Chapter 35: Good Business

They leave the portal on Crossroads and are met by Claudia. She’s a bit surprised by the large group, but she takes it all in her stride while she orders quarters for War Bonnet and a new door appears for a stable. KK takes War Bonnet in and sees to his care while Kyle gives Claudia a welcome kiss and gets some odd looks from Nadia and Larry. They give more odd looks when KK returns to kiss Claudia as well.

With the welcomes over Kyle says, “Before we do anything else I have something here I need to speak to Mistress Eva about, can you please ask her to visit when she can?”

Before Claudia can speak the computer says, “Hero Kyle, when you returned via here and not direct I thought it may be for a conference, so I informed Mistress Eva of your arrival. She is on her way.”

Claudia responds, “Thank you, Mac.”

Kyle looks at her, “Mac?”

She grins, “Another new Hero met the Master Authority Control AI and asked if he can call him Mac. Now we all call him Mac, he likes it.”

“Well then, Mac it is! Thank you, Mac.”

“You are welcome, Hero Kyle.”

“Mac, please, Kyle is more than enough, thanks.”

“As you wish. I guess I can call your Companion just KK, too?”

Kathleen smiles when she responds, “Yes, please, Mac.”

Just then Mistress Eva arrives and is introduced to Nadia, who does recognize her from the website. Eva looks at the tied up men and raises an eyebrow when she looks at Kyle. He grins when he replies, “These are two of Carl’s men from Earth, Jason and Malcolm Bennett. I brought them for you to deal with as we discussed on our last visit.” Both Claudia and Eva grin as they nod. He puts his hand in his pocket and brings out the rings he took off the dead general and them, “I took one of these off another of Carl’s men, a general in their army. He was dead so I took it before we buried him. I thought Mac might be able to use these to help in tracking their portal. Both the Bennett boys are shocked at this news, as they hadn’t heard about Kyle’s campaign. The rings vanish from Kyle’s hand. He thinks that’s neat and he adds, “We found out what Carl is after on Shiloh and what he thinks he’s going to get his futuristic weapons made from. Mac, do you know about the mineral stishovite and its properties?”

“Yes, Kyle. I know the quartzite you named by another name. I also note you have two unusually large samples in your pocket. It is used as a power source in some portable energy weapons. What do you intend to do with the two samples?”

“Mac, these are the two smallest samples we have. I’m taking them to Earth to show our people there what Carl thinks he’s getting. There’s a mine of huge pieces of stishovite on Shiloh. At this time the best thing I can think to do with the quartzite is to keep it hidden, because I don’t want it loose on Earth in quantities, or loose on Chaos, either.”

“Kyle, if you wish I can arrange to have the mineral removed from Chaos and sold to reputable people to be used in energy systems for peaceful uses. This will generate a lot of income.”

Kyle looks at KK, Nadia, Larry, and Mistress Eva, “Suggestions?”

Mistress Eva asks, “Mac, what do we call this?”

“In this form it’s called Squal, once processed for civilian energy systems it’s called Markez. I can have it removed and processed before sale as the processed form can’t be used for anything but civilian energy systems.”

Eva turns to Kyle, “This is a dangerous material, so you should let Mac make it safe and sell it for you.” The others nod agreement.

Larry adds, “Kyle, as much as I’d like to make a splash by producing that sample, I think we should give these to Mac to process too and then forget we ever saw it.”

Kyle takes the two samples from his pocket and holds them out, they vanish as he asks, “Now how can we get Shiloh the value of this?”

Mac replies, “Kyle, there is no way we can give the full value to Shiloh without creating a major economic issue. What if I remove all of this ore and replace it with the equivalent tonnage of iron ore in a place near to the main Shiloh compound. I can also arrange for you to get a part of the value by buying the design rights to some older technical items that suit Earth’s current technological level and are not used elsewhere now. You can register them on Earth and make money from them. However, that will only account for about twenty percent of the value, while the cost of collection and processing will be another five percent. What do I do with the rest of the value?”

Kyle thinks for a moment and smiles before saying, “Mac, do you work here on a wage or are you owned by Crossroads?”

“Kyle, I can’t answer that in a way you would fully understand. It is best you think of me as a slave who is very happy doing his job. OK?”

“OK, I get the sentiment, if not the reason. Right, to get some more value to Shiloh can we have large deposits of materials for making good ceramics and great pottery clay? Also take fifteen percent to cover costs and as an agent’s commission for Crossroads, help balance their books. Twenty percent to help Cassandra and bank the rest for now.”

“Yes, I will organize all of that. I do not see anything bad or against the rules in any of it. It should be done before your next visit.”

