The crew was worried and Captain Watanabe was furious. It had been 18 days and not a single whale had been harvested. Every time they approached a pod it disappeared. It’s like they were playing hide and seek with the ship. The company executives were so furious the Captain was sure he would be fired as soon as they got back to shore. The only thing that might help him was the other harvesting ships were also not catching any. Corporate had even ordered a spotter plan to help find the pods but even with that they couldn’t keep track of any of them. Captain one of the crewman called our, we’ve spotted a pod 2 kilos Northeast of us. The captain had lost heart but still went through the motions yelling “proceed at full speed, we’ll get them this time”. As the Captain though about his future career prospects the owners met to discuss how to save the company. Insurance would not cover their losses. Officially their fleet of ships were engaged in scientific research to get around the International Whaling Commission (IWC) ban. Not whale hunting so no "lost business" claims could be made to their insurance. A full season without the harvest and contract violation fees from their customers will drive the company into bankruptcy.
* * * * *
Hawk was irritated, not a familiar experience for it. The Creators gave it the ability to adapt and grow to match the needs of its primary function. That had encouraged its growth into small, multiple portals suitable for observation and watching. The human Daniel has requested alteration of a planet’s atmosphere. Optimal conversion strategy would require a single portal large enough to provide single event conversion. This exceeded the entities current ability by an order of magnitude. Using multiple small portals would increase time by multiple magnitudes and reconversion would be needed at converted atmosphere would continue to mix with exiting atmosphere. Hawk decided to force growth resources on increasing maximum portal size for future efforts. Affect on time estimate for planet conversion now uncertain.
Sammy, Grandma and I were trying to think of how we could get help with some of the wildlife issues. Hawk had started using the temporal state conversion to change the atmosphere of Tawny but refused to give an estimate on how long it would take. We don’t know how long it will be before Tawny was ready but it could take years and possibly decades. I was doing what I could but things like those persistent whale hunters were taking to0 much time. We needed more help now if we were going to save some of the more endangered species. How I was going to get that help I didn’t know. Anyone brought in to help slow down the extinction process would put the secret in jeopardy. Shasta was a big help but what she did with the recording was easily explained without portals but we needed more than that, a lot more. The problem we needed solved was how do we protect ourselves while having so many people involved?
I thought about Area 51 again. They hid a big secret behind a ridiculous secret. Maybe something similar would work? Sammy, Grandma and I talked about it trying to come up with something. Sammy finally just broke it down by saying nothing was going to eliminate the risk. What we had to do was just take the chance. The planet’s doomsday clock was ticking and we were running out of time. After realizing that what we had to do became much clearer. Now we just need to come up with a suitable ridiculous secret for that extra help to operate under. Something that would have them work to track and come up with ways to assist wildlife preservation and also somewhat explain the things we would be doing with the portal to preserve that wildlife. Luckily all the fantasy and science fiction books I read had several possibilities.
Jane had decided to take a break from her job hunting and went skiing with some friends. She had graduated Summa cum laude but her native American background and history of activism made job offer hard to come by. While skiing she had an unfortunate accident on the slopes that resulted in her spending a bit of time in the hospital. The break in her leg was bad but it turned into a lucky break for her. A young man named Dan Atwell who found her right after her accident and got the Ski patrol involved came by the hospital to check on her. As they talked he mentioned his Grandma a wealthy philanthropist was starting up a new company. The new company was to be focused on supporting wildlife conservation and she could use help getting it started.
As an unemployed business school graduate desperately looking for a job Jane did not get her hopes up about it. Surprising she got a call the next day from a young woman named Sam calling to set up the job interview. The interview was actually done over the phone while she was still in bed recovering from the accident. She made it a point to apologize to Mrs. Hilderbran for not being able to come see her for an in-person interview. Something the woman laughed about saying she wasn’t up to receiving visitors anyway. The older woman insisted Jane call her Grandma talked to her about wanting to support conservation efforts and the new company was her way of doing it. She explained the company would primarily be consolidating information from around the world then directing it to the appropriate group for action. From the hints Jane got the company plan would involve gathering information from a great variety of sources including some not so above board. Mrs. Hilderbran didn’t actually come out and say it but did imply money (i.e. bribes) would be used to encourage whistle blowers to come forward and report things.
