Chapter 24

Posted: October 09, 2006 - 06:44:43 pm

"Then it's settled. After a vote, the name Talent Inc. is what we will use when we refer to our group, publicly. I must caution you all to remain security conscious, as none of us even think the government is done with trying to gain control of us. Meeting adjourned," Courtney said, with a bang of her gavel.

We had all gathered in my place for this meeting since it was bigger than anyone else's. Now that the meeting was at an end, I could concentrate on my problems with Garner Precision.

It was getting closer to opening day, and I had hired a few more permanent people to take positions, all from locals, which pleased the mayor and the local population. There were very few stores left open in town, but with my factory getting closer to opening, and the money I had already put into the economy with my renovation project, those businesses remaining seemed to be revitalized.

I kept a nice positive balance with the business account I had set up with the small bank in town. It was an actual honest to god family run bank, and had been in the same family for over one hundred years. It was truly impressive that they had lasted so long, in this day and age. They had the loyalty of their neighbors, and the town. I had thought that these types of banks had died out twenty or thirty years ago, but here it was, still going strong.

The drug store actually had an honest to god 'soda fountain'. They mixed syrup and water together for you by hand. You could actually get more of one than the other, if you wanted. Not many places left in the country that did that. In some ways, this town had a very old fashioned flavor that I liked.

I still practiced my hand to hand with Tom, but I also practiced my other abilities, too. I could now move a hundred pounds easily, more if I concentrated, but it caused me a severe headache afterwards. My perception of people I was looking for improved to a very clear picture, and I now had sound, also. My range when I was doing this was of course worldwide.

What was interesting, was the limit on how far my 'point of view' could separate from the person, once I established contact. It had increased to hundreds of feet. In other words, I could zero in on... say, my dad. I would get the connection established, then wonder anywhere in the house where I grew up. I could wander anywhere within several hundred feet of where he happened to be, because it was now still within my radius of my contact person.

This was a great improvement in my control. My original problem had been that I had to keep my virtual perspective close to the person, once the connection was established. If I moved my 'point of view' too far from my contact, I would lose connection with the person totally. This problem was now greatly eased.

I spent a little time driving from my house to my factory almost everyday. As opening day got closer, I became more nervous. I kept rechecking my all my licenses and permits. Everything was in order, of course.

Roger had actually started to come out of his shell a bit. Putting him in charge of the factory floor had been a good idea, after all. I had given him authority to sign for shipments received, and there was a stack of receipts on my desk when I got to my office. Well, that's what I got for taking a couple days off to deal with other things.

After reading and initialing what had come in to show that I had seen these, I put them in a stack to be filed by my new secretary. Yeah, I had a secretary, of all things. She was also the main person who handled phone calls, and did whatever inputting into the company mainframe that needed to be done.

She was eighteen and trying to save money for college, or so she said. Well, I was always for someone wanting to improve their lot in life. As it stood right now, the system made sure you could not get a lot of jobs without a damned degree from a recognized college or university.

So with my janitorial staff, plus Roger, Shelia, and myself, I had an employee base of five, right now. So far, all my money was going out and nothing coming in. To make matters worse, it was raining almost everyday and the river that ran a couple miles away from the town was swollen. A flood from the rains further to the north and east was already in the forecast.

I got on my cell phone and gave Brenda a call.

"Hey, Cutie. Got a few minutes to talk, or are you busy?" I asked.

"You can have ten minutes, then I have to get to class. What's on your mind?" Brenda asked curiously.

I never called on the secure line unless it was important.

" We are having a hell of a lot of rain out here lately, and I was wondering if you could come out and do that thing you do so well with your ability? Convince the rain to move elsewhere," I said in a reasonable tone of voice.

She hesitated for a good long moment. Uh oh, now what was that about?

"I am sort of busy taking care of things on the east coast, weather wise, right now," she finally said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"I have manipulated the weather down here in such a way as to turn the hurricanes coming our way and sending them north earlier and missing what would normally be hit," she said a bit excitedly.

"Wow. Great! Say, I just had a thought. Could that be why it has been raining out here so much, lately? They say all this rain is unusual and does not normally hit at this time of the year," I sort of reported as I asked.

"Hmm. An interesting question. I would have to study that for a while to find out," was her reply.

Interesting quandary. Were the actions that she was taking to save the east coast from being hit by hurricanes affecting the weather on the west coast? She had once told us she was trying to be careful to only affect local weather, but a drop or increase in the air pressure here would cause a movement in other areas. The world weather engine was a strange and convoluted beastie.

We talked until she had to get to class. Well, she was at an east coast university studying, so it behooved her to keep her area hurricane free. Just basic survival, if anything. Everyone had priorities, and living without severe storms or radical weather was a priority for most people.

Days went by with more and more rain. I was on my way to work on a dreary rainy day. I was stopped about two and a half miles short of getting to town, by the Oregon State Police.

I rolled my window down as a rain-coated trooper came up to my car.

"Sorry, Sir. The bridge ahead is closed. There has been a partial collapse, and a portion of bridge is missing. If you need to get to the town, you're going to have to take the other route in," he told me.

Damn! It was going to take me longer now to get to town. I was going to have to drive back north, then east about another twenty-five minutes to take the alternate way into my town. Altogether, it was another forty-five minutes of driving, at a minimum.

Two weeks later, the mayor stopped by my office. My secretary notified me of his arrival. I rolled my eyes. Now what did he want? I went out to meet him. We shook hands, and then I escorted him into my office.

"Coffee?" I asked, pointing at my 'Mr. Coffee' coffee maker.

