Business Plans

After the tour, Gerald packed away his camera, and then he and Elisha stepped into the Zero-G Park and started to float away.

Mark, Annabelle and Taryn did the same. Mark had floated around the shuttle for a bit, but he wanted to try the park out since it was just that much bigger. It was a neat sensation and even a bit scary when it looked like you were going to miss one of the white beams that made up the dome. There was a force field that wouldn’t let you escape, but still you couldn’t see it.

At one point they were all hanging on to the same internal structure, which was more or less a thick wall with a hole in it, covered with some red padding. It was immobile, although it didn’t appear to be attached to anything. There were several red, yellow or orange padded obstacles scattered around the sphere, likely hiding places for some of the games.

Mark suggested that they should study the laws and do the test, so they would be able to go to Atlanterra when they left.

Gerald asked, “Is the test difficult?”

Mark shook his head no and said, “The test was pretty simple, as long as you were honest and used common sense.”

The group exited the Zero-G Park, where Liyana was waiting. Mark told her that they were going to take the test, so Liyana led them away to the testing centres. Annabelle and Taryn stayed behind.

As Liyana led Elisha and Gerald away, a cute little blue girl walked by, that was about 3 foot in height. “Hey there, flyboy!” was all she said.

Mark called out questioningly, “Sarah?”

She stopped, turned around and approached him. Then patted his cock through his suit, which was about head height for her, looked at Taryn and Annabelle and said, “Take care of this big boy, a LOT of girls are wanting it!”

Mark asked, “Sarah, who did you show the video to?” as she just laughed and continued on her way... “Sarah?”

Taryn and Annabelle were both looking at Mark as he said, “What?”

Annabelle asked, “Anything we should know about?”

Taryn said, “If he won’t talk, I’ll just talk to Sarah and get the details,” then her eyes got big with realization, “You didn’t fuck her, did you?”

Mark shook his head and answered, “No,” and then in a muted voice he mumbled, “not yet!”

Taryn said, “If you did, that would be something I’d definitely want to see! There’s no way that your cock could fit in a little thing like Sarah, it barely fit in me!”

Annabelle said, “Well T’Soona managed to make it fit. She and Sarah are about the same size. It makes me wet just thinking about her being impaled on Mark though.”

Taryn kissed Annabelle and rubbed her crotch through her pants, “Well we could go to the bath house,” pointing toward the bath house where Sarah was headed.

Annabelle’s eyes were big as she grabbed Mark’s hand and started walking toward the bath house. Taryn laughed and followed.

As they entered the bath house, Sarah was already in the change room. So Taryn and Annabelle slipped off their shoes and put them in cubbies and then joined Sarah in the change room. Mark took a bit longer to take off his cowboy boots and soon joined the girls in the change room.

When he entered all he saw was a glimpse of Annabelle’s ass, as she rounded the corner and entered the bath chamber.

Mark got undressed and put all his clothes in a locker and then entered the chamber.

All three girls were sitting in the hot tub, Sarah was in the middle with only her head above the water, her face at the same level as Taryn and Annabelle’s breasts, but he couldn’t see anything below the water level due to the jets and bubbles.

Mark climbed into the hot tub, with his cock pointed out in front of him like a divining rod, but warily sat across from them.

He began to feel a bit uncomfortable as all three girls were just sitting there staring at him.

With a smile on her face, Annabelle asked, “How come you sat down so far away?”

Mark looked at the three of them with cautious eyes as he said, “Something tells me you three are up to something and I’m safer over here!”

Sarah smiled, as she kissed and sucked each of the girls nipples closest to her, “What’s the matter flyboy? You don’t think you can handle us?”

Mark just laid back against the edge with his arms spread out on the edge of the tub, “I’m just doing some sight seeing and the view is pretty nice. I hear voyeurism is a good way to relax.”

Sarah walked over to where Mark was, her head was the only body part above the water. When she reached him she grabbed his cock and cocked her eyebrow, “Relaxing? I don’t think your cock is relaxing at all ... it feels pretty stiff to me.”

Taryn and Annabelle were kissing and feeling each other up now, both keeping an eye on Sarah as she was teasing Mark.

