A Collection of Fictitious Malarkey
A COLLECTION OF FICTITIOUS MALARKEY
Richard McNail JR
Copyright © 2012 by Richard McNail Jr
Smashwords Edition
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by electronic device or in any other manner whatsoever without written permission of the author. The only exception is in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. This story is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events in this story either are products of the author’s imagination or were used fictitiously.
ISBN 978-1-105-39314-3
ISBN 1-105-39314-3
Dedication
To the love of my life, Sonya. Thank you for making my life so wonderful. Some may call it fate or destiny, but I just know that you complete me. I will always love you. I am blessed to have you by my side. Thank you.
Taking Over the World
Bobby Duncan was the oldest of three boys. He tried his best to set an example for his brothers, David and Gary, while growing up. He showed them that they should obey their parents, even if the punishment seemed harsh. They lived in a farm town in the middle of nowhere. It was called, “Fruit City.” It got its name, because so many farms in that area grew fruit trees.
Bobby and his brothers went to public school. They lived so far from the town the school was in that they would have to catch a bus at 7:00 in the morning, and not get home until 4:30 in the evening. Bobby was beginning his high school year this year, and was anxious.
“This is my year,” he said to himself getting ready that morning.
He brushed his teeth, combed his hair, and got dressed. He grabbed his back pack and ran out the door. His brothers raced behind him. If Bobby was excited, then they were too. They were the first on the bus, and it was ten to eleven minutes to the next pick up.
The bus pulled up the drive way of a large brick home. Cattle and horses grazed in the fields along the drive up to the house. Bobby and his brothers climbed on and went to the back of the bus.
There in the last seat was the brunette that lived just past their farm on the left. Bobby never had the nerve to talk to her, but always noticed her pretty smile.
She wore a white shirt with spaghetti straps that revealed just a hint of her lace bra underneath. She sat there with the sun casting its rays across her face. She shone like an angel. Bobby asked to sit beside her. She giggled and introduced herself as Destiny.
“You sure are,” Bobby whispered to himself.
Bobby and Destiny were unseparated throughout the year. Wherever you found one, the other was not far behind. They were elected the class “most adorable couple” and later were elected homecoming king and queen. Life was great.
Destiny got an art scholarship for an art school in the big apple, while Bobby got a science scholarship over seas.
Bobby felt his heart sink when he left her at the airport. He was flying to Germany to study with the greatest minds in science. The rain covered Destiny’s tears as she watched him leave. They promised to write each other every day, but he knew it would fade away.
Bobby went on with his studies and later got his own practice back stateside, in Los Angeles. His main study was cloning, but not animals or even people. Bobby discovered how to clone atoms.
The atoms would be cloning themselves, and float around in a glass sphere. As the atoms moved freely in the sphere, they would be split apart by a separator causing energy.
The energy was then seized, and sent down a tube to power the machine underneath. The atoms split apart would be gone, but another one had cloned itself just seconds before.
They were creating more of themselves and charging the sphere as well. It became a self-sustaining energy technical system that he called “SYStech.” It would never burn out or need repairing.
His two brothers went on to major in small business management. They decided that SYStech would be their new company. They would control a self-sustaining energy source and distribute it throughout the world.
“We should just sell off to the automotive industry and make ourselves rich,” David said.
“No, we can’t do that,” Bobby argued. “They would just hide it away and wouldn’t help anything.”
“Bobby’s right. We should make them into cars ourselves,” Gary replied.
“That’s right. We get the world off of fossil fuels and build our economy back by bringing jobs back to Americans at the same time,” Bobby said as he grabbed Gary’s hand.
“Well, if it’s good for the economy,” David said as he put his hand in as well.
The three of them knew that the auto industry wouldn’t just let them start off by building cars against them. After all the legal stuff was filed as patents and copyrights, they decided to start off small. They also agreed to keep the company privately owned between them so they wouldn’t lose control of their product.
The next few months were just getting a site to start the building process. They found an old warehouse for sale really cheap because all other business had left the area. It was a huge warehouse and they began forming up ideas on how to introduce their new product to the world.
“What’s the smallest scale we can start at?” they asked each other.
They formed plans to develop their first self energizing product, riding mowers. They modeled the frame from old riders from the seventies and just gave it more of a bubble look instead of the blocky square. Next they added the SYStech motor onto the front and began measuring the horse power.
The smaller the sphere the less power, so these mowers would only need a sphere eight inches around. They wanted a system with less maintenance than their competitors so instead of rubber belts that could stretch out over time and need replacing, they incorporated a small chain-driven pulley.
As the pulley turned, the chain ran to two other pulleys controlling the blades. The chain might make the product more costly in the end, but with the money saved in never needing gas would make it a better product in the long run.
After totaling the balance for the labor and materials, they decided to just market ten percent above cost to make it more affordable to the customer. They called their mower “The SYStech Sphere,” named after the engine.
“It’s not about making the money,” Gary said, “the money will roll in.”
“That’s right. Once the product becomes known, our name will be in every household,” Bobby added.
“Then the next product introduced will be easier to sell to the customer because of loyalty and affordable,” chimed in David.
“We’ll be unstoppable,” the three said together as they grinned at each other.
