Lee Nelson is rarely seen in public. In the high-tech industry, he is known for his various trail-blazing roles including Founder and CEO of Auspex, the industry leader in cutting edge technologies. But secretly, Lee is also owner of most of the emerging high-tech Intellectual Property in Silicon Valley. He is one of the wealthiest and least known about men in the valley. He is mysterious by his own design; it helps with his insidiously cunning and artfully deceptive business tactics. Lee resides in San Francisco, a city where even the lowliest demons can prowl the streets barely noticed. He owns a swanky penthouse suite on the top of one of San Francisco’s highest skyscrapers, but he spends most nights at his three thousand square foot home on the southern outskirts of the city in a simple unobtrusive neighborhood at the foot of San Bruno Mountain. The house is very well-appointed on the inside with the quality of furnishings and amenities you’d find in a more upscale Beverly Hills style mansion but disguised on the outside as just another modest family home. The reason Lee, and his intimate muse, Sloan, spend most nights secretly in the modest home rather than the San Francisco penthouse or any of the other dozen home properties Lee owns throughout the world isn’t just to hide from Lee’s growing list of enemies. Most evenings after dinner, Sloan habitually performs routine Luciferian debauchery rituals in a spare bedroom that was converted specifically for that purpose. The bedroom is soundproof and secured such that it would be difficult to get in or out. There is an escape tunnel in the floor but it only leads to the garage. There is also a large connected completely tiled bathroom with stainless steel furnishings and fixtures. The large stainless steel bathtub has an attached industrial strength garbage disposal. You could literally run a whole human body through that garbage disposal and into the city sewer system and nobody would ever know.
Earlier that morning, Lee’s driver and his bodyguard drove him from the garage at his modest home to his private underground garage at his corporate headquarter buildings in South San Francisco. Sloan spent the night at the San Francisco penthouse to entertain some of her east coast friends. Along the drive, Lee killed time reading a book Sloan’s brother Wally gave to him written by Marshall T. Rose called “The Open Book – a Practical Perspective on OSI”. By the time they reached his underground garage, Lee had read almost the entire book.
Later that morning, Lee sits at the head of a large conference table in the penthouse offices on the top floor of the Auspex building by the bay. Lee hates the look of the Auspex building but the round shape and the mirrored exterior serve a purpose only those who have experienced incorporeal hostilities would appreciate. Today, Lee is very relaxed, feet up, a cup of tea on the table in front of him, and nothing else, not even a pen. Just another typical day of obscure business meetings buying and selling the futures of millions of lost souls.
Behind Lee is a big marketing banner that says “We at Auspex will Continue to Increase our Acquisition of Technology and Continue Work with Our Partners to Train Leading SAKA Models and Deliver Great Products and Services! All Of Us Look Forward to and Believe that this New Nationwide System is Critical and Will Enable Creative People to Figure Out How to Elevate HUMANITY!.”
His group of twelve direct reports sit at the table with him. They are wrapping up a typical Sync Point Meeting which they conduct every Wednesday morning to share information about and stay up to speed on the many projects that fall under Lee’s corporate umbrella. “Keep it at the thirty-three-k-foot view,” is the motto of the meetings.
“Okay gentlemen, anything else Saka related?” Lee scans around the table
“Quick question, Lee,” A man called Winters ask, “and I’m serious here, but what does Saka stand for? I’m assuming it’s an acronym, but for what?”
“Everyone knows what it means” a well-dressed young man called Carter says, “See All, Know All, S. A. K. A.” It’s their inside joke so they all chuckle every time hear it like they’re hearing it for the first time.
“Winters has a point”, Lee says, “We really need to come up with a phrase for that acronym. And not See All Know All.”
“Well then, what does Saka actually stand for?” Winters asks.
“Not sure. That’s just what the Elders called it. So that’s what we call it. But we need a marketing phrase to, you know, make it seem like it’s good for the world” Lee says through a devil’s smile.
“Um… System… And… Knowledge… um” Winters tries to come up with something.
“How about Super Advanced Knowledge Acquisitions?” Carter suggests. Lee and the others contemplate it.
“Maybe…” Lee finally says, “…it might work. Let’s chew on it for now. No hurry yet. Gentlemen we have an open door to a very lucrative contract with DC. This fell in our lap. Let’s stay focused. Anything else to bring to the table? Speak now.” Lee scans around the table but nobody has anything more to add. “Okay, that wraps up gen biz. Dismissed.”
Ten of the twelve get up and exit the conference room leaving just Lee and his two closest advisors – Carter, and Lance.