Once the four of them had recovered from their sexual bliss, they just sank down into the hot tub to relax a bit, but eventually Sarah indicated she needed to get back to work so everyone exited, dried themselves off and got dressed.

Outside the bath house, Mark saw Elisha and Gerald wandering around, so knowing the testing centres were now available, Mark suggested, “Annabelle, you don’t need to go through the testing since you’re already a citizen, but it’s up to you.”

Annabelle thought for a second and then said, “Sure I’ll go through the test, just so I know the process.”

Taryn said, “Well let’s get you tested, then we can go play some more,” as she held Annabelle’s hand and led her off toward the stern where she got Annabelle setup in the testing centre and shut the door.

Just then the girls found Mark, who asked, “So what have you girls been up to today?”

Rayven said, “We were in the Zero-G park playing tag, except T’Soona cheats ... so don’t play with her! Then we went and played virtual golf at the golf booths on the far corner of the park.”

Mark asked quizzically, “She cheats?”

T’Soona pleaded her case, “I do not cheat, I’m weightless just like everybody else!”

Solara added, “Yeah its weightlessness, but it’s not a vacuum like space is. So, even though she’s weightless, she can still move because there’s still air in there and she uses her wings to push the air.”

Mark suggested with a smile, “Well, make it fair then, let’s take out all the air!”, waiting to see who all caught on.

T’Soona exclaimed, “Yeah, take out the air then!”

As she looked around, she noticed everyone was looking at her, “What?”

Laruun smiled and said, “Think about it T...”

T’Soona thought about it, then her eyes went wide with realization. So she turned and punched Mark in the arm, “You are mean!”

Mark faked a shocked look, “What did I do? I just suggested an option that would prevent you from cheating. I didn’t say it was a good option,” as everyone laughed.

Then Mark continued, “The only other option I see would be strapping your wings to your body, so you can’t use them.”

Everyone could see T’Soona was not a fan of that idea either, as Liyana walked up with the government guys in tow.

Liyana asked, “You all seem to be thinking about something. Anything I can help with?”

Rayven explained, “We’re trying to figure out how to keep T’Soona from cheating at Zero-G tag.”

Liyana laughed, “A tough dilemma to be sure, but probably not one that requires the King’s input. Mark would you come and meet with us?”

Mark asked, “Sure! Can you girls wait around for Annabelle?”

Rayven said, “We’ll wait for her. After you’re done your meeting, we’ll probably be in the Zero-G park, or at the golf booths in the park.”

Liyana suggested they use the boardroom in the office complex, so she led them across the street and down a hallway in the middle of the offices. As they were walking, Liyana asked if the reporters asked any other questions other than about the embassy.

Mark replied, “Just the inevitable one about ‘what if we don’t want to be identified by the Federation?’ To which I said don’t get on a shuttle.”

The boardroom was at the back edge of the ship with a dozen chairs arranged around a long oval table. The outer wall was nothing but a forcefield overlooking the planet below.

Mark noticed Ben was limping quite noticeably, even worse than before.

Mark suggested, “Sir, you look like you’re in a lot of pain! You should go to the medibay and they’ll fix you right up.”

Ben looked skeptical, but asked, “Is it really safe?”

Mark indicated, “It’s perfectly safe, we have all been through it and we are fine.”

He agreed it was worth a shot, but it could wait until after the meeting.

Ben was eager to start the meeting, so he outright asked, “So what happens if Earth does join the Federation?”

Mark looked serious, “I personally don’t think that’s ever going to happen. Earth as far as I’m concerned is almost a lost cause. Do you think you’re ever going to get all the governments of the world to work together?”

Ben succumbed, “No, I don’t think we will either. So if Earth is a lost cause, why go through all the hassle of setting up an embassy?”

Mark said, “Earth is a lost cause because of governments and religion, but I’m betting there’s a lot of people on it that would love to live a better life, somewhere free of the war, terror, crime and politics of Earth. You never know, maybe some countries may want to join the Federation, there’s no rule that says it’s the entire planet or nothing at all!”

Kyle said, “But it sounds to me like the Federation is a big brother state, where no one has any privacy.”

Mark replied, “There is still privacy. I personally haven’t been to a Federated planet yet, but from what I’ve been told and have read, the security system that we developed at the ranch is very much like the security on a Federated planet. The drones don’t record anything, they look for potentially dangerous activity and then notify security. In the event of imminent danger or primary law violations the violator is disabled until security can get there.”