“Thanks, Mac. One last thing, scan the whole of Chaos and get all of this off the planet. If there are deposits in the ground near other places do the same for them as you’re doing for Shiloh. If there’s any stored above ground, as if it’s been mined, just take it as it’s likely Carl’s work.”

“Will do, Kyle. Thanks, this will help a lot of people in a lot of ways.”

Mistress Eva speaks up, “Mac, have some guards come to take these two away for processing.”

“Yes, Mistress Eva.”

Kyle grins, “When you have their first movies made please send me copies so I can send some to their family?”

Eva grins while she nods agreement, “Kyle, we have another problem we have to discuss. It’s to do with the website.”

“OK, can we get seated somewhere and get something to drink and eat while we talk. Also, you should have someone explain the whole Hero, Companion, Chaos thing to Larry and Nadia so they can decide if he should become a Hero.”

Eva nods and Mac says, “On their way.”

A moment later KK, Kyle, Claudia, and Eva are sitting at a table with drinks and nibblers while a Hero Greeter leads Larry and Nadia into another room to give them the full explanation. Eva smiles at Kyle with KK on one knee and Claudia on the other while they take turns feeding him while he fondles their breasts.

Shaking her head at their games she says, “I don’t know if you’re up to date with what’s been happening with the website, but a few things have been happening and we need your ideas on how to handle them.”

“It all but runs itself since I set it up, so I don’t worry about it.”

Mac enters the conversation, “Kyle, let me summarize for you. We’ve supplied over one hundred thousand still images; the Cassandra ladies are all vying to be our models. We also sent in about one hundred films ninety minutes long on the lines you suggested. All are doing well. We’ve had some people email asking to have particular models do things. We set up a set of rates for this with your website staff. The rate varies on what it is and how long they want it exclusive to them only. Some have even sent along clothes they want a model to use. We don’t ship those clothes here, for security reasons, but do have them shipped somewhere and then use them as the basis to make copies here. If they pay more we ship the used copy back to them. Some people wanted to pay to come here as Doms, we gave that a blanket refusal. The issue is many people are offering big money to come here as slaves to be dealt with by our staff. Your staff are really putting pressure on us to allow this because some of the offers are getting very high.”

Both Kyle and KK are stunned by this. Kyle thinks for a moment and says, “OK, I think there is a way we can handle this. However, I think some of the offers are from people who want to locate your base to take over the models for a while, or longer. So security is a major issue. I think you should make a video showing some large strong and armed security guards standing around the sides of the chamber, but in positions where they’re out of sight of the usual cameras. Have this video show the cameras in place and the guards’ positions. I bet some of the offers will vanish when they know they can’t take control once here. Next, the building the website is in is very large, so we can set up a place to check people out there, a transfer station. They arrive and get changed, we scan them and then move them to a secret secure place. I’ll buy some land in New Mexico to set up a secure facility there. The people go from the transfer station by enclosed van wearing blindfolds we provide and they get on a plane to fly to New Mexico. A van takes them to the facility. There we build a copy of your chamber, complete with cameras. But the entrance to the chamber has an ultraviolet irradiation chamber they walk through to clear them of germs etcetera. In that is a portal. You duplicate the irradiation chamber and portal here. Before they enter we place slave collars on them with sapphires in them. Thus the portal will shift them here, they enter before the models.”

“Kyle, I think that will work. We can have large female guards since we already have many such guards from Cassandra here. I will also assign a new AI to this task on a permanent basis, they will ensure proper security in the chamber. The precautions at your end stops them from knowing where we are and will give us time to see if they’re using tracking devices. Brilliant. This we can do. Once you have your end set up send me an email and I will send you what you need for the portal on site. Once it is in place I can take care of the rest.”

Eva smiles and adds, “Kyle, I’m glad you could work this out, as our girls want to get involved in this. Which is why we asked. We already have a lot of emails being exchanged between clients and our models, at a nice fee for you and us too. I was amazed at how many want to talk to the girls and our girls love the email exchanges. This is having a very positive effect on the women of Cassandra.”

That’s good to hear,” is Kyle’s response.

Eva turns to Kathleen, “KK, I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear, much as I hated to do it, I’ve had to amend the policy on the Caretakers and getting pregnant. Another new Hero was able to find a loophole in the system, it seems that’s what he does for a living on Earth.”

KK interrupts with, “I bet he’s a lawyer.”

“Exactly. Anyway, he was introduced via a retiring Hero. He worked out a way to get her pregnant. The rules are clear a Hero can’t get a Caretaker pregnant, but not a soon to be Hero and another’s Caretaker. Well, his punishment is to get all of the living Caretakers whose Heroes are dead pregnant, over four thousand of them.” Both KK and Kyle laugh. “I’ve changed the rules so a Caretaker can be made pregnant by any Companion or Hero after her Hero dies. It’s the best I can do.”

