldn't get the dreaded enforced promotion. He hated politics... or at least being a part of them. Now that was all over. The last year the transition to a new First Lord had decided him, and he put in his papers to retire.
He rented a small sedan and left the terminal for his debriefing.
Terra
Orbit
January 23, 2739
It all started on a normal day last week. Tom had been minding his own business (literally, for one of Sol's asteroid colonies it was booming), when several armed and uniformed Marines had surrounded him and marched him away. Sure they asked politely, but everyone knew it wasn't really a request. Then they showed me the one thing that made me know I was doomed. The seal. No getting out of this one. Even out here Thomas Staton knew his duty. He bid his business goodby, and his family too. Who knew when Tom would see them again.
The officer in charge of the operation explained to Tom, "We don't want anyone aware that you belters are involved in this, so we are going to have to bring you un under some explanation, and play a shell game. You just need to play along."
"Who do you think I am? I can sell anything," Tom boasted back.
Grinning the officer replied, "We were hoping you would say that. Before you get on the shuttle, you'll need to put on your costume." Handing him a stack of bright green clothes. With a sinking feeling Tom took them and thought to himself for the thousandth time, "What have I gotten myself into?"
Later, as the small shuttle descended out of the sky, Tom struggled to get used to Terra's gravity. Having lived all his life in micro-gravity, with forays onto grav decks , but never long stints, the feel of it was unnatural to him. After donning the prison uniform that was his costume they had shaved his head. That is when he decided, "fine, I need to get into character, now's a good time." That was when he made his first break out attempt. He was stopped almost immediately. During the journey Tom made a total of six escape attempts. Every time there were others around, he went for it. After each one, once they were alone again, the nameless officer (he had a name, Tom wasn't acknowledging it right now) congratulated him with a hearty, "Well done! I couldn't have planned that better myself."
After the last attempted he was packed into a car, and driven away, only for it to stop in the middle of a long tunnel. Another car was also stopped there, which he was hustled to as another figure was hustled into the car he had vacated. It took off as soon as the other person had been shoved inside, leaving only him, this new, much more expensive looking car, and his escort, who now only numbered three, including the officer. Climbing into the car, he was greeted by an opulence he had never seen out in the belt. Everything was the highest quality he had ever seen.
After the car pulled away the officer handed Tom a garment bag, and smiling said, 'The shell game is almost over, you'll probably want to switch to something more comfortable before the high and mighty have their way with you." Inside was a dress suit expensive enough to let him look like he belonged in a ride like this. He might have bought one one day if his business had continued growing, but it was a luxury he never would have wanted to spend that kind of sum on.
As the car kept going, Tom suddenly wished he was more familiar with Terra's geography... he had no idea where he was, just that it was overcast and drizzling as they drove through the green countryside to whatever mysterious rendezvous fate had in store for him.
Terra
Unity City
January 23, 2739
Alice Victoria Hoffman was having the worst day of her life. As a child all she had wanted was to bring the fantastic things humanities ancestors had dreamed of to reality. She joined the Department of Mega Engineering right out of school. Now, more than a dozen years later, with advanced degrees in more than a dozen fields, she was more than qualified as lead of development on this project. DOME had terraformed Mars, Venus, and numerous other planets to make them habitable, but she wanted to work in another direction. Having received funding barely a year prior, Alice and her team had been hard at work making plans and theoretical models. They were nearing completion of a successful phase that would let the engineering teams begin laying out schematics for construction.
That morning she had come into her office only to be met by both DOME's internal security and Unity Cities police. Bewildered, she was hustled off to a police station and left in an interrogation room. She had listened to them talk on the way there, and it seems a virus had infected the computers and erased all the data, her whole project destroyed... and they said the evidence pointed to her. "How was this happening," she thought to herself, "my life's work gone." Somewhat in shock, she didn't notice when the door to the room opened and two people entered. She did notice the scrapping noise as they dragged chairs out and sat down.
One of them gestured to another chair, for her to join them at the table saying, "Please, sit."
The other one continued, "We have a proposition for you."
"I didn't do anything" Alice said coldly, "Can we just skip to the part where you hook me up to a lie detector and forget all the intimidation and posturing you are about to do?"
She was about to continue when the taller of her visitors interrupted her with a polite, "There is no need for that. Please sit."
It was more of an order than a request, and Alice thought to herself, "Self, he might be someone to cooperate with," cautioning herself from making things worse.
She sat, and the shorter of the two spoke up, "First of all, we know you didn't destroy your own life's work." The second one continued, "We did."
With an exclamation Alice stood right back up, outrage written across her features. The short one continued as the tall one reached down to a bag he had carried, "Calm down, we backed it up before we did it."
The tall one pulled a small computer onto the table and pushed it over to her, "It is all there."
Backing against the wall, Alice said in a confused voice, "Are you trying to frame me? What do you want?"
Reaching into his jacket, the short one pulled out a small case, opened it, and showed Alice. No mistaking it. It was the seal of House Cameron. "We want to hire you actually,"said the tall one with a smile.
"But we don't want anyone to know we are hiring you," said the short one, and the tall one continued, "The data is part of the payment, and we will even be setting you up with the means to complete it all on your own."
Despite the unnerving way the pair spoke, Alice was intrigued. If the First Lord's own house was behind this, then she didn't have a hope of stopping it, but she could benefit from it. The chance to get her project out of the bureaucracy of DOME was probably worth it. "Maybe today isn't going to be as bad as it seemed at first, Alice replied after a minute.
Shortly afterwards all charges were dropped, and she was free to go. After resigning from her position in DOME, Alice headed to the port, where she was greeted by a stranger who handed her a ticket. Minutes later she was on an orbital flight to Scotland.
"I should never have stopped that fight" Kirk thought to himself yet again. By now it was tradition: Make an appointment to make his pitch to a potential client, get called a few days later with the appointment canceled 'because you don't present the image of the type of people we prefer to associate with' or any one of another reason, and then reminisce about the time years ago when you stopped a noble prick from beating on some hapless stranger. Every time like clockwork, this "tradition" had played out.
After finishing schooling for various types of engineering, Kirk Cooper had set about to design a 'wondrous vehicle that everyone would want, and the whole of mankind needed' or so he thought at the time. Unfortunately some prick he met in college had had it in for him ever since that incident. He had finished the design. Simulations functioned beautifully... but no one would even speak to him about it, because of the bleeding wanker.
As he was reminiscing about his troubles, Kirk's home comm unit started chiming, indicating an incoming call. Stumbling in his surprise, he didn't make it in time, but did see the message indicator, and when her recovered, he played the recording.
"Mister Cooper, we are interested in what you have, a vehicle will be by within the hour to pick you up to meet us." Kirk raced for his closet scrambling to get ready in time, unfortunately he only had the pants of his suit on when he heard the roar of a VTOL. "What the hell?!?" he thought to himself, as he peered out at the vehicle landing in the middle of the street outside his house. "What kind of ridiculous people are these?" he thought. Chasing that thought was, "Oh well, as long as they have money." Then, giving in to the audacity of the moment, he threw on a bath robe over his dress trousers, grabbed his presentation, and strode out to the VTOL like he owned it. The door opened and he climbed in.
Less than an hour later, he leaned over to the only other occupant of the orbital flight he was on, a brunette woman with a slightly bewildered look in her eye, and said, "I'm not sure I really belong here."
Alice Hoffman replied laughingly, "Believe me, if you are here, you probably belong just as much as I do. Do you have any idea who we are meeting?"
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Topic: How it all began (Read 10259 times)