Within a few months, they had built a couple hundred units to be sold. Once the market realized these were self-serving mowers, it was no problem to find a company to sell them.
The Landscape Company had stores nationwide, and paid extra to have an exclusive sale for three years. With that money, the brothers could afford to hire a couple hundred workers to start building the units for them. Within the first year, they became the wealthiest private owned company in the states.
The second year of production led to the three brothers going out and finding more sites to buy and start production. They were making more and more jobs for people, thus helping the economy.
Auto Industry kept calling them and leaving messages. Bobby knew they wanted to buy them out and close up shop. AI knew they were a threat if they ever became competitors, so they sent out their best man to negotiate with the brothers.
Sean Bentz showed up at Gary’s office and introduced himself one day. He was wearing a tailor-made suit that made him look like he was more important than he really was. His shoes were the shiniest that Gary had ever seen. It sure beat the three brothers that wore jeans and work shirts.
“I’m from the Auto Industry Company and we’d like to become family members to your company,” Sean said.
“We know who you’re with, we’re not interested,” Gary said as he turned back to walk out onto the production floor.
Gary had been busy all that morning, showing new workers how to do the job, and was in no mood for this sort of thing.
They had the place set up like an assembly line for vehicles. Each station had a duty to put on each unit, and every week the workers rotated so they didn’t get tired of doing the same job over and over again.
It was David’s idea for the rotation, he said it helped keep the workers from getting “workers’ tunnel vision” and created a better work environment.
“You haven’t even heard our offer,” Sean said as he pulled out a check from his shirt pocket.
Over the years AI had discovered a technique that worked for them.
Their checks were larger than normal size company checks. This created the illusion that the check was worth more than just a number written on it. This had no effect on Gary. He knew that even if he wanted to sell out and retire happily that his two brothers would never go for it.
Gary also knew that if AI ever got their hands on this technology that thousands of people would be out of work. AI could afford to send the work outside the US and get it done
cheaper, and they would figure out a way for the systems to break down so that they could sell off replacement parts and make more money.
The greed of the corporate world is what ruined the economy in the first place, and all three brothers were hell bent on helping more than anything. That’s why they still
barely made profit after production. Affordable was key to their success.
As the SYStech Sphere reached the public, more and more people bought it. Other mower companies would try to compete with free gadgets, but the public knew that the SYStech mower was changing everything.
As the other mowers stop selling, their companies worth dropped. Stocks hit all time lows, and the three brothers were there to buy
up the stock at rock bottom prices.
Once they gobbled up the majority of the stock in a company, they quickly changed that company’s policy. That company would no longer be public as it merged with SYStech. Then, those facilities began producing SYStech mowers. Eventually, they had eliminated the competition.
They kept the bigger names around and just put SYStech spheres in them, but sold them at a fraction of the cost they use to be.
Profit was not what they were after, but they made enough to call themselves millionaires within that second year.
Next, they decided to go into the commercial truck industry. They began a prototype of a simple semi truck with a sleeper bunk. The sphere was made about the size of a basketball to have the horsepower that matched other rigs on the road. Since the sphere took up so little room where the engine would be, a second sphere was added.
The second sphere would be to run the heating and cooling unit on the truck, to keep the first sphere only on the pull of the weight of the trailer.
This way, when climbing hills at full heavy weight, the truck would not lose its momentum. If it started up the hill at 60 mph at a gross weight of 80,000 pounds, it would continue that speed all the way up without a problem.
The second sphere would also contribute power to the new cooling system designed for the brakes to keep them from ever overheating on the way down a hill. Even with the brakes fully applied down a 6% grade, the brakes would not heat up. They called the truck “The SYStech Hauler” to keep it simple and to let the public know it was in the SYStech family of self powered motors.
The same happened with the commercial industry, and the auto owners became very nervous. They knew the three brothers were beginning to step foot into their territory. Sean Bentz was sent out again to make an offer to the brothers, not to buy their company, but to bribe them into staying out of their industry with public transportation.
This time he met with David. David knew that he and his brothers had made enough money to last a lifetime. However, he also knew Bobby wanted to give the world a freedom from the slavery that big corporations had over them all these years.
He knew Bobby wasn’t going to stop until everything that moved was powered by SYStech self powering systems. Hell, Bobby would probably start marketing the vibrator market if he thought batteries were ruining the economy.
Sean was sent packing back up to the AI with bad news. The first few hundred Haulers were used only for SYStech Logistics. They ran them for a year to make sure there were no problems. The drivers of their rigs absolutely loved the ride, so that next year they went on sale. They sold them to other trucking companies to replace their existing trucks, for little above cost.
As the other leading truck companies began plummeting in stock prices, the three brothers bought out the market and again owned the industry. They repeated themselves in keeping the five biggest names and placed SYStech spheres in them. Now they had become billionaires.
They had also become unstoppable. Companies that had a powered engine, or thought that SYStech may target them next, quickly came forward to sell their company over to the brothers.
They bought out the companies, replaced whatever it was with a SYStech energy sphere and released it to the public as a new product sharing the existing company name with SYStech.
They never release a single employee, but instead hired more on. They would take the product being developed and sell it for cost. Their profit would come from the original item of SYStech.
They cornered just about every market except the personal vehicle. From cell phones and computers, to portable units that could generate enough electric to run a whole house. They were becoming the number one energy company in the world, and quickly.