Kyle is still laughing when he says, “I bet that guy got a lot more than he bargained for when he found the loophole. What do you know about artificial insemination and the storing of ova and sperm?”

Mistress Eva frowns and Mac answers, “What?” A pause, “Wait while I check Earth databases.” A longer pause. “Mistress Eva, it seems Earth technology is ahead of us in this area. They have a way to store sperm and ova for later use to make a person pregnant. They already use it and have had hundreds of such births of healthy babies.”

Mistress Eva’s eyes go wide, so do Claudia’s, “Oh goodness! Can we set up such a system here?”

“Yes. Thus we can store a Hero’s sperm and his Caretaker can later use it to get pregnant. Mistress Eva, this search has opened up a whole new area of research I was not aware of. I am in contact with the council AIs and they are not aware of a lot of this, either. I think we may have found an area where Earth is well ahead of us and gone into research our people have never even considered. This is very valuable work!”

KK looks up and asks, “Mac, other than artificial insemination, what are you looking at?”

“DNA research. We are aware of DNA and understand the basics, but that is all. Gene modification of plants and animals, cloning, a lot of the genetics is not in any other database I can reach. I had not looked at that because it was not an area of knowledge I knew about. Hero Al had me start a deep study of Earth databases to compare them with ours, now I have to give that a much higher priority.”

A stunned Mistress Eva stands and says, “Well, it seems Mac and I have a lot of work to do. So we’ll leave you to get reacquainted.”

Just after she leaves the remaining three head for the bedroom.

Some days later Kyle, KK, Nadia, Larry, Claudia, and Margo (Larry’s Caretaker) are sitting around a table while they talk. Nadia says, “You won’t believe how hard it was to convince Larry to be a Hero. He thought I wouldn’t like him to be with the others. But I convinced him this helps show how virile he is and I like that.” A little later the Earth group heads home through the portal, taking War Bonnet with them.

Once back in the sub-basement they put the portal away. Larry and Nadia help Kathleen with walking a younger looking War Bonnet up the stairs while Kyle puts the portal ring in the safe. When he reaches the garage he finds the Haywoods being introduced to War Bonnet. After closing the door and resetting the circuit breaker Kyle suggests they all go for a walk to take War Bonnet to the stable. They delay long enough to change clothes and get personal weapons to carry.

Some of the older kids and other parents are in the stable caring for the horses when KK leads War Bonnet in. She doesn’t even have a halter on him because they couldn’t find one on Chaos that fit and didn’t have any metal in it - most have copper rings to run leads through. They did think of a rope one, but since he’s happy to just follow where KK goes they didn’t bother with it.

The real funny part is when they reach the stable War Bonnet goes from stall to stall as if inspecting them then walks into one when he decides is the one for him. Kyle smiles while he thinks, Just like Jonas to have a horse with a mind of his own about where he’s going. Naturally this behavior gets a bit of comment from the others.

After several minutes of introductions, combing, and setting up the feed and water for him KK removes the wood bar across the end so he can wander between the stall and the attached paddock as he wishes. The last thing she does is to stroke his neck while saying, “This is your stall now and just outside that open doorway is a nice paddock to run around in, just don’t go wandering off on me. OK?” War Bonnet nods his head and backs out to go look at the paddock, surprising most of the people watching. He gives it a good look and returns to his stall. KK pats him and they turn to leave.

Sonny and Hector are standing in the stable doorway. KK has a new idea and walks up to take them both by the arm to lead them outside, asking, “Would it be hard to make this area from the stables up to the trail over the ridge and across to the road a paddock of green grass for the stables and extend the other end of the stables almost the length of the existing paddock?”

Hector looks at it for a moment before replying, “It can be done KK, but it will be expensive as we need to dig down to shape the underlying rock to catch the rain water and install an underground drip system. We would then need to mix in better earth and fertilizer before we put it back and lay the turf. I know this, as I was asking the landscapers about how to make a much bigger orchard and vegetable area and that’s her advice. If we do it for one side we should do it for the other too.”

“OK, get them started on it. I suppose we’ll have to get them to put in the well to supply the water!”

“Yes they will, but this well can go in up near the top and let gravity feed the water through the system. When they were looking for the best place to dig the well for the houses they found another water layer up here. They called it something fancy, but it means a layer of water. So we tap into this one for the gardens and save the other for the houses.”

KK smiles, “The professionals usually call it an aquifer.”

Sonny joins in, “Yes, that’s the word. If we’re expanding the stables for many more horses we should build an eight foot wide walkway on the inside of the wall that goes around the whole building and has a full floor area above the tack room and main entrance area. We can use the top level to store hay and grain and put a railway on the walkaway to pull the hay and grain around to feed the horses from above. I’d also like to upgrade the watering system to have pipes inside that feed auto filling water troughs in each stall.”