Carter stands from the table and goes to the wall by the door. He pushes a button that makes the glass walls of the conference room go white for complete privacy. Then he walks over to the wet bar, pulls out a bottle of Macallan 1683 Scotch, pops the cork, enjoys a whiff, scoops up three tumblers, plops back down on his chair at the table and pours them all a shot. They gulp the smooth liquor down.
“Praise Lucifer! That is some good shit right there!” Lee exclaims.
“It outta be considering this three-quarters of a liter cost more than my car.” Lance says holding up the bottle of very expensive scotch.
“You must drive one piece of shit,” Lee says, “Okay, let’s get to business. Talk to me about Saka progress. Where are we on the timeline?”
“Can we back up a step or two? What exactly are they asking for and how exactly do we deliver it?” Lance asks.
“See? Straight to the point.” Lee joshes Lance, then he continues while pointing with his thumb at the banner behind him, “They, as in DC, as in Deep Pockets, want us to provide a multi-billion dollar cutting-edge… make that, bleeding-edge high-tech surveillance system. And we can.” Lee leans back in his chair, “And so can Hudson’s group. They’re in the same position as us.” He leans forward, “Let’s not blow it! We can deliver, no doubt! All the specs we got from the same source panned out. Took some time, but our guys figured it out. Most of it. We still need that key piece of the puzzle, we’re dead in the water without it. We’ll get it. Hudson is trying to get it too. At least, that’s what we should assume.”
“What exactly is that key piece?” Lance asks.
“No idea. But, think about it, why would they bring us this far if they didn’t believe we could build it?”
“I just don’t understand why they are holding out. Why not just give us the specs and blueprints for the technologies all at the same time?” Lance asks.
“Because… I don’t know,” Lee reluctantly admits.
“Because”, Carter speaks up, “it’s a test. It’s always a test. They play that game with you all the time. It’s one of the ways they mock you. You’d think you’d be used to it by now.”
The three men are silent for a moment, then Lee changes to a related subject and says to Lance, “Have the Elders got back to us? I’m getting mixed messages from my people. Did we successfully procure whatever earth-shattering archaic knowledge they claim we are finally perspicacious enough to handle? Did we get that yet?”
“No. Evidently, something went wrong with the procedure.”
“Shit!”
“And somebody, or something, beat the shit out of Malcolm.”
“Are you kidding me? How—” Lee is astonished, he had not heard about Malcolm’s injuries.
“Wait, it’s worse. They lost the medium”
“What?!” Lee is flabbergasted now, “On top of this whole cluster-fuck, they also managed to fucking lose the medium? What, they can’t remember where they put her?”
“She’s not a medium.” Carter says, “she’s an Emanator. Emanators can do things whereas mediums can only say things. A lot of what we are getting from Malcolm’s source are drawings so we need an emanator who can draw exactly what they put into her mind. But we’re also getting a lot of computer code so we need one who can type fast and if she, or he, knows the computer coding language called FORTH then that would be even better.”
“Seriously, they are sending actual computer code now? In an actual computer language that we know? Where’d they learn it? Who taught them FORTH?” Lee asks.
“Nobody taught them, they taught us. In the early 70’s. It’s a strange stack-oriented coding language based on the Reverse Polish Notation scheme.”
“Yes,” Lee says, “I am familiar with FORTH. I wrote the process scheduler in FORTH. I’m just surprised that inhuman creatures from another dimension know it. The fact that FORTH literally comes from hell makes sense now considering its fucking non-intrinsic concatenative, procedural, reflective paradigm bullshit design!” He takes a deep breath, “This is starting to sound like a cheesy sci-fi movie.”
They all chuckle, slightly.
“The Elders asked about Sloan,” Carter says. Lee is not exactly surprised to hear this news. But it stings him as though he were.
“Sloan’s forte is enervation rituals. Torturing, raping, roasting, and devouring young female humans. She’s an expert at it. They know this! We have invested hours teaching her. They know the torture mechanism Sloan has mastered is carefully cutting off and wearing the victim’s face. Malcolm arranged for a surgeon to teach Sloan how to remove the face skin in one piece using a scalpel and it was not a cheap lesson. Sloan is a one of a kind and much too valuable to risk in the knowledge transfers. We all know how dangerous and unpredictable those rituals are.”
“Fine. Tell the Elders they can’t have Sloan emanate for them. I’ll wait here.”
Carter pours another round of scotch. Lee gulps his then sits down, “Point taken. Shit. How long do I have? When do they want to do the knowledge transfer?”
“Friday night.”
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