The government contracted out the sphere’s for all military vehicles with the complete understanding that Bobby and his brothers wanted the space program reopened.
“Even with the energy sphere’s, there is not enough in the budget for that. Besides, there is nothing out there anyway,” officials kept telling them.
“Then let us fund it and anything found is ours to profit from,” Bobby replied with a grin on his face.
They allowed it and signed the contracts. The Space Exploration Program was instated as S.P.E. and they began hiring more people immediately to start building their first shuttle.
“Why do we want space?” Dave asked as they stood overseeing the construction.
“Imagine it David, all the new jobs created to help unemployed people. We could possibly be the saviors of our generation, and maybe we can learn more about the moon’s existence,” Bobby replied.
“It does sound pretty cool,” Dave said agreeing with his brother.
“And why stop at the moon. We could explore the entire solar system with unlimited energy. Its possibilities are endless.”
“That’s getting too far fetched. Even Mars is almost 140 million miles away at any given moment. How do you propose we do such a thing?” David asked.
Bobby’s face nearly gleamed. His mouth curved up on each side like a villainous smile. “I’m referring to the ultimate propulsion system that can make instantaneous space travel possible, bending time and space.”
“But how do you propose we figure that out? Don’t we need Dark Matter?”
“As the atoms separate making energy, just before disintegration, they release a small amount of dark energy. The same as a star that implodes upon itself.”
Bobby led David over to a glass room where several people in lab coats were gathered around a table. David watched as the people was extracting the darkness of the atoms separating and collecting it into a copper tube. The copper tube allows the energy to conduct upon itself and not escape until needed.
Next, the copper tube was installed onto a remote-controlled airplane. The plane circled the room at high speeds, but when a button was pushed the copper tube released some of the energy.
The room bent in front of David’s eyes, just as light bends thru glass. The plane transported from one end of the room to the other in less than half a second.
“Imagine that on a shuttle being powered by SYStech,” Bobby said as he walked away from David.
David just stood there in wonderment. How had his brother figured this out? He knew Bobby would not stop until he owned everything that he could. It began to frighten David. Bobby was becoming even worse than the corporations he was so against.
The corporations would stop for the money. Bobby would not stop for anything or anyone. It seemed as though Bobby had good intentions of helping out the less fortunate, but what is the end game?
It only took a few months to have the first systech-powered shuttle ready to launch. They named it Evolution since it was the first of its kind. Bobby selected three experienced astronauts to accompany him and his brother Gary into outer space.
David was left behind to run the company. He felt as though the other two brothers were trying to single him out, which was becoming fine for David.
He had it planned to suggest Gary and Bobby of buying his share of the company out when they returned. He could then retire along a beach somewhere with no worries in the world.
David went to see his lawyer after watching the successful launch. They drew up the papers where he would settle for 2.3 million dollars from each of them to give up his share.
The lawyer suggested taking his share public and selling it where he could make ten times that amount, but he believed in what Bobby said about keeping it private. Bobby made it clear that he wanted this company to stay privately owned so no one could take it over and ruin it.
Coming out of the lawyer’s office out into the streets, David noticed it already getting dark. As he started walking home, he noticed a group of young teens following him. At first he figured it to be his imagination, but the more he turned down places to get away from them the more he noticed they were definitely following.
As he rounded the last corner before reaching his million dollar condo, he saw three more of the young teens hanging outside the door. He froze in his tracks with fear.
It was certain that they were after him now. He had heard on the news of more and more young teens attacking and robbing, but Bobby always told him that they were changing this. Bobby always suggested that they were only unruly because of the poor economy, and that if they gave opportunity for employment that they would settle down.
He watched as the three boys noticed him and began walking toward him from the front. The others had been following from the rear, making him surrounded. David stood his ground and tried his hardest not to show how intimidated he was all alone. He hoped and prayed that a cop would drive by to save him at any moment.
“Aren’t you that billionaire brother?” one of the thugs asked in a gruff voice.
Billionaire brothers are what the tabloids kept referring to them as. Gary always laughed at it because they weren’t billionaires yet, but Bobby always told them it was just a matter of time. The way the economy was picking up from their businesses, it almost seemed a reality someday.
“Answer the kid,” another gruff voice said coming from behind him.
“Look, I don’t want any trouble,” David said as he glanced around for a way out.
He knew these teens were moving closer and closer to him, closing off any exit of escape. His hands were sweating and he felt his arms have a small shake in them. He tried everything in his mind to stay calm. He knew they were meaning to scare him, so he tried to show no fear.
All of a sudden he felt a strong blow to the back of his head. The crunch sounds it made when it hit echoed thru the dark lonely streets. David fell to his knees, but instantly stretched his back straight again to show the teens he still had strength to stand back up under his own power.
Another blow came, this time from the side. He felt the burning on his left temple where it hit. He reached his hand around and felt cold blood pouring from his head. He knew this meant even more trouble, but he couldn’t lie down or these teens would kill him for sure. He tried with all his might to stand back up, but every time another blow would hit him.
Across the back, to the legs just behind the knee, and across his shoulders were the next few targets they hit. Pounding him over and over again until David finally fell face first onto the sidewalk. He looked up at the teens as they kicked at his papers and they scattered all over the sidewalk around him.
