Kenzington filled the screen with at least a dozen portraits with a flick of a hand, the pictures floated at the center of the dark office nearly the size of a small auditorium. He ordered them male, female, oldest to youngest and left the room to fix Solmon some tea. The advanced panoramic screen filled the room with the gastly images leaving the portraits looking like ghosts floating in the dark. Solomon plopped down into the ergonomic chair and adjusted accordingly to get maximum comfort. He pulled himself up to his console as Kenzington approached his side with his choice of tea and just a few drops of milk and a few drops of nutritional supplements. Solomon picked up the tea studying the images that floated across the screen.
“Good work Kenzington…” Solomon spoke softly as he sipped his tea.
“Analyzing the trespasser’s DNA was a bit difficult but once I had a good match, ran a query on the social security database – I didn’t have to dig far sir. The information was there so plainly in sight.” Kenzington picked up the left over tea and exited the room as Solomon continued to survey the images and digest the profile information slowly scrolling below. Solomon could feel rejuvenated as the specially blended formula worked quickly through his body. He felt like he could pull an all nighter to strategize and research, then go clean up some crime in Megapolis’s streets… but he knew better than to waste his energy. Besides, the formula’s potency doubly increased with a few restful hours of sleep. Focus was key in getting things done and what happened last night was a direct attack on Richards Conglomerate, and he was going to prepare for a counter strike, he was not happy.
He motioned at each of the cards and each flipped over with a more detailed information of each employee. Kenzington spoke, but not breaking his maintenance activities around Solomon. “All trespassers were former employees of Genentech and upon further research into Genetech’s HR department each was terminated around the same time after working on similar projects in the Gene Therapy department. All personnel information was wiped off the servers but there was some dirty laundry overdue to be unexpurgated, which was how I found the details.”
“Kenzington your getting real good at this computer stuff” Solomon stated nodding his head in approval.
“Yes sir, its pretty amazing how many things you can learn on Youtube”
Solomon snickered, “Right… HERA bring up a map of the employees residencies.”
The computer screen blinked an image or HERA’s rose pink renaissance logo, which was the console’s operating AI and had a map of Megapolis highlighting the Genetech campus, in particular the scientist Dorm buildings. Solomon sighed and shook his head. He motioned with two hands to grab the map and brought the map onto the floor console raising it up to his waist creating an image that Kenzington was waddling through the room cleaning up and monitoring some computer progresses, looking like giants in the middle of Megapolis.
“Man, I love this new feature”, with his hand on top of the Genentech building bringing up a few articles floating above the building. He opened his hand and opened up multiple articles that headlined Genetech’s attempt to buy into Solomons Conglomerates. He highlighted a few articles and threw the articles into his hand held console to read later. Nothing looked out of place at first glance, many companies try to buy into his conglomerate stocks as they were on the stock exchange. He scrolled through a second level of articles to see anything out of place. He didn’t see anything as…
“Bingo” Solomon read out loud, “Six Company Coupe fails as stocks for Richards Conglomerate soars despite ruined annual ball. Just released thirty minutes ago… why was I not notified about this stock buyout?!”
Almost on cue his hand held console blinked a green light notifying him of a message. He leapt over to see the new message alerting him regarding the stock buyout.
“ARE YOU KIDDING ME!?” Solomon smashed the console on the ground and quickly scanned the article still floating in the air. Kenzington without hesitation, placed a new hand held console on the dock and sweeped up the busted mess that sprawled from main street to fourth.
“Sir, you must keep yourself tempered or..”
Solomon interrupted in a bitter voice, “Kenzington, please see to it that the message servers are functioning correctly and I would like a full assessment of the companies that tried to buy us out… and yes, I apologize for my behavior…” Solomon looked up at Kenzington after scanning the article, “See, I am trying to be nice, but you can’t expect me to be nice when something like this happens.”
Kenzington smirked a bit and shook his head. “Your father had a saying.” In almost synchronized harmony he recited one of his father’s ten commandments.
