Betsy
- 2 years ago
- 30
- 0
Betsy had jogged past the building a hundred times in the past, but had never gone inside. This particular morning, she noticed Lucy walking towards the entrance. She changed the direction of her run, and headed towards the door.
“Lucy!”
Lucy stopped while opening the door. Betsy had slowed to a walk. Lucy looked over at her sister-in-law wondering what she wanted. In a way, it was hard getting used to watching Betsy walking rather than running. She held the door open, and waited patiently for her sister-in-law to reach her.
“Can I look around?” Betsy asked.
“Sure,” Lucy said.
“So, I finally get to see inside the mystery building,” Betsy said.
“It’s just a server farm,” Lucy said.
Raising an eyebrow in surprise, Betsy asked, “A server farm? This whole building is nothing but a server farm?”
“That’s basically right,” Lucy said.
“I don’t believe it,” Betsy said. “You’ve got some sort of mad scientist lab in here.”
Lucy laughed at the characterization, although the description as a mad scientist lab was more accurate than Betsy could guess. She waved a hand towards the open door and said, “See for yourself.”
Lucy gave Betsy instructions on how to get to the server room on the lowest floor of the facility. She had a quick errand to perform since she had some work to do on one of the upper levels and didn’t want to deal with Betsy while doing it. She promised to meet up with Betsy after a few minutes.
It was a substantial building with four floors below ground level. It wasn’t fancy, but one could tell that a lot of money went into its construction.
Betsy followed Lucy’s directions, although she did take the opportunity to wander through the facility. After she stepped off the elevator, she paused to look around at the utilitarian decor. This was clearly a building constructed to meet a single purpose. On her way to the server room, she peered into the various rooms along the way. There were a couple of office spaces, but it was obvious by the contents that most of the rooms were for storage of replacement parts and boxes of computers.
She strode into the large room and then came to a complete stop when she reached the center of the room. She turned around slowly to take in the amazing sight. She was completely surrounded by racks of computers. There were green lights and red lights flashing all over the place. After her discussion with Paul about equipment generating heat, she was amazed at how cold the room was. She figured they must have a monster air conditioner stashed away somewhere.
She cupped her hands around her mouth like a megaphone and shouted, “Hello.”
Disappointed, she said, “No echo.”
Lucy walked into the room, grinning, and said, “I thought I heard someone yelling in here.”
“I was just trying to make an echo.”
“There’s too much stuff in here for an echo.”
“It sure is a big room, with lots of computers,” Betsy said.
Despite the fact that this facility had been built close to five years earlier, this was the first time Betsy had ever been inside it. She was very impressed. Mentally, Betsy was trying to calculate how much the equipment in that room cost. The number was impressive, even to her.
“This is one of four floors,” Lucy said.
“That’s a lot of computers,” Betsy said not wanting to even estimate how many computers there were in the room.
“Yes, it is. There’s more computing power in this facility than exists everywhere else in the country combined,” Lucy said.
Her eyes ran over the racks of machine, caressing them with her glance. She had created this building as a present for William only to discover that it was actually a temple dedicated to her. It was the culmination of a lifetime of work pursued for the sole purpose of allowing her access to his world. Just the idea of how hard he had worked to make it happen still choked her up at times.
“What are you doing? Keeping track of the national debt?”
“Not really,” Lucy said with a slight grin.
The machines hosted William’s programs based on the model he had developed to predict the future. Several hours ago, several possible futures had suddenly disappeared from the simulation results. William said that it was correlated to an arrest that was made in Hawaii the previous evening, but Lucy wanted to make sure that none of the machines had failed.
“It’s impressive,” Betsy said knowing that there weren’t really words to describe just how mind-blowing this facility was.
Wanting to boast a little about what they were doing, Lucy said, “Every time Dan’s company comes out with a more powerful computer, we start upgrading this room and the three rooms above us. We spend a fortune on computers. In fact, we are the largest single consumer of computers in the world.”
“I can’t imagine that,” Betsy said suitably impressed. “We installed a couple computers on the Bloated Shark and it cost us a fortune.”
“We just got our first shipment of Thor 2000s. I can give you a hundred Raptor 9000s when we finish swapping them out.”
“I’ve got two Raptor 1000s on the tug. I thought we were pretty hot stuff,” Betsy said.
She was stunned by the computing power that Lucy was talking about throwing away. A Raptor 9000 had three orders of magnitude more computing power than a Raptor 1000. The clock speed was a thousand times faster and supported ten times the memory. She didn’t know the comparison in performance between a Thor 2000 and a Raptor 9000, but she was willing to bet it was at least an order of magnitude. She had understood that the Thor series had transitioned over to optical computing from old fashioned silicon chips.
