Welcome to Percotran -Part XXIV

By Richard Davidson

“Where the hell have you been?” His voice was booming; thunderous.

He’d been looking for Commander Richter for two days. What was the Company coming to when the Second Vice President of Operations couldn’t find his top Security man?

Now Richter stood before him, a strange look in his eyes. He was smiling, for God’s sake! This all made Vice President Halbert Scrum III a bit uneasy.

“I’ve been dancing, sir,” Richter answered, swaying his body in a circular motion, “dancing, dancing, dancing!”

“Richter!” Scrum bellowed.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d call me Wolfgang from now on,” Richter said with a sickly smile.

“But your name’s PETER!” A vein pulsed on Scrum’s forehead, and Richter was sure it was to the exact tempo of Islaad’s “Waltz of Conglomerates,” one of his favorites.

“Wolfgang,” he insisted, still smiling.

Scrum had no doubt in his mind he would have Richter disposed of, just as soon as he was finished debriefing him.

“What did you discover?” he asked impatiently.

“I discovered my inner child, Mr. Scrumby Dumb Dumb, and a whole host of things you simply couldn’t understand. I discovered what this life is all about, and it isn’t contained in the database of this creaky old corporation!”

That was high treason, Scrum was happy to note, and now he had a perfectly legal reason to kill Richter, and didn’t even have to hide the cells. There would be a trial, Richter would be found guilty, and he could be publicly executed. The really glorious part was that they wouldn’t have to be humane, either.

All of this was wonderful, but Scrum had to know about the intruder.

“As far as I know, he owned stock in Percolex, and Ecotran, before the Merger, and if he can lay claim to those shares, he would be the most powerful man in the world,” Richter sang, as if it were light opera.

“The Merger was over twenty thousand years ago,” said an exasperated Scrum. “How could anyone own stock from before then?”

“Time travel, my darling,” cooed Richter, pretending he was an exotic dancer, and wiggling out of his military jacket.

“Time travel?” Scrum roared, pushing Richter away as he was trying to rub the jacket across his face.

“Time travel isn’t possible, any fool knows that! Our scientists have worked on it for centuries. It can’t be done.”

“Our scientists are idiots,” purred Richter, piling on to the treason. “They’re technologically advanced, but they miss the most obvious things.”

“Like what?” screamed Scrum, seeing this conversation was going nowhere.

“Like time travel, for one thing,” Richter laughed.

Scrum pushed a button on his desk, and cool blue rays came out of the ceiling, bringing his heart rate back to an acceptable level. Thank God for the Calmometer.

He pushed another button. This was a less advanced device known as the intercom.

“Take this man to Brainscan Chamber 1,” he said quietly.

“Brainscan Chamber 1?” Richter made curtseying motions. “You do honor me, sir.”

Brainscan Chamber 1 was typically only used for the most high level interrogations. It was far more advanced than the usual scanning technology; in fact the people who’d designed it had disappeared nearly a century ago, and if it ever broke down, no one had any idea how they’d fix it.

That wasn’t much of a concern though, because it worked smoothly, almost beautifully. Most Security people were in complete awe of Brainscan Chamber 1.

Five guards came through the door, with legirons and chains, but Richter held up his hand and said, “I’ll go peacefully, Squire, honest I will.”

In no time at all they had him fully hooked up, and within .0003 seconds, the darkest reaches of Richter’s subconscious were available, with only the flick of a joystick.

Brainscan Technician 23G was having a difficult time navigating her way through all the images of dancing bears, and flying horses that were soaring through Richter’s mind. She’d never seen anything like it before.

“Call me if you find anything,” Vice President Scrum said dryly, cutting off his monitor.

This whole thing was absurd. Even if this man had owned the alleged stock, and had time traveled to the 222nd Century, he would not own it any more. Because, reasoned Scrum, when he disappeared from his own time, he would be assumed dead, and his stock would go back to the Company.

Unless, Scrum scowled to himself, he’d had an heir, in which case it could possibly be handed down from generation to generation over the course of thousands of years, in which case it would most likely have been diluted anyway. Scrum’s mind boggled at the thought of how far a family tree could spread in such a great period of time.