The teens were laughing uncontrollably as they began kicking him on the ground. The sidewalk felt so cold as he laid there. He could no longer feel the kicks as his body had become bruised.
It was almost like there was no more pain for his body to experience. The blood puddled underneath him as light slowly began to fade away. In his last few moments of consciousness he tried to ponder a reason he had been targeted but couldn’t think of one.
Those teens had been waiting for him outside the lawyer’s office, so they must have known he was in there. No one knew he was going there. He didn’t even know for sure himself until after the launch. They also waited outside his condo apartment so they knew where he lived.
He began coughing and seen more blood as he lay there on the sidewalk. He wasn’t sure if he was choking and coughing the blood running into his mouth, or if he was bleeding internally enough that he now was coughing it up.
Whichever it was, David knew he had little time left. He thought back and wondered if it had been different had he just ran for help in the beginning.
Now all he could do is wait for his last breath to leave his lungs so he could pass on to the after life. He wondered what it would be like.
He had heard so many things about happiness and peace, but what if there was nothing for him there. What if once his eyes closed for the last time, that was it. Just like the atoms they were splitting, he would just disappear into nothingness.
He no longer felt the sidewalk beneath him. He felt nothing at all. He looked up at the night sky for the first time since he was a boy. He saw no stars because he had chosen to live in the city, a choice he now regretted.
He would have loved for his last image to be of a beautiful clear night sky, but instead it was of six thug teens beating him to death from all corners of his body. Darkness swooped in and surrounded him like a blanket. His lips quivered as the teens stopped, took his watch and wallet, and walked away.
Bobby and Gary soared the galaxy for several weeks, transporting from one planet to the next. What would normally take a hundred lifetimes, they could do in a matter of seconds. Each planet left nothing, so they decided to head home. They would continue to let astronauts explore and learn more about the universe, but they wanted to return home.
Upon returning, they were informed of their brothers murder. The body had already been buried, since it had been several weeks since the launch, and no there no leads on the attackers.
Gary glared at Bobby, “you didn’t have anything to do with this, did you?”
Bobby looked shocked and disgusted that Gary had even thought of something so ridiculous, “No. You really think I could ever have the balls to harm family. You and David were the only two people in the world I could trust.”
Since the paperwork was found of David wanting to sell everything to the other two brothers, they were of course the main targets. Officers would investigate them for the next few years or until a new lead was given.
Gary suggested they continue the growth of their company and let the public know there was no fear of unemployment or closure of anything or anyone.
Bobby was surprised that Gary felt so strongly about keeping everything going since he had been the one pushing in the first place. He agreed with Gary and they began working harder that ever to move forward.
Sean Bentz was sent down from AI once more to try and coax the brothers into selling off their design and not releasing any more products. Bobby and Gary both felt more suspicious of AI now more than ever.
“I have one better for ya,” said Gary with a sarcastic tone, “you go back and ask AI what their price is. If they won’t sell out, tell them that war is about to happen.”
Bobby smiled as he saw Gary stepping up as the man. It showed that the passion he had felt from the beginning was no wearing off onto him. With this passion in place, the world economy could blossom and maybe a utopia society could be on the horizon.
When Bentz returned to AI with the news that the brothers now were threatening competition, they quickly formed a meeting with the board.
They decided it in their best interest to just sell out rather than take the hit of competing a losing battle they had seen others fail at. They would ask for 36 billion dollars, divide the money equally between them and their share holders, and let the company be closed.
This way SYStech would be able to keep their company private owned and they could retire happily.
The brothers pulled all their profits together and barely had enough to buy out AI. The world of automobiles was about to change forever. Automobiles began rolling off the assembly lines in the other plants the brothers had built. All AI workers were laid off, but offered full time positions at SYStech.
This way all unions were disbanded and the workers kept a fair rate of pay. This kept cost down and profits up. Like all other companies they had purchased in the past, it was a win for everyone, until the government stepped in.
Bobby and Gary received threats that the government didn’t like the idea of a monopoly, especially one that was privately owned. They felt the brothers now had too much power and ordered them to correct the problem immediately.
They refused to let in a third party. Officers tried to arrest the brothers, but it was quickly halted when they released their statements.
“At any time we are incarcerated, the assets and ownership of any said forth assets will be frozen. All employees will be laid off without pay. No company whether government funded or other will be able to put forth any product similar in any way, shape, or form.”
The statements had a seal of a notary, seal of judiciary care, and the three signatures of Bobby, Gary, and David. They had planned for such an attack on them from the get go, so they had this drawn up from day one and had one made for each country they had business in.
Also in the statement, there was a shut down clause. This clause stated that in the absence of the three brothers in any way, a button would be pushed in their main office.
This button would electronically send a message to every SYStech powered product and shut down the cloning reactor. This would in turn eliminate power to every product they had made. 92% of the US and 89% of the world was powered b SYStech.
In all retrospect, it was the perfect back up plan. The government would not be able to hold them or the world economy, not just the US, would be shut down.
Other countries began protesting on the behalf of the brothers. The government had no choice, but to allow them to continue production.
The world’s money had been collected into the brothers bank accounts and would be redistributed to all the employees of the world. They had officially become a one world company.