Kyle said, “OK so you can’t see the drones, but then you’re under constant surveillance.”

Mark retorted, “Yes, but did you know that in pretty much any major city in the developed world you are already under surveillance anytime you are in public, the only difference is with your current technology there’s a lot of blind spots or the cameras don’t get a good enough picture to identify the bad guys.

Our security system can detect explosives, drugs and other dangerous items, then they can take action using non-lethal methods to disable a bad guy until security can get there. Plus, like I just said, our surveillance doesn’t actually record anything, so in a way it actually allows for more privacy than what you currently have as long as you aren’t doing something illegal!”

Mark let that sink in for a minute, then continued, “With security drones, it’s not like you can hide your identity by wearing a ball cap, ski mask or even cosmetic surgery ... as soon as you commit a crime they would have you identified and disabled before security as security personnel would be on their way. There is no escape! Wouldn’t you think twice about doing anything nefarious?

Remember that whole Black Lives Matter shitshow that happened a few years ago? That would never happen in the Federation, anyone breaking a law would be identified, disabled and arrested, but even the whole situation would never have happened in the first place, because security drones treat everyone the same way and they take away all the human error and guesswork from the people charged with trying to uphold the law.

Take that back even a step further, the whole racism thing isn’t as much of an issue in the Federation, it does still exist, but it’s not perpetrated by the media as it’s illegal for them to use any descriptors like race, colour, sexual orientation and stuff like that in headlines.”

Ben agreed, “I never thought of it that way, we are pretty much under surveillance all the time, but like you said our cameras aren’t intelligent and law enforcement isn’t infallible.”

Mark said, “In all honesty, there is a couple of technologies I would consider letting Earth use...” as Ben, Kyle and even Liyana’s eyes went wide.

Now that Mark had everyone’s attention, “One is our identity system, it can be deployed through the air, so you could outfit certain buildings just like we do. Everyone would be identified if they go to a school, hospital, dentist, bank, courthouse, police station, or any place they can verify identity.”

Liyana raised her eyes and agreed.

Ben asked, “ ... and the other?”

Mark explained, “Before I mention the second technology, think about the first one for a bit. Imagine every child being identified ... any person of importance ... or anyone convicted of a criminal offence. Once a person gets identified, their vital signs are monitored, so if there’s a medical emergency or if you ever need to find them, we could locate them in a matter of seconds. Amber alerts and missing persons would be a thing of the past and you could respond faster to medical alerts,” as Ben and Kyle’s eyes went wide with realization.

Ben asked, more curious now, “So what’s the other technology?”

Mark started talking, while thinking out loud, “The security drones or a simplified version of our security drones. I’m just not sure how best to deploy those, obviously we couldn’t just turn them loose. I would probably suggest small towns, schools, stadiums, office buildings. Relatively small places that have an existing security force. Imagine if small towns were safe zones? They might thrive again as businesses and people relocate out of cities to live and raise families in safety.”

Ben looked astonished, “You would give those technologies to us?”

Mark clarified, “No, I said I am considering letting you USE those technologies. I wouldn’t give them to you as inevitably, the powers that be, would find a way to reverse engineer them for some destructive purpose, plus it’s against Federation laws. So we would manage them for you, for a fee ... think of us as an add-on security monitoring service. You would still need your own security personnel, just not as many of them and they would be able to do their jobs safer and more efficiently.”

Liyana leaned back and smiled, with relief apparent on her face.

Kyle stated with distrust on his voice, “That is something to consider, but you said your identity system could be deployed via the air. What’s to stop you from deploying it worldwide without our knowledge or consent?”

Mark laughed, “Simple! Why waste time and effort to deploy them via open air around the entire world, when we have no way to record or capture their identity information? It’s more feasible and practical to deploy them in a small localized area, where you are actively collecting identity information.”

Ben suddenly felt the other shoe about to drop, “So all this talk is about what you can do for us ... I have a feeling you would like us to do something for you?”