What bothered him, though, was that before Richter’s brain had turned to jelly, he’d had one of the keenest minds in the entire Company, and he’d actually said this man was the most powerful man in the world.

Why would he say that?

He stabbed at the intercom button.

“Have you found anything yet?”

“Yes sir, I have,” answered Brainscan Technician 23G.

“Well, feed it into my monitor,” he shouted, nearly ready for another dose of Calmometer rays.

Scrum was seeing Richter’s memory of the scan he had done on Worker 2567A’s brain, and now he had a three dimensional image of Alexander.

“Who wears their hair like that?” Scrum couldn’t help thinking. Percotran employees wore a style similar to a pageboy, as had been the tradition for centuries. This man looked scruffy; ridiculous.

“Why is everybody dancing?” Scrum asked Brainscan Technician 23G.

“That’s just the way he remembers it, sir.”

“What the hell is that?” he asked frightened.

“I believe that is a Geneticon.”

“A Geneticon?” Scrum had always lived in such an orderly world. He wondered if perhaps he was dreaming all this.

“Am I awake?” he demanded.

“That’s hard to say, sir,” answered Brainscan Technician 23G, giving the only honest answer she knew.

“Turn it off!” he raged, and she killed the connection.

“Analyze the data, and get back to me.”

He couldn’t believe it. First a Pirate Attack on the Southwestern Division. Then a complete power failure, which wasn’t technically possible, as far as he knew. Now his finest security officer turned soft, and some idiot from thousands of years ago who may have more Controlling Shares then he did?

The Calmometer started up on its own.

Brainscan Technician 23G spent hours analyzing all the data. From what she could tell, there was a low-level employee running loose with the XP-2,000,000; a Geneticon spy chasing him; and not one of them knew where this mystery man was, who Richter appeared sure had a controlling interest in the largest corporation in history.

She tried linking this data with the Company Mainframe, but the entire Records Department was still down. She stared morosely past her monitor, at the still dancing Commander Richter.

“Cut him loose,” she said, in a monotone voice. “We’ve gotten all there is.”

“Thank you, my good woman,” Richter said sweetly.

He smiled at her, and made a motion with his hand. “Would you like to dance?”

For some reason, she found him rather charming, which shouldn’t be a surprise when you consider just how long romance had been dead by this time.

He began reciting one of Blexlon’s Love Sonnets, and she had to order the guards to take him to an isolation cell, before she fell any further.

She had arrived at the same conclusion Scrum had. There was no way this man could have a serious claim to Percotran International. Too much time had passed, and from the data Worker 2567A and Records Handler 17D had uncovered, it didn’t appear this man had ever had any offspring. So his claim died with him, when he left his own time.

She was about to buzz Vice President Scrum, when a thought went through her mind that very nearly drove her mad.

She activated an Electronic Transfer Window, and was soon standing in the very hallway where Ted and 17 had seen the poodle-sized Beetles.

There was about three feet of water on the floor, and since the power was out, the air was damp, and cold. She kicked open the jammed door to Datacenter 34, and tried in vain to start the old generator.

She had anticipated this problem, and from her briefcase extracted a Portable Powerpack, which would at least be enough to get Ancient Records Database K operational.

“Database K, at your service,” creaked a long outdated voice, as a small panel hummed to life. How anyone put up with such an annoying drone was beyond imagination.

Brainscan Technician 23G was no Records Handler, not by a long shot, but she knew what she was after, and soon she had the DNA thread map activated. Back in Alexander’s time, when this was new technology, someone had probably won an award for this thing. Now, a three month old baby had better resources for mapping DNA.

Primitive as it was, she was making connections, and then, just like that, she’d found it.

Alexander had an heir, all right.

And what’s more, he had a distant relative who was alive today, and he was a low-level worker right here at Percotran International.

She was about to activate an Electronic Transfer window back, when she heard a rumbling sound, and within seconds, the entire room was filled with seawater.

“I guess Vice President Scrum won’t be getting this information after all,” was her last thought before she drowned.

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