They owned all trades domestic and now foreign. With that, the brothers designed a world currency that would be universal anywhere. Everything and everyone would be under the power of SYStech.
Gary decided it was best to ask Bobby for a release on his own ownership. He would allow Bobby to buy him out for 421 billion dollars.
Everything pretty much ran itself, and Gary could relax and enjoy life the way he wanted. He was still a young man and a bachelor just as his other brothers were. Bobby agreed to the deal and became the sole owner of SYStech.
Gary went to the real estate office nearby. He began planning his move from the big city to some tropical location. As he walked out of the real estate office and began walking home, something caught his attention from the corner of his eye.
Three young teens were sitting on the stoop steps across from the office. At first, Gary paid no attention to it. Teens hanging out on the streets were not uncommon in the least bit. What did alarm him was when he started walking in the direction of his home, they began to follow.
Gary tried not to show the teens he was alarmed, but did begin walking faster and turned down the street where the police station was. As he rounded the corner, he saw three more teens leaning against the side of a building.
It almost appeared they were waiting for him. Gary knew he was in trouble. All he could think about was that his brother David had been beaten to death. No one knew who had done it, or how many it took, but this was more than enough to overpower him.
Gary took off sprinting across the street. He was running as fast as he could. He was beginning to regret spending so much time in the office and not enough at the gym. He ran so long and hard that he wasn’t for sure where he was anymore.
It was though they had purposely herded him into this corridor. It was almost as if they knew he wouldn’t know where he was, or where he was going.
He saw three more teens up ahead, he slowed down and looked behind him. Four of the earlier teens were running from behind, one was coming from his left, and the final one was coming up from his right. He stopped in his tracks because he knew he was surrounded.
“All right boysཀ” he shouted at the top of his lungs. He began rolling up his sleeves trying to intimidate them. Maybe they would see him going to defend himself and decide to leave him be. “I know karate,” he shouted again as he posed in the crane stance he remembered from the karate movies he saw as a kid.
The teens slowed down their pace, but continued to walk toward him. They closed in closer and closer. They now had Gary completely surrounded.
In an instance, Gary felt a hard blow to the back of his neck. He never felt any pain from it, the blow struck him so hard that all he felt was numbness. He fell to his knees.
He knew he had no chance of surviving this battle, and hoped they would just take his money and run. He tossed his wallet over about three feet to his side as he fell onto his stomach.
The teens paid no attention to his wallet, and began kicking at his sides. Gary laid there unable to defend himself, weeping. The kicks were so rapid and there were so many that it wasn’t long before he felt nothing.
He coughed up blood several times, but the teens continued to attack. He closed his eyes to remember the good times he had shared with his brothers. He began wondering if Bobby had sent these teens to kill him like they did to his brother David.
It was no use in angering himself over this, in a short while it would be over and he did not want to leave this world hating his brother. He turned on his side to look at the clear night air as the teens now pummeled his stomach area.
“I’ll be there soon David, just wait for me,” he groaned out as he took his last breath.
Bobby received the call at home telling him of his brother’s attack. Now both of his brothers were gone. He sat in his chair sobbing uncontrollably. Suddenly, there was a knock at his door. He pulled himself together to get up and answer it. A woman stood at his doorstep dressed in black.
“Can I help you madam?” Bobby asked still with a tickle in his throat.
The woman raised her head up to reveal her face. “Don’t you recognize me darling?” the woman asked in soft tone.
“Destiny? Is that you?”
She walked up and gave Bobby a peck on the cheek. She placed her arms just to the inside of Bobby’s and gently placed her hands on his ribs. He stared into those luscious eyes
“It’s been a long time. Too long. May I come in?” she said as she stood in the doorway.
“Of course, come right in. It has been a long time,” he replied.
He stepped aside as he invited her in. She walked into the living room and turned to look at Bobby. They had not seen each other since that time he left to go study over seas. She wore a dark green dress exposing her long silky legs. He took her coat and hung it in the living room closet.
“Can I get you something to drink?” Bobby asked as he turned back to her.
“No, I can only stay a minute. I need to ask you a question.”
“Sure, anything.”
“Did you have your brothers murdered?”
Bobby stood shocked. So many others have accused him of this since David’s death. He had never felt so alone in all his life, and the only two people he was close to had been taken from him. He felt his eyes swelling up with tears, but fought them back.
“I expect this from the media, but not you dear. I have to ask you to leave,” Bobby said as he handed back her coat.
She walked over to him and took it. She placed the coat back on and walked over to the door. Bobby held the door open for her as she stepped thru back onto the porch. He stood in the doorway as he watched her walk to the car parked along the curbside. She opened the door and exposed Sean Bentz as the driver. She got into the passenger seat and they drove away.
“That was weird,” Bobby thought as he closed the door.
He kept wondering why she would be with the agent from AI. He never saw a ring, and why had she been so worried about his brothers now. She never cared about him enough to come see him, especially since she apparently knew where he was.
He went to his kitchen and poured himself a glass of wine. He slowly swirled it around as he sipped away. He knew the rest of the world saw him as a murderer. He walked back into the living room to sit on the couch. As he sat, he noticed a piece of paper laying on the floor.