Mark smiled, “Actually there is! We need a way to get people up here and one of the ideas put forward was to use airports. We could setup our shuttle service as a charter airline or helicopter business. Obviously, we would need to install transponders so you could track our shuttles, we would need to use your communication channels and setup scheduled flights. Using your airports actually helps both of us out! Your economy gets the income from connecting flights, parking fees, hotels, food, etc. Plus whatever fees we would have to pay for airport or airline reservation service fees.”

Ben asked skeptically, “So what happens if we don’t allow you to use airports?”

“Then we go with Plan B,” Mark stated, “we setup pickup locations in certain cities that have large connected airports. People can then fly in from wherever and take a cab or use public transportation to get to our pickup locations, and we do it all in stealth mode, or through the visitor centre at the ranch, which will always be one of the shuttle stops.”

Ben asked, “Is there anything else you want from us?”

Mark thought for a second, “Not that I can think of, ask about the airport thing and talk to your superiors about us lending you some technology. I honestly can’t think of a downside to having a security drone in a school or educational institution, they already don’t allow guns or explosives!”

Ben asked, “Well that certainly is a lot to think about. Are you guys going to go behind our backs and do some of this stuff anyway?”

“Depends on what you consider behind your backs. I do plan on launching a few private companies as we do need some cash flow and, as you and I both know, it will likely take months for a government to make any decisions,” Mark said, then paused and added, “ ... but we want to play by the rules.”

Everyone then stood up around the table, indicating the meeting was over.

Mark reminded Ben to visit the medibay and get checked out.

He agreed it was worth a shot, so they walked him over and Cleo directed him to the first room, told him to strip off his clothes and any jewelry, contacts, hearing aids, anything that wasn’t his natural body and to lie down in the chamber.

That was when Ben explained, “There are some pins in my hip, from my time served in Afghanistan. They are the source of most of my pain.”

Cleo said, “Well the pins are inside your body, so you can’t really remove them. The medibots will actually take that material and re-purpose it, so you won’t have pins after this.”

She closed the door and left him to strip off and get in the chamber, there was a curtain just inside the door that provided privacy for the person getting into the medibed. After a minute, she went in and programmed the chamber. As she exited the room, a timer started counting down above the door. She said, “He will be good as new in about 2 hours time. He did have extensive damage to his hip, which is why it is going to take so long.”

As they were exiting the medibay, they ran into the girls who were waiting for Annabelle to finish her test, and they decided to go get something to eat in the restaurant.

Kaley greeted them and then moved some tables around in the middle so they could all sit at the same table. The meal was incredible as everyone tried different items on the menu. Everyone commented about how the synth food tasted just like the real thing.

Annabelle had passed her test and had joined them after about half an hour. She made the comment that it was always easy to find Mark, because you just needed to go where the food was and he would usually be there, plus the cowboy hat helps a bit too!

Everyone enjoyed a leisurely meal and light conversation.

After two hours, Ben came into the restaurant with a smile on his face and a spring in his step. He sat down beside Kyle at the table and ordered a steak sandwich.

Mark looked at Ben, and said, “Well you certainly look like you’re doing better!”

Ben said, “I haven’t felt this good in years. Those medibeds are remarkable! The girl there, also informed me that I had the early stages of prostate cancer, but that’s been dealt with also.”

When Kaley delivered his meal, he devoured it with gusto and then commented, “It tastes just like the real thing!”

When he was finished his meal, he asked, “When can we get a lift back down to the ground? We need to go talk to some people.”

Liyana said, “We can have a shuttle ready in a few minutes as she tapped on her wrist and spoke, ‘A shuttle to the surface please.’”

Mark and Liyana walked with Ben, Kyle, Elisha and Gerald back to the entrance. Soon Maren and Gyges showed up and guided the visitors down the tube toward the shuttle.

Liyana asked, “So when were you going to tell me about those new businesses?”

Mark smiled, “To tell you the truth, the idea didn’t even occur to me until I started talking about lending them technology and the best way to control access to that technology is via our own companies. Then the Plan B for the shuttle service came to me once I started thinking about housing those companies. Sure we can use our own technology to reduce a lot of our costs such as electricity, water, sewer, garbage and maintenance, but we’re going to need some local money. We don’t need to make a lot of money, just enough to keep bills, people and taxes paid. Having our own connected hub to headquarter these businesses in, would be a big step in accomplishing many of our goals.”