“Welcome to our first Quarterly meeting.” Melinda started on the video call. “I have sent each of you a report on the financial balance and major transactions for each company where you have an ownership stake. I’m limiting this meeting to Mining, Energy and Robotics since our investors have either a direct or indirect stake in these operations.”
“Since I took the time to write all that up and sent it to you yesterday, I am not going to repeat the information in this meeting.” Melinda continued. She seemed a bit grumpy today.
“I’m planning to visit the Mexico location next week,” said Angela Stein. She technically controlled the largest stake in the company.
“I see a lot of transfers from the mining company to Energy, Robotics and a Construction company plus millions in materials and a fair amount in salaries. The company’s balance is already more than 10 million negative. You’ll have to forgive me for wanting to keep a careful eye on this to make sure these are all valid transactions. Second, there is an entry for Biotech consulting. I’m not against the cash flow coming in, but how does a mining company provide consulting for a biotech?”
“Fair enough. As you know we obtained favorable leases for mineral rights over a pretty large area. I also bought up a small property to serve as a base of operations. What the quarterly report may not fully express is the scope of our operations and the progress we have made.” Melinda began.
“As you will see when you visit, the transfers were on very favorable terms for the Mining company. We have two active fusion plants supplying our operations. Comparable gas or diesel units would have cost us more than twice what we paid and would require ongoing fuel and personnel to manage. If we had instead paid to upgrade existing infrastructure for grid power the cost would have been three times as much. Either option would also have delayed our operations by 6 months to a year.”
“OK, that was a great deal then. Tell me about the expenditures for Robotics and Construction”
“Robotics was really the best deal. We provided space for a manufacturing facility and paid for the equipment. We are also leasing a fleet of mining robots at a discount. Each robot uses technology owned by the Mining corporation so we are getting their yearly lease at about half what we would charge an external company. Compared to traditional equipment and laborers an operation on land would cost about 5 times more per year. Since there isn’t a viable underwater equivalent, you should treat it as an even higher multiple.”
Melinda continued, “Finally the Construction company has been responsible for expanding our facilities and building us a custom designed ship to move our product to customers. I’m happy to announce our first ship will be floated this week. This ship will be fusion powered and has a submersible system allowing us to retrieve ore and products from our mining location. We have crews ready to finish out the build working in shifts day and night. The economic collapse has made it easy to line up good work crews. Construction has billed Mining $10.3 million for ship and facility buildout. A good portion of this is owed to robotics and energy. We estimate purchasing a ship that could perform the same function would cost $25 million and would have taken at least 18 months. The backlog of ships scheduled for build has reduced since the original estimate or else it would have been closer to 3 years.”
“As to your second question. Scott, Matt and Barry worked with some key partners in our Biotech company while they were in Mexico. The insights and technical help they provided accelerated that company drastically and led to their first commercial project. I split up the fee for this work between the companies they are aligned with, but I had no complaints from the investors in Genysis Biotech.”
“Yeah, no kidding. Marty was gloating about how they had sold tech and kept 20% royalties on a device that makes insulin from water and a powder that doesn’t need refrigeration. It costs less than a dollar per dose. A profitable biotech in less than 4 months? That is ridiculous!” Angela grumbled. “You didn’t even offer me a stake in this company.”
“Yes, you made it clear you were tapped out investing in our mining company.” Melinda laughed. “If that was just a negotiating tactic, it might have backfired.”
“I have a question.” Scott piped up. “We were going strong when I left, but there was some concern about keeping up the pace after a certain depth. Something about the problems of keeping the robots powered. I know we tested a robot with the small fusion pack prototype. How is that going, and at what depth are we now?”
“Rafael and Phillip have refitted 10 robots with the new power system. I’m happy to share that the dig rate has continued at about 4 feet per hour. As of this morning we were at a depth of 1010 ft for the switchback and 1840 ft for the vertical shaft. As noted, we should be able to reach depth and finish the ship with available cash on hand. Currently, there is no need for an additional round of funding.”
“Can you provide detail on the minerals you are expecting from this mine? As you know commodity prices have crashed lately.” Angela said.
“We have some data from some scientific projects that examined the crater rim, and we have a guess on the composition of similar mantle intrusions around some big volcanoes. We expect plenty of iron, manganese, cobalt, copper and other lower value materials. We are hoping for platinum group metals and some others like silver and gold. Also, the meteor may have been rich in iridium. We have confidence these higher value items will be found somewhere in the region, but it may take a while to find once we can start digging lateral tunnels.”
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“Well gold and silver are going pretty strong right now with the panic about the economy. Let’s hope you can find some of that.”
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“Alexey, I am a patient man, but we have spent a lot of money in Mexico. The Americans have started digging around,” said Yusup Ismailov, Alexey’s contact with the FSB.
“There is clearly a big operation here that was hidden from us. It must be very important for them to run it outside of their country. We did not have any assets in this area,” Alexey argued.