He walked over to get it. It was a paper with his address printed at the top. Beneath his address, was the name “Sean Bentz” specialist AI. This added to the puzzle. There was a phone number listed at the bottom of the page, but it was hand written not printed on like the rest of the information on the page.
He walked over to his phone and dialed the number. It went to a voice mail inbox that belonged to Sean Bentz.
He left a message that he’d like to meet. It was the only way he figured he could find out how Destiny knew Sean. He figured he would try and meet with Sean and arrange to hire him as a specialist.
The next day, Sean Bentz responded to the call. They planned to meet that afternoon over lunch. Bobby had called his lawyer the night before and had some papers drawn up to hire Bentz as a personal specialist. This would give Sean the authority to help manage all his accounts. The closer Bentz was, the more he could keep an eye on him and find out what was going on.
Bentz agreed to the job. He knew Bobby would need to concentrate on proving his innocents of his brothers deaths. Since AI had been bought out by SYStech he had been unemployed, but now he would be helping run the company that had bought out and owned most of the world.
Bobby also knew that this would give him the opportunity to spend more time with his first love, Destiny. She would come by the main office to see Bentz every day. On some occasions, Bentz would be busy either on the phone with one of the other companies they owned, or just out on the floor trying to smooth out production. This gave Destiny an excuse to see Bobby, since she was there anyway.
“I never imagined you with a guy like that,” Bobby said after several visits.
“What was I suppose to do? Wait for a guy that left me to go over seas and never see again?”
Bobby knew that he had broken her heart, and the pain lingered with him as well. No other girl had even caught his attention longer than a hello. Sure, there was the occasional one night thing, but none that he had felt like pursuing like he did with her. She was his one true love that he felt got away.
She began spending more and more time with him. They would go out to dinners and see the plays. Bentz was working harder and didn’t seem to notice. Bobby felt bad for Bentz, but this was his first true love.
He never asked her how she felt about him, but he felt like he knew she was having the same feelings he was about her.
Late one night, they were walking thru the park after seeing a play. They were just casually talking about nonsense, when Bobby heard a noise coming from behind him.
He glanced back to see two slender looking teens following him. Immediately, he felt butterflies in his stomach. He looked at Destiny and realized she didn’t see them following them.
He gently took his arm and wrapped it around hers. She pulled away at first, until she saw the teens behind them. She stopped in her tracks. Bobby knew it was the fear holding her there, and tried with all his might to pull her along with him.
Two more teens came from their right, and one from their left. The only safe place to go was straight ahead. Bobby knew this was a trap. If he continued forward, it would be right where they wanted him. He stayed beside Destiny.
He put his arms around her trying to shield her from whatever they were going to do. He felt her push him back, and he saw the look on her face. She had a devilish smirk on her face. Her head was titled slightly to the side as she stepped back away from Bobby.
“You? How could you?”
The teens closed in closer as she stepped further back. All Bobby could see was her outline in the darkness.
In his mind all he could see were the images of her hanging around him. She tempted and deceived him into coming out thru the park. She knew they would be lurking in waiting for them to cross by.
Suddenly he felt a blow behind his knees. He fell to the ground face down. The teens began attacking him from all around. He glared up toward where he last saw her.
Two outlines were standing there, Destiny and Bentz. They were holding each others hand in the darkness watching as the teens pounding away at Bobby laying on the ground.
Blood ran out from around his body as he lay on the ground. This is what his brothers had gone thru. Each time they were attacked, the evil couple were probably hiding in the shadows enjoying their scheme.
The question “why” filled his thoughts. Had she ever really love him or did she know he was destined for great things? Did she plan this for revenge for leaving her and hate him for it and his invention?
Laughter filled the air as Bobby felt the last bit of air leave his body. All the power in the world, and he laid in his own cold blood.
All he had tried to do was help the world, and in return, the world left him there to be beaten to death. No one came to his rescue. No one tried to make the teens stop. His first love became his demise.
Benjamin
From the moment that Frank and
Krista met, they knew they had something special. They found each other at a new years party at “The Lucky Clover” and never looked back. As people counted down the moments to the new year, they locked hands, lips, and hearts.
The next year, they were married and bought a house just outside of Metrosuburbia.
They began working on a family and as luck would have it they became pregnant within the next few months. Everything seemed perfect, although their lives were about to change forever. Their fetus seemed to be healthy and fine and continued that way all the way to the due date.
It was a cold, snowy day in December when the child was born. A boy they named Benjamin, after the twelfth tribe of Israel. He grew up a very friendly kid in the neighborhood, always charming to the parents of the kids around.
His family went to church every Sunday to worship the Lord and to pray for the Lord to guide them. He became a great spiritual leader in the church at age seven and was baptized at age eight.
He led the choir in spiritual hymns and helped collect the offering. In all eyes, he seemed to be the perfect child sent down from heaven itself to be a living testimony among the people.
At school, he was no different. He helped the teachers and always got along with the other students while keeping the highest grades in his class. He always hung around two boys, Matt and Nathan. Matt was a short, stumpy kid with a big head. He had brown thin hair and always wore a baseball cap.
Nathan was more slinder and taller than both Ben and Matt. Nathan had curly black hair and wore western style shirts. They would just walk around the playground at school joking with each other and playing with random kids all throughout recess.