The two hummed, “A level head in a time of crises could mean the difference between victory and defeat.”
“I swear, I can put money on it. I have more of my mother’s gene’s than my fathers.”
A few hours later the antagonists faces were painted across the panoramic screen with the CEO’s below each company.
The leader of the the financial company, “X” Benjamin which so leads us to his younger brother a fat chubby fellow. Of course there is the visionary extravagant of the new future releasing product not yet used by all, but striving to do so. Greg Gohmi. Biotech is one of the weaker of the bunch, but still one to be rekoned with in size. Media is a ghost, with so much turnaround at leadership but there are whispers of a real leader there. But, finally Genentech. Out of all of these a middle of the pack company that sent over these uninvited guests.
“What a dastardly bunch… Boring isn’t quite the word for them. Bring up the feed from a few nights ago. I believe I visited one of these companies…”
“Bingo, was his name – o. Check this drug connection from HERA’s data logs.”
“Do you believe they found you out sir?”
“That is the obvious response, but my intuition states that they have no idea.” Kendrick sneered.
“Irritating, annoying to say the least. I’m going to bring the hammer down on their illegal activities. I’ll burn them down with all their drugs and money so fast…”
“Sir, a level head…”
“Right… burning that much narcotics would just make the whole city intoxicated and addicted to drugs. To the drawing board Kenzington! We’re at war…”
—
“Amassing documents and articles Jackie worked unceasingly in the school office. It was amazing what the library had on file with maps and journals. Research material that no
Kendrick wasn’t happy with all these things happening starting from the day they ran into that stupid CEO. He was pompous, arrogant, and wasn’t as smart as he looked. Only cause of his good looks were the only reason people liked him. There were rumors everywhere the kid didn’t do anything but play video games all day as board members ran his company. What’s up with the CEO moniker they gave the kid when he wasn’t doing anything.
He looked across the table to his girlfriend, another day, same research material. She had scoured every public record available and still had not found enough “information”. All this for a school paper he thought. She’s in line to make a name for herself but Kendrick didn’t think she needed to exert herself this much for the small fries that would read this in the school newspaper.
“Jackie”, Kendrick tried to get her attention. “Jacqueline…” He tore a corner of a piece of his notes and threw it across to her. She swatted it away reflexively. “Yo…” Jacqueline slowly looked up from a few articles she had opened up from older newspapers of twenty some odd years ago.
Finally getting her attention Kendrick asked, “Want to get something to eat?”
“No, no… I have a lot of research to do…” She shook her head ever so minutely. She knew he wasn’t happy at her response. They hadn’t done anything in such a long time. Kendrick obviously knew what the priorities were.
“Seriously…” He had brought her breakfast, brought her lunch, but he had to draw the line at dinner and Jackie knew.
“You don’t have to bring me anything and I’m probably not going to leave here any time soon so don’t wait up. The weekends are really the only times I have enough time to research.”
“You got to be kidding me, you research every DAY…” He stood up and gathered his belongings. “Alright Jackie, I’m outta here.”
Jackie didn’t say goodbye further infuriating Kendrick. He just shook his head and walked away. As he walked towards the sunset he heard a loud growl from his stomach. Great, he thought. What shall I eat today? Maybe some more ramen. Ramen was indeed his favorite food. All types of ramen, but any of the spicy variety would do for today. Jacqueline and Kendrick hadn’t spoken legitimately in a few weeks now and Kendrick wasn’t sure when they would speak. They lived in apartments just across from each other, traveled to school together, traveled back, which might have been the most conversation they struck… but with summer coming quickly that only meant finals in a few weeks. What could he do? He thought. Bummer… Wonder what his gamer friends he hadn’t spoken with in a long time were doing tonight. Maybe he’d eat with them, but first he’d have to swing by his apartment to lay down his belongings where he saw a familiar, slightly terrifying sight.
Long, silvery, white hair fluttered in the wind in conjunction to a grey – silver coat pressed in perfect condition. The man’s face had long features with a distinct slight scowl to his thin silvery grey eyebrows letting you know he always meant business.
