Globacorp

Globacorp
They own 12% of the production
They provide 27% of the research grants
They employee 3% of the world
They are Globacorp


Introduction

It always starts with a name, complete, and if there were any potential for mistaken identity it would include nearest relatives. Nothing else would be on the letter, nothing else ever was, the risk was too great and plausible deniability was essential. Garrett knew this, in his years as a consultant for Globacorp it was never different than when he took his first assignment. The instructions were simple, concise, and unmistakable. Garrett sank back into his leather chair and let out a sigh. Thunder rolled through the walls and ceiling of his study; rain pounded on the same and ran down in sheets upon his windows. The intermittent flashes interrupted the light of the candles.

On Garrett's consultant's salary his payment was frugal, lighting was a costly inconvenience but candles were not so expensive; simple wax columns - expendable. Upon observing his candles the thought crossed his mind, am I just a candle burning at both ends?

He sat there, stiletto in his hand twirling the blade's point against one finger. The envelope sat there - unmoved upon his engraved oaken desk. The white against dark polished and lacquered wood. A half empty bottle of Maker's Mark sat on the left of his desk, some unsorted papers, an early 20th century leather bound volume of Manly P. Halls' History of Freemasonry sat on the right. The flicker of the candle illumined much of the study which was conservative in its furnishings the soft orange flame filled the glass behind him revealing the rain upon the window against the darkness of night.

He knew what to expect, but every time his pause before opening the letter grew in length. His eyes scanned the room, from the book shelves to his left, then to his right, then around to behind him a break between them only for the door across from him, the windows to his right and behind him, and ... to the painting at his left. Rembrandt's The Mill. The piece reminded him of the constant conflict between light and dark in one's duties. How a simple change in the winds may change directions between one and the other. How did the wind howl against his humble home. The creaking of the house drifted his thoughts to his family, his wife of over a decade, and his three children; two sons and a daughter.

And with that he took the envelope off his desk and for a final time inspected the seal of wax upon it. Old fashioned maybe, but without the stamp and all its intricacies the seal would be very difficult to copy; Garrett knew what to look for within the copied engraving upon the wax. Satisfied he knew where this came from he firmly grasped his other hand around the handle and with a flick of the stiletto the envelope fell open and the much anticipated folded paper fell out.

A brief glance and he fell back and sighed deeply once more, the stiletto fell from his hand. He paused and took a key from his pocket and opened a drawer in his desk and from there took a more unique key. A sliver of plastic with what appeared to be a webbing inside it, it was fiber optics. He rose and went to the Rembrandt and pulled it from the wall. The safe behind it was flush with the worked wood of the study and the key slid easily into the slot activating the hardened circuitry within, once activated the key glowed with a multitude of lights each one a different wave length needing to follow the right conduit of fiber optic from one side to the other to complete the circuit; millions of possibilities, only one key, and virtually no way to break the electronics. The locking mechanism clicked and the door opened by its own weight. A few other opened bad memories and a stack of hundreds totaling maybe over one-hundred thousand US dollars, Garrett wasn't too sure, he slid this bad memory into the safe and there left it behind the Rembrandt.

He sat back down in his leather chair, ran his fingers along the edge of his desk, downed a glass of Maker's Mark; he listened to the howl of the growing storm outside and drifted into a dream with the ending thoughts:

Alistair Aurthur McReady; how the winds do change.

[edit on 6-3-2007 by FreiMaurer]