They all went to the same church together. They were inseparable. At age ten, things began to change.
Ben was searching the web when he came upon a website that went on about new scrolls found in a tomb in Egypt. These scrolls were carbon dated and it was discovered they were written about the same time as some of the books of the Old Testament.
A few of these scrolls were even written by Moses and Joshua. The only difference was that they discussed the birth of the son of evil.
“I wonder why these books weren’t in the bible as a warning?” Ben thought.
Puzzled, he continued on in the website. The scrolls also talked about the son of evil would bring the war of dimensions to combine.
This war would be called Armageddon in the Bible. It would be the time of reckoning when Heaven and Hell battled against each other on Earth. They would battle for the claim of souls of the inhabitants.
He read about how these scrolls had been hidden away in a tomb to hide the beginning of the end.
Ben chuckled to himself, as he read on for his enjoyment how the son of evil would also preform great miracles, even causing fire to fall from the heavens to earth in full view of all mankind. The son of evil would also deceive the inhabitants of earth into receiving the mark of the beast, three sixes.
“Great miracles. Now that would be cool,” he thought to himself, “but if everybody knows the mark why would they take it?”
For the next few days, he shared the info with Matt and Nathan. They sat around and daydreamed of being able to do such great feats. They played as most children do at age ten, pretending to send fire on each other and then healing each other just as the info they read had said.
They were walking home from school one evening when they past by a small field. It had been grown over from years of neglect. They walked out into it and began playing. Ben pretending to be a dragon attacking the castle while Matt was the king and Nathan was the knight sent to save the king.
They played for hours when Ben took his hand and stretched out his fingers. He then, crooked just the index finger and as he straightened it back out a small spark leapt from his finger into the field creating a small ember with a small stream of smoke before choking itself out.
The boys stared in amazement at what they had just seen. “Do it again,” they chanted together. This time he stretched his fingers as wide as they’d go and closed his hand into a fist. When reopening his fist, a fireball about the size of a baseball, flew out of his palm and hovered above his hand for a second.
He flung his hand like he was tossing a ball toward the field, and the fireball soared toward the dry grass igniting it into a blaze. A loud bang shot as the field ignited that echoed throughout the neighborhood. It sounded like a bomb going off.
The entire field was on fire and it was spreading quickly. The boys ran off and about a half hour later, fire trucks came roaring down the road trying desperately to put out the field. The boys never said a word about it, but wondered how it happened in the first place.
Ben went back the next day to that crispy fried field and walked around. He still couldn’t believe he had done something like this. He thought back to the article, great miracles it had said. He kneeled down and scooped up a handful of the soil.
He smelt it and it smelt of rotten eggs. He closed his fingers around it, and reopened his fist. Water spilled out of his hand onto the ground.
Had he just turned charcoal into clean and crisp drinking water? He thought back to the bible his mom read him about Jesus and how he had turned water into wine. Now he had just turned dirt into water.
“What is going on?” he thought to himself.
Ben ran back to his computer at home and back to the website and read about the Son born of God was Jesus, ruler of Heaven. But, would come a day of the birth of the son of evil to rule the world as “the beast.”
He kept this to himself although Matt and Nathan were eagerly awaiting to know what was happening with their best friend. At school the next day Ben was about to mention the water thing he had done when Don and his brother Ron came up to the three of them on the playground.
Don and Ron were twin brothers that lived down the block from Ben. They would pick on everyone wanting their lunch money and just making everyone around them feel miserable. Each of them had brown curly hair with rat tails on the back that came down to their shoulders.
They came up to Matt and pushed him face first into the dirt as they laughed and high fived each other. Ron stepped toward Nathan and stopped just to make Nathan flinch and jump back a step or two. They laughed again at each other before demanding the money among the three boys.
Ben was getting aggravated at them to begin with for the past few week of the two brothers bullies giving him swirlies in the bathroom between classes and now this was the last straw. He pulled up his sleeves.
“What you going to do freak?” they said as they popped their knuckles.
Ben said nothing and just held both of his palms up in front of his face just as he did in the field. Nothing happened. The boys laughed as they grabbed his arms and made the backs of his hands hit himself in the face.
“Quit hitting yourself dick wad,” they said as they laughed at him.
Again he held both hands out, his fingers stretched out as far as he could. Nothing happened.
“What a freak,” they said as they laughed, turned and began walking away. Ben stared at his hands. “I don’t get it,” he murmured to himself.
He closed his hand into a fist and reopened it. A small flame appeared out of his hand like someone had flicked a lighter. He grew an evil grin as he hurled the flame toward Don who was closest to him with his back turned.
The flame hit Don in the middle of his back and his shirt got singed before the flame burned out. The brothers turned with a surprised look on their face as to what happened but knew it came from Ben.
They took off running toward Ben who quickly turned and began running away as fast as he could. He ran out of the playground and down the street. He turned the corner into an alley where he could escape, only to find that today it had a new trash dumpster sitting at the end.
The dumpster was about twenty feet long, ten feet wide, and around ten feet high. He knew he was trapped and quickly scooped up the soil at his feet and closed his hand around it.