Kyle says, “Leave a small paddock area at the other end and put a doorway there so we have doors in each end as well as the current one. The paddocks should have a gate near the stable and at the end of the paddock. The paddocks should have some places made to plant and grow some shade trees. I also want the stables fully insulated and given the same level of exterior protection as the houses.”

Hector slowly nods as he writes this all down in a pocket notebook and he asks, “A cousin has a daughter who wishes to be involved with horses. Can I hire her as a groom? She can live with us and be on hand to do her work while she finishes high school.”

KK smiles and asks, “This wouldn’t happen to be Silvia, your future daughter in-law, would it?”

Hector grins, “Yes, it is. But my son doesn’t know he is to marry her, as she hasn’t told him yet. Silvia wants to work with horses and train as a horse doctor. Paid work will enable her to save up for college.”

Kyle laughs while he says, “Hire her. If she does a good job we’ll pay for her college education to be our veterinarian. Once we’ve enough horses to warrant it we’ll need to hire more grooms too.”

Hector turns to look at Kyle for a moment before saying, “Thank you, Kyle.” Both Kyle and KK grin while Sonny looks stunned. This is a very big step for Hector to take to accept his Patrón as a member of his family to work with in such a familiar way.

Kyle is turning to head back to the house when KK asks, “Hector, how come so many of the families are back from the party so early?”

“We left right behind you. We don’t really know many of the others yet and the party looked like it was about to become a bit too rowdy for our tastes, so we came home. Most of the kids don’t mind because we picked up some of their school friends when we went through Doña Ana and they now play games on the game network Maria set up here like the one at CyberFun. If we weren’t so far out those kids would be here all afternoon, every afternoon.” Kyle and KK laugh while they slowly nod and head to their home.

A few minutes later the Alexanders, Haywoods, Nadia, and Larry are sitting down in front of the gas fire having a cool drink while they talk about the results of the visit to Chaos. Kyle summarizes it as, “That was a very productive visit. We freed two towns under Carl’s rule and took out about two thousand of his troops. In the process we captured two of his Earth leaders and they’re now on Crossroads, killed a general who was from Earth and another of his Earth leaders died in a cave in.” He hands over the drawing of the dead general, “Can you see if you can identify this man. Also, the weapons come from an intent to use a huge supply of stishovite to make energy weapons.”

Barbara takes the drawing and puts it in her pocket, “I’ll get people looking into who this is tomorrow. What’s this stishovite do?” she asks.

Larry answers, “Think of it as a peizo light a billion times brighter than any you’ve seen before. Kind of like a Star Trek Phaser.”

Marc says, “Shit. I wouldn’t trust our government with something like that! Can you lose it somehow?”

KK smiles, “I think we’re all in agreement on that one. The quartz is being taken away from Chaos right now and is being made into another material used for energy storage that’s not good enough for weapons. I think it’s best we never heard of it and we tell no one else about it. That will make it look like Carl’s claims of weapons are pure BS.”

They all laugh and smile while they nod their agreement.

Kyle takes over, “The two prisoners are Jason and Malcolm Bennett and we hope to soon have some nice videos to send to their dear old dad who works with Carl. Mistress Eva is organizing them for use at the website. Can you send me an email about where I can send Mister Bennett a copy of the videos.”

Barbara nods, “I should be able to find that out for you.”

KK is about to speak again when Kyle’s cell phone rings. He looks at it and answers, “Yes, Stanley, what’s up?”

“Kyle, sorry to disturb you today of all days, but I remember you saying you weren’t going anywhere and an issue has come up with the new website company. When I left the party a short while ago I turned my phone back on and found Anna frantic about a technical issue I don’t understand, but she wants to spend some big money to fix it. I wanted to clear it with you first.”

“OK, Stanley. I’ll have to call her to get the details, but what’s the situation with the company?”

“We incorporated the company as Mansions of Mayhem and use MoM as its nickname. It went live four days ago on Wednesday morning after two days of heavy testing. On Thursday morning I hired Morgan Accounting to take over the bookkeeping and credit charge verification as it was already too much for the Dallas staff. All that stuff is now sent to us. I’ll need to do some rearranging about that soon, too. Kyle, I know you know a lot about business and accounting, do you know how they record revenue as against income for periodic memberships?”

“Yes, Stanley. When they pay the membership the money goes in the bank and shows as income while the first period’s amount is shown as revenue and the rest is shown as a liability. For example, pay a hundred and twenty dollars for a twelve month membership and the full amount is in the bank as an asset while ten dollars shows as revenue and a hundred and ten dollars show as a liability.”