Jane didn’t find anything objectionable about what was discussed and they ended the phone call on a high note. As Jane relaxed back in bed she did think she might be offered a job. The work the company would be doing sounded important and very much in line with her own beliefs. She fell asleep feeling relaxed for the first time in months. Her last thought before falling asleep was to hope the job was as a manager, she was too old to be working as an intern. The next day an express package arrived with a job offer as CEO of the company. The letter from Mrs. Hilderbran (call me Grandma) that was enclosed stated she would be the first employee of the company if she accepted. After immediately calling and accepting the offer Jane was ecstatic although a bit surprised to be offered a CEO position without any real experience as an executive.
Jane was a little daunted when she thought of starting up a company all by herself. She decided to go with Mrs. Hilderbran’s advice and hired a business property realtor to find office space and a professional staffing company to provide the management staff. The realtor was easy to find, she went with the first one that came up in the search engine. Mrs. Hilderbran was generous with the budget so Jane picked a suite in a building with a great view of the Capilano River. The staffing company was a little harder to arrange. The first company she met with asked her numerous questions about the positions, skills needed and job responsibilities. Feeling overwhelmed and a little bit desperate she called Mrs. Hilderbran and asked for clarification on what she wanted the staff to do. She listened quietly while Jane explained her uncertainty of what kind of staff was needed. After Jane finished Mrs. Hilderbran just said to hold off on the hiring for right now and she would get a breakdown of staff needs sent to her.
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After the lease was signed for the new office space Jane looked around the empty rooms and sighed. Thinking about these rooms filled with people she was responsible for was a big responsibility. Something she felt totally unprepared for. Looking around for someplace to sit down she realized that maybe she should get some furniture next. As she used her phone to find someplace to get that it rang and seeing the name she hurriedly answered.
“Dan, hello, how are you?” she said.
“Fine” he said “Grandma asked me to drop off a job spec list. Do you want me to swing by now?”
Looking at the empty rooms Jane quickly said “No, it’s not setup yet. How about we meet at the Asian restaurant next door? I can finish up what I’m doing and get there about noon?”
“Ok, see you in about an hour then”
Jane rushed and had just enough time to swing by her apartment and change into something a little lighter. Walking into the restaurant and seeing Dan seated at the table she started to smile then caught herself. She did not want to get involved with an office romance besides he had a girlfriend and didn’t seem the type to cheat. As she went to sit down Dan stood up, a sign of forgotten manners she hadn’t seen in a while. His momma must have raised him right she thought or maybe it was his grandma. As they talked over the meal Dan mentioned he was in town to check on things for his Grandma. He also had a list of job positions with their descriptions that they went through one by one as they ate their meals. With the list and discussion Jane was feeling more confident and sure she could now deal with the staffing company.
The new office space opened up on the third floor of the Centurion building in Vancouver. The offices were small and didn’t attract much notice. The business editor of the local news did check on its background and found that the Tawny Nature Group was privately owned by another company overseas. Nothing really unusual for a company nowadays so the editor just went with a standard news blurb all about how the city was attracting more businesses. There was no information on the owners but the CEO Jane Kuns was identified and her bio freely available to anyone interested. It showed her as freshly hired from the Canadian Kerfu School of Business. She was Native American of the Haida tribe with a history as an activist for the environment.
Daniel had been focusing on getting a sample of the raw environmental information that the company would be working with. He knew he would have to do it himself in the beginning but hoped after working on it a bit he would be able to get Hawk to take over some of it. Daniel wasn’t being lazy but if Hawk could do more of it Daniel would have greater time for the other things on his list. For the first stab at collecting workable information Daniel did a back track of some of the trash and toxic waste that ended up together in places they shouldn’t have. Each time there was a meeting or phone call that involved the debris in some way a recording was made. Photos of any documentation like invoices and transportation logs were also made including of the people involved. Once he reached the point in time the debris originated from he stopped. However the trash didn’t originate from a single location so the paths going back kept splitting off. Once he had it all documented which took a surprisingly long time it was all copied to a USB drive.