He could feel the cool water in his hand still balled into a fist as the brothers rounded the corner to come to a halt. They laughed at themselves as they knew Ben was a sitting duck with nowhere to run. Ben quickly blew air into his hand and felt the water become a snowball.
He threw the snowball at Ron and hit him in the face.
Ron was puzzled that a snowball had hit him in the middle part of spring like this, but was more ticked that Ben had hit him at all. The brothers began walking toward him, pounding their fist into their hands like they were tenderizing meat.
Ben closed his eyes and began thinking of the field and slowly closed his hand into a fist. He took his fist and stretched out his fingers. He then, crooked just the index finger and as he straightened it back out, creating a small ember with a small stream of smoke rising above his hand. He opened his eyes and smiled.
He pushed his flaming hand toward the boys with all his strength, as if he were pushing a heavy object toward them. Immediately, the two boys’ clothes burst into flames and they began screaming of the pain of their clothes, now melting onto their flesh.
The boys dropped to roll the fire out, but it continued to burn until their flesh was now melting away. In seconds, the boys were no more than just a heap of burnt, crisped bones lying in a pile in the middle of the alleyway.
Ben smiled at first, as he stepped over the pile of former bullies. That smile quickly left his face as now he had the awkward situation of explaining to everyone what had happened and why these two were now missing. He decided it best to act is if he had made it away from them long enough to hide, and while they were looking for him, they were kidnaped. Maybe that would work.
At that time, as luck would have it, Nathan rounded the corner.
He stared puzzled for a moment wondering why Ben was there alone and what could have happened to the boys. Then, he noticed the piles of crispy bones. He then remembered the field and looked up at Ben with a gaze of fear.
“What happened Ben?” he asked, shaking and stuttering.
“Nothing,” Ben said as he walked slowly toward Nathan. “Nothing at all, why do you ask?”
“I don’t know, because two boys just got fried. I know they were bullies toward everyone, but they didn’t deserve this.”
“What did they deserve Nate? Just to be able to do whatever the fuck they want, whenever they want?”
Ben saw Nathan’s eyes water up with tears. Ben turned his back to Nathan and closed his eyes. He put his index finger out stretched and began twirling it in a counter clockwise motion. The clouds above them began to swirl up quickly as if a huge storm was approaching.
“Not like this Ben. They would have gotten theirs in the end.”
“By whom, the God of the heavens?” Ben laughed as he turned quickly back around to face Nathan who was trying to stop the crying. Ben walked slowly toward Nathan, and Nathan began to take a few steps back. Nathan no longer knew what his friend of twelve years was going to do.
“We have to fix this problem, don’t we Nate?” Ben asked as he smiled from ear to ear. The wind began to slowly make a breeze down the alleyway.
“How do we do that?”
“Well, only two of us know what happened here.”
At that moment Ben out stretched both arms in front of him toward Nathan and let out an unearthly groan.
Nathan turned to run, but before he could fully turn around and take that first step of running a lightning bolt struck down. It zapped Nathan in the back and Ben began waving his hands back and forth over top of each other. As he did, the bolt kept striking and burning Nathan until he was un recognizable. With that, Ben walked back toward the playground.
When the other kids saw Ben walking back alone, they gathered around him and asked what happened.
“They combusted,” he spoke softly with his hands in his pockets, head hung low, and never stopped walking till he reached Matt. He stopped and looked up at him, “Nate too,” and walked off to be by himself.
Matt felt a disturbance in his stomach as he watched Ben walk on and knew in his heart what had happened.
He watched Ben continue to walk away. Ben was kicking at the ground as he walked, almost like he was playing by himself. No remorse or guilt was in his eyes when Ben had looked at him. He turned and ran out of the playground and down the street.
He ran past the alleyway not even giving it a glance and kept running a few more blocks to the local church house next to the church where they had gone since they met twelve years ago. He ran up to the door and knocked. The pastor opened the door and Matt could not stop crying and fell to his knees before the pastor. “What’s wrong my child?” asked the pastor.
Matt told him everything, about the field, about Don and Ron, and about Nathan.
The pastor called the sheriff’s office and told them what Matt had told him. They didn’t believe the story at first, figuring it was just a prank call of some kind. Once the pastor revealed it was him that was making the call, they called for a team of cars to go over to the boys house. Within a couple of minutes, squad cars were crawling all up and down the streets looking for Ben.
Matt felt bad about turning Ben in like that, but he also knew something had to be done before this got worse. Matt was walking home still wiping the tears away from his eyes, when he came across that burnt field. He gazed at it for a while trying to figure out what was going on. This is where the madness began.
He walked on home, into his house, and quickly up the stairs before his parents asked him any questions about what was happening. He knew they probably had seen quite a bit on the news and didn’t want to face them right now, so he went to his room and shut the door behind him.
He turned on the lamp on his desk next to his bed and saw Ben laying across his bed looking up at him. Ben had a very stern look on his face.
“What did you do Matt?”
“Nothing,” he answered wiping his nose.
Ben stood up and walked over to the window to see a squad car drive past the house. “Sure are a lot of county boys out, for nothing,” he said pulling the blinds down.
“How did you get in here?”
“I’ll show you.” Ben grabbed Matt’s arm and nodded his head. Immediately, they were surrounded by rocks. Matt looked down to see nothing but water, they were on the side of a cliff somewhere.