A story exploring time travel and societal issues in the wake of 9/11. This is chapter 28. See previous posts for chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, and 27.
The next conversation Thomas had with Reed played out about how Ana hoped it would. Thomas told Reed that the CIA was willing to license the mind reading tech, but that they'd pay significantly more if the tech could be modified to convince subjects to do things they'd otherwise never do. Reed told Thomas about an experimental application of NSEA that could do just that. He sent Thomas a large batch of files on this 'experiment.'
Looking over the files, Thomas saw no mention of Kissinger, so the data was clearly incomplete. But it was complete enough. What a nightmare! Thomas thought of T2, his now-dead future self, and wondered what he would do in this situation. Obviously, he'd stop Reed, which was why he'd been killed. Killed by Reed's mind-controlled assassin.
Thomas wished he could just shoot Reed with a poison pellet from a modified umbrella. Or maybe mind control Reed into becoming a white collar slave for the NXIVM cult. One call to Mr Wachuski is probably all it would take to make Reed disappear without a trace. Thomas might have made that call, but this was Ana's show. She'd been T2's partner and Thomas trusted her to look out for all of their interests better than he could.
During the Drexler demo, Reed offered to provide the rival company with proprietary NSEA tech for twenty million dollars, payable to a company in the Seychelles that Reed falsely claimed owned the underlying rights to it. When the FBI agents parked nearby heard this, they moved in, quietly arresting Reed for attempting to sell technology he wasn't authorized to sell. Thomas was on the phone with Dave, the software engineer, when it happened.
"Looks like that's it," said Dave once Reed was gone and Drexler's people had left. "We all just saw him leave in handcuffs."
"Thanks," said Thomas. "How is everyone responding? Could you put me on speaker to make an announcement?"
"I guess," said Dave, obliging. "Hey everyone, I've got Thomas Barabos on the line and he has something to say to us."
Ten or so people in the office gathered around Dave's phone. "I'm sure you all have questions," said Thomas. "What I can tell you right now is that Reed Johnson misused his position at the NIS. Today, he tried to sell our tech to a rival company. If any of you have been asked to do anything unusual by Reed in the last year, we need to know about it now. No one else is in any trouble, but we need to get a handle on the full scope of Reed's activities."
"Okay, but like, who is the boss now?" asked a woman whose voice Thomas didn't recognize.
"NIS was designed to run without a boss," said Thomas. "Once the dust from this thing settles, I'm hoping one of you will be able to take over with the full support of your coworkers. If any of you actually want the job, that is. If no one wants it, we'll fill the position with someone from elsewhere in our network."
No one knew what to say to that.
"There is another matter of immediate concern," continued Thomas. "Reed's Federation token stake. Can someone write an update that forks Reed's stake out of our blockchain? He was trying to steal from us, so I doubt there will be any trouble getting enough nodes to adopt the fork. But we need it now."
Dave and a few others said they could do this.
"Great," said Thomas. "Now, it's possible some or all of you will be deposed regarding this matter. We may have a lawyer come and talk with you about that. But for now, if anyone in an official capacity contacts you and asks you questions, please provide them with true and complete information. The more fully we cooperate, the better this will go for us."
"Understood," said Dave. "Loud and clear."
Thomas hung up and paced around his empty house for a minute. Then he walked to the neighborhood coffee shop. At a sidewalk table on a nice afternoon, Thomas distracted himself from the drama unfolding on the other side of the country by focusing on his surroundings. A pair of aging men were talking with a younger man leaning on a bicycle.
"Wealth has been redistributed from the working class to the ruling class since the seventies," said one man.
"We need to tax the one percent," said the other seated man.
"Tax them?" said bicycle guy. "Some people want to eat them. Not me. I'm vegan. But you know."
"Well, I'm for Universal Basic Income," said Thomas. "Universal healthcare."
"We know, Thomas," said the more ornery old man.
"Yeah," confirmed bicycle guy. "We know. Tell us something new."
"Okay," said Thomas. "So, I'm in charge of a tech company now. NIS. The person managing this company was involved in illicit research. He was arrested today on industrial espionage charges. And the illicit technology he was researching has terrible implications."
"What kind of tech?" asked bicycle guy.
"The kind I'm almost afraid to talk about," said Thomas. "Because just knowing it's possible could drive proliferation."
"So, a weapon," said bicycle guy. "Computer virus? What else could it be?"
"Right," said Thomas. "We're trying to contain it, but this virus has already been active in the wild."
"I thought you were in media," said the less ornery man. "Is this a new job?"
"I inherited the new position when T2 Barabos was gunned down in Cleveland," said Thomas. "Hopefully it's temporary."
"Oh right," said less ornery.
"Seriously, I have no idea what I'm doing," said Thomas. "It's like I'm playing a game with no real rules and wicked consequences."
"In over your head?" asked ornery. "Just don't agree to anything you don't understand and you should be fine."
"Thanks," said Thomas, who had been breaking that rule left and right. "The whole thing is a shit show. I'm just trying not to make anything worse."
(Feature image from Pixabay.)
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