“M-m-mister Jennings! I-I-… Surprised to meet you here!”
Mr. Jennings gave a slight smile and walked over to give Kendrick a strong pat on the back nearly sending his body flying into the concrete ground. He let out a nervous laughter.
“How’s my man doing?! Everything is going well with Jackie I presume!”
“Y-y-es sir! Ha hah ha…” Kendrick was always nervous around Jackie’s father. He was a well disciplined man and a strongly religious one at that.
“Don’t be nervous, after all these years and my future son in law still gets the jitters around me! Ha ha ha!” Mr. Jennings gave another strong pat on the back. That one would leave a mark on Kendrick’s back as he tried to rub it down with more nervous laughter.
“What brings you here today?”
“Business, and I thought I’d stop by! Its not everyday I can swing by to check up on you two.”
“Jacqueline is in the library, she’s been working on a project for the past few weeks. She’s on to something big.”
The look of pride emerged from Mr. Jennings’ face, but no smile this time. “I wonder what it could be? Well, I guess I’ll see you around Kenny!”
“Y-yes sir!”
Mr. Jennings walked down the stairs of the apartment complex, his long hair fluttering in the breeze with his coat swaying behind him. Kendrick let out a sigh of relief as Mr. Jennings was a safe distance away before opening his door and walking in closing the door behind.
—
The sun had set on this day and Solomon had yet to leave his temple. He brought up X Company and found a thin trace to when his father had been the president of Richards Conglomerates. Something he wanted to look, if the past were only able to speak to him a bit more clearly. Kenzington had been working on the messaging servers and dropped by his work space with news that there had been a hitch in the system that had been resolved.
“Hey, Kenzington… Do you remember when my parents died… What did Company X have to deal with it?”
“Well, sir…. before these companies were all dissolved and broken apart into pieces they were all one just one company.” With a few taps and swipes Kenzington opened up a breakdown of Company X and its history with Richards Conglomerates. “Wow, so while Richards Conglomerates had been pulled together by my father, Company X managed to fall apart and break apart.”
“Well, from these press releases”, Kenzington pulled up simultaneous documents and threw them into the air. “it seems they weren’t to fall apart but intentionally broken apart. Weather in disputes and arguments or to minimize risk in finance.”
“Interesting, its obvious there is a lot of drama amongst the Brady Bunch.” Solomon sneered.
Kenzington continued his usual maintenance activities and interjected with a comment, “While I was doing some digging sir I did find some rumors to our drug imports from a few days back that just surfaced and you may want to pay a visit to one of our trading partners.”
“Are you kidding me? One of our partners? Unacceptable, cut them off now and let me build a case.”
“You may not want to cut them off from Richards Conglomerates as they are our largest East Asia trading partner… and I believe you will want to pay a visit to this one before doing anything.”
Kenzington flicked up a few images replacing the social diagram with some shipments marked Richard Conglomerates.
“They are using our name to ship the drugs in Asia, but we only have pictures of boxes that were released on the Internet on some forums.”
“…and so we need to verify the results, the best thing to do is to go in and hand check them ourselves… Well I guess I’ll have to choose to pursue our Sinister Six or our drug lead.”
“No you will not have to do sir.” Kenzington flicked up a last image onto the screen.
“This is the right hand man of Hillary Hamas, Genentech’s CEO and Owner. He was spotted in China around our shipments that marked each port from where the drug shipments were traced back from.”
“Great work, where did you manage to find this lead Kenzington?”
“Sir, you keep forgetting I worked for British Intelligence prior to becoming your family’s caretaker. I had max clearance to intelligence around the world. Something like this is low level material. Please don’t continue to undervalue my worth here sir. Your operation would never stay afloat without my cunning prowess and experience.”
Solomon grinned largely as he ran over to Kenzington and gave him a bear hug lifting his small frame from the ground causing his usually kept garb to crinkle before Solomon had dropped him to the floor and ran out the door shouting things to his automated home system to ready his personal jet with enough fuel to China and back.