Daniel considered future contacts with the Tawny Company would be the most likely way any government agency might find him. Sending the information directly to the company’s server would be easier but was too similar to the electronic trails they used to find his ghost hacker. Switching to a physical media for it would throw a hiccup into any future surveillance of the company that might happen. Glancing through the rather large amount of data on the USB Daniel hoped that Hawk would be able to take over the majority of the collection in the future. He was also anxious to see what Jane’s group would end up deriving from it. This whole process of creating a company to filter through the information would be wasted if nothing is found. There was also the question of too who what they found would be reported. Daniel reminded himself to add a press secretary position to the list for the company. If agencies refused to act on what was found then the public needed to be informed. Some bad press could work wonders if done right.
Jane was a little hesitant when Dan asked her to meet for lunch. He seemed like such a nice guy even if a little young but Jane had no intention of getting involved with the boss’s grandkid. Her unease was put to rest as they ate when Dan started talking about his girlfriend. Jane could see how much he seemed to care for the girl. As they finished up their lunch Dan mentioned that he would be stopping by the office once the staff was hired to go over the specifics of what the company would be doing. He also apologized that after that he wouldn’t be able to stop by much. It seemed working on developing information sources the company would be taking up a lot of time and involve extensive travel. He also suggested that it might be better if that source collections were kept separate from the rest of the company’s operations. A hint Jane thought to mean that the legality of some of the information they got might be questionable.
Before he left Dan handled her a USB drive.
Saying “Here are some notes, audio and video files for the analyst you’ll be hireling to start researching with. You can decide what to pass on and who to once they finish.”
Jane was a bit surprised at getting information already; she hadn’t even hired the first analyst.
Seeing the look on her face Daniel grinned and said”Good luck and remember Grandma and I have full confidence in you”.
As he started to walk off he called back “DO your best and If you have any questions just give me a call”.
Daniel was happy to get back to the cabin after that. Jane seemed like a very smart person and maintaining a level of subterfuge around her was tiring. The good news was she seemed to accept the ideal that the source of information being supplied to the company should not be looked into too closely. Of course that was also being supported by the belief he might bribing people to spy on their own companies. Nowadays, being considered whistle blowers was a lot nicer than being identified as internal spies.
When Sammy came over after school they spent a little time cuddling in Sammy’s hammock. The first few times they did this they got a little to frisky and ending up falling down on to the cabin floor. Now they consider themselves experts and took it as a challenge to enjoy each other while staying in it. Daniel did however invest in a larger hammock. It now took over most of the cabin open space making it harder to get around it. After they took a break in their activity Daniel suggested that maybe they should think about a place on a deserted island somewhere. They could even pick two or three at different spots like the Polynesian and Caribbean. That way there would always be a sunny beach with a shady hammock waiting for them no matter what time of day it was. At that idea Sammy go so excited she climbed on top of him. They both ended up falling on the floor again.
It was hard to find a decent small island in South East Asia. They all seem to have trash littering their beaches including pieces of broken bottles in the sand. The Caribbean was better, at least there didn’t seem to be much garbage scattered about. We quickly found a small island in the Bahamas that we both liked. It was only a couple of acres in size with no water source. It was probably why no one was living on it. The only animals on it appeared to be some free range chickens. It looked like the locals on the nearby bigger islands would leave the chickens on the island to raise themselves. Anytime they felt like a chicken dinner someone would hop over and grab one to cook. Their future was not something I wanted to point out to Sammy after she adopted a couple and gave names to them. The island was not technically a deserted island but was private and that was good enough. Looking around we found a small grove of palm trees spaced just right for tying up our “his and hers” hammocks.