“Does it strike you as odd that all your mercenaries were badly injured, but none were killed? If secrecy was their goal, they would have just killed everyone.” Yusup mused.
“Oddly enough, 20 cartel thugs injured in a fight is not really big news. If they had been killed, the press would be talking about escalating gang warfare.” Alexey replied. “It’s kind of a risk though - usually the Americans would just have a drone hit that convoy with a missile and not risk people on the ground,” Alexey pointed out.
“Yes, so they are going to great lengths to keep something hidden. Now they know we are onto them; how do you think they will react?”
“Worst case they abandon the operation here and move it somewhere we can’t find. Best case they are close to completion and try to rush the operation. We might spot the activity and be able to counter it.” Alexey said.
“OK, I’m moving some more resources to this area. You need to look at anything unusual going on. See if you can intercept any American surveillance of the area - it might give us a clue. Sometimes their agencies are not well coordinated.”
Alexey had lost the capabilities to steal surveillance from most of these sources, but he did not admit it to his boss. He would try to get the information the old-fashioned way. On the ground, bribing or threatening any business or government official who might have information.
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Jack Edwards was having a very busy week. Jack was the DEA agent in charge of the part of Mexico that was not on the border, which was not an area of much interest. His assignment here was a good indicator that his career had gone off track. This week was different; two of his agents in Campeche had gone missing. Someone had leaked information and he could only pray they were dead and not still suffering. He had received a report of a group of Calavera cartel members getting injured in neighboring Yucatan around the same time. There had to be a connection, but he wasn’t seeing it.
The Cortez cartel was supposedly disbanded, but the report he received indicated they might have restarted. It was an odd cartel that seemed to try hard to avoid killing and had spent a lot of effort building goodwill in their communities. This was a very different approach from the Calaveras who preferred brutal killing and torture to ensure the police and their rivals would fear them.
He tagged both regions for increased surveillance. The Calaveras had grown much stronger in recent years and would react harshly to a resurgence in their former rivals. It looked like their initial attempt had been an embarrassment. They would need a strong response to avoid internal factions breaking off.
One location they flagged was near to where the gang altercation had happened. The property had recently built a large second structure and a wall for security. Owned by an unknown company called Genysis Mining this seemed very suspicious. The analyst noted that the company had purchased a large area of low-quality mineral rights in the gulf, but there were no signs of them doing seismic studies or hiring drilling rigs.
Continued surveillance found there were several heavily armed men frequently seen on property and a few were flagged as former Cortez cartel members. There were also a large number of trucks moving supplies to the area. Mostly it was steel plate, but there was also lab equipment and furniture. Jack Edwards was convinced they were building a bunker that could resist drone attack. Likely, they would be producing drugs here. He bumped this up to a high level of surveillance.
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Scott’s latest assignment was painful and humiliating. Melinda and Elsa had cooked up an idea to study how muscles repaired after a workout to increase in strength. That sounded fine, but they had insisted the results would be easier to measure on someone who was out of shape.
So here he found himself in the school fitness center with Elsa and Marta. Marta had also been drafted as a test subject, but she had a much better attitude than Scott about the project. The current torture involved doing sets of curls on the same arm until his arm was shaking. Then they would lower the weight slightly and continue on the same arm. At this point he could barely lift 5 pounds. It was really embarrassing to be struggling with a tiny dumbbell when guys around him were curling 45 pounds with ease. Marta was flabby, but she still seemed to be stronger than him. She was fascinated by all the equipment and exercises people were doing.
“I never even knew all this was here, “she had said. “There are all these hot guys just hanging out! Those weight machines look fun. Do you think your friends could show me how to do some of this?” Marta had asked about 10 minutes after they arrived.
The worst part was when Elsa had whipped out a scary looking needle and stuck it in his poor, overworked bicep. It hurt a lot, and he really didn’t want to cry in front of these girls. Once again, Marta was unfazed.
“That is a big needle. Looks worse than what they use to take blood.”
“Yes, it’s a biopsy needle. I’m taking tissue samples, so it will hurt a bit more than blood work. There will be some bruising for a few days.” Elsa had explained without a hint of compassion. She wanted to be a doctor? Her bedside manner was terrible!
“OK, do you mind if I work out the other arm a bit?” Marta asked.
“Sure, I have what I need. Thank you both.”
Scott had no interest in working out anymore. He wondered if one arm would grow big muscles and the other would stay a skinny twig. He didn’t really know how all this stuff worked, but he guessed it wouldn’t be a major change after one workout. Barry and Matt went 3 times a week and they weren’t huge muscle men.
There had been an article about an exercise routine the last time he was on Glitch_HR. Lately, there had been less off-topic random articles, so he noticed the few that still popped up. Besides the exercise article, there was one about how to eat healthy in a dorm cafeteria. Even more odd was an article about fashionable men’s haircuts.
Why would a junior programmer need something like that?