"No thanks. Just wanted you to know what is going on. The state has, of course, condemned the bridge. Since it has partially collapsed, they are going to clear the rest of it away. But, they say they are not going rebuild it. It would cost too much to replace. I was wondering if you could not do something?" the mayor asked me.

"Uh, what did you have in mind? I don't mind donating to a worthy cause, but I can't afford to build a new bridge," I said firmly.

"Well, the bridge you drive over to get here was what you were going use to haul and ship your product. The bridge had been on the 'repair list', but the state never got around to repairing ours.

"The only other way in is via the Kitter Pass, and that's a long way to go out of your way... most everyone's way, really. We are effectively cut off if the Kitter Pass bridge goes out, and it isn't rated for more than five tons gross weight, anyway. Cars, picks ups, and SUVs will be able to get in and out, but nothing larger. Hell, it has a 'no trucks weighing more than three tons allowed' sign on it, anyway.

"What we want you to do, is try to use your clout, if you have any, to get our bridge replaced. Like I said, the state has already told me that they weren't replacing it as it would cost to much for the amount of people serviced," he said sadly.

This was not good news at all. I wondered why the state had not announced on the news that they were cutting our town off, and basically signaling the final death knell of it. I didn't think the people would stay, and I sure as hell stood to loose the millions I had already invested in this business.

I silently cursed the position that this mayor had just put me in. I knew it wasn't his fault. He was just trying to do what he could to keep his town alive. But to lay it onto me to be the responsible party like this, was a manipulation tactic of the lowest order.

I gave him a cool look, and he could tell I was pissed. He wisely remained silent while I thought about it. Ok, there might be a couple things I could do. Either way, I was going to have to speak to Tom about it.

"I'll look into it, and let you know what I find out," I told the mayor coldly. The meeting was over, and he knew it.

He tried to shake hands as I escorted him to the door, but I feigned not seeing his offered hand. He knew he was definitely on my shit list at that moment. When he left, I picked up my cell phone and called Tom. I set up a meeting for later that evening.

"So the problem is to get that main bridge over the river replaced, but the state says it is not cost effective to replace it for the amount of people who would use it. We have several ways we can go.

"One, start a public relations campaign to let people know about this, and other problems the state has ignored or failed to respond to. Or I can look into state and federal corruption, and see if we can get leverage to get it replaced. That would be number two.

"Number three, if those two methods won't yield results, the mayor can ask for foreign aid. He has to go through state and federal authorities first though. Once those two have turned him down, he can then write or even send a representative to a foreign embassy to request foreign aid to help replacing the bridge. I read about this very thing happening once somewhere, can't remember the exact circumstance.

"Once that happens, he has to release a press statement outlining the failure of our local state and federal government to help resolve this issue. We can add in all the states that have paid for stadiums with taxpayer assistance for sports teams. There are also quite a few questionable spending episodes (such as 'The Bridge to Nowhere', in Alaska), which can be used to embarrass the government into rebuilding that bridge. If we can get national and international attention, the resulting black eye would hurt the current administration," Tom finally finished.

Damn. He was good. I had not really thought this through as of yet, and he already had a plan of action mapped out for me in certain situations. It made me doubly glad he was on my side. I would hate to have Tom as an enemy.

One of the first things that had happened, was that equipment being shipped in had to come a different way. There was no train that served this town, so that was out, and I had a very heavy shipment coming in that would have to now find a new way to reach me. Even if they split the shipment up, the trucks required would put them overweight for the Kitter Pass bridge, and the authorities were enforcing the weight limit, strictly. The town was effectively cut off from shipping or transporting anything in any vehicle that was over five tons gross weight (includes the weight of the vehicle, AND the cargo).

I got busy, quickly. I told the mayor to file official requests with both the state and the federal governments, asking for relief funds for a new bridge. The state came back with its reply almost at once. It was an official 'no'. It was couched politely, and with much sorrow, but the town did not rate a new bridge at what it would cost to build one. After all, 'certain standards' had to be met and maintained.

With step one out of the way, we waited for step two, the response from the feds. In the meantime, we started buying space in all the major newspapers in Oregon; and in upper California, all the way down to San Francisco. Adverse publicity sometimes helped.

I had tentatively found an alternate way of getting all of my heavy stuff in, but it was going to cost me a small fortune. Helicopter: a Sikorsky 'Sky Crane'. It could be fitted with a cargo pod, and could carry a lot of weight. It would cost like hell, though, at least ten times the normal shipping amount per item pound of weight.

I filed a protest with the state, complaining, and outlining the problem. My letter was met with a politely worded, 'life is tough, deal with it' kind of answer. I intensified my anti publicity campaign at that point, leveling charges of favoritism on how state funds were spent.

I carefully outlined where the majority of the highway budget had been going, for the last five years. I pointed out the road condition of the secondary state roads that served our town. I pointed out other unfair situations, also. The response was overwhelming, to say the least.

We heard from a consulate, even before we heard from the US federal government. The Chinese government had heard of our plight, and was interested in helping us out. All we had to do was apply for foreign aid through their consulate either in San Francisco, or their embassy in Washington.

In the meantime, the Chinese had released a statement that went out worldwide, courtesy of the AP and the UPI, stating that the US seemed to abandon small towns if they are not producing in certain ways or had a population that contained 'x' number of voters. The Chinese also stated that under communism this deplorable situation would never have been allowed to happen, that their government would have solved this problem long ago. They also stated this was typical of capitalism, and the government's 'shaking of the money tree' way of life.

Somehow I didn't think the US government would appreciate the humor of the situation, especially since the government was now facing it for a second time. Tom told me that much of his strategy came from a similar problem, which he had read about in a Boston newspaper.