“Well, we are computing intensive here,” Lucy said.
“I didn’t know they had released the Thor series,” Betsy said.
Lucy said, “The Thor 1000 series will be released for general sale soon. They couldn’t put them on the market until they filled our order for them. After all, we paid for their development.”
“You said you were getting Thor 2000s.”
“That’s right. We’re two generations ahead of everyone else,” Lucy said. “A quarter of our machines are Raptor 9000s, a quarter are Raptor 10000s, a quarter are Thor 1000s, and a quarter are Thor 1500s. We’ve just started replacing the Raptor 9000s with Thor 2000s.”
“What are you computing?” Betsy asked finding the need for that kind of computing power staggering.
“I can’t tell you,” Lucy said.
Noticing that Lucy was uncomfortable with the question, Betsy asked, “How much are you spending on computers every year?”
“About half a billion dollars,” Lucy answered. “We underwrote the development costs of the Thor series and built the production facility just to get a price break.”
“Maybe I should invest in Daddy Dan’s company,” Betsy said flippantly.
“You already are invested in it. I believe that William used some of your money to build the production facility,” Lucy said.
“Good,” Betsy said unconcerned that he was using her money to further his own projects.
William’s ability to see the future translated into exceptional returns on investment. He was more than capable of generating a half billion dollars of income every year. Considering that he could allocate a billion dollars for investment purposes, it only required that he pick five stocks a year with a ten percent return in investment to make that kind of money. There were always a handful of companies that provided that kind of performance.
Betsy had given him control over a major portion of her money from the day that her rebreather investment had started paying dividends. There were times when her cash flow was a little low, but those times were few and far between. Her current worth was somewhere between a hundred million and a quarter billion dollars. It did fluctuate by as much as ten percent at times, but she wasn’t worried about it.
Betsy said, “Well, I’m impressed with what you’ve done here.”
“Thank you,” Lucy said.
“I guess I should resume my little run before Bill gets here,” Betsy said.
Bill was the latest man to marry into the Carter Clan. His joining the Carter Clan returned the family to a gender balance. It had also re-invigorated the family. Ed ran a successful geological consulting company, Leroy was still doing research in CDW, and Dan was head of a large computer company. Kelly was basically retired. Ling and Claire still consulted occasionally on security problems although they focused primarily upon protecting the Carter Clan. Linda was still publishing books.
Bill was in the process of starting a company. The family joined behind him to support him in his efforts. Betsy knew that with the entire Clan supporting him, that Bill was going to succeed. She wanted to be part of that success.
Lucy asked, “Why did you want Bill to come over?”
“I want to talk to him about opening a plant in Hawaii,” Betsy said.
Bill had set up a company to recycle waste. For every ton of waste delivered to one of his plants, his process for separating waste managed to convert all but about two pounds on average into raw materials for manufacturing. Heavy metals were extracted, plastics were ground into usable pellets, regular metals were separated and purified, paper was extracted to produce new paper, organic materials were turned into jet fuel and synthetic oils for use as lubrication, glass was melted into simple glass bricks, and electronic parts were broken down into base elements. It was energy intensive, but required less energy overall than mining and purification, and there were no toxins produced or contaminated byproduct wastes.
“That’s kind of small scale for him,” Lucy said.
“You don’t understand. Hawaii has a real need for it,” Betsy said.
“I don’t think he’ll be interested at the moment,” Lucy said. “He’s finishing up the New York City plant and he’s started work on the Southern California plant. Those are pretty big projects.”
“Hawaii is a chain of islands. There’s no real place to put trash without impacting the entire ecology of an island. Without an effective waste solution, Hawaii is going to be in real trouble one of these days,” Betsy said.
“I can see that,” Lucy said. “I don’t think the problem is a lack on interest on his part, it’s a matter having the resources available to build it.”
Dismissing that concern, Betsy said, “I can help with that.”
“You better check with William first,” Lucy said knowing that Betsy was prone to overestimating what William was capable of doing.
“I’ll do that,” Betsy said, recognizing good advice when she heard it.
It took her an hour to locate William. He was waiting for her in the conference room on the second floor where the business functions of the house were located. She plopped down in a chair across from him.
Without introducing the topic of conversation, she asked, “Well?”
“Your monetary situation is a little tight at the moment. In just the past year, you’ve bought a house, a condo, invested in a business, and purchased a hotel,” William answered knowing why she was there to talk with him.
“And?”
“You’re only going to be able to put about five to ten million in Bill’s project,” William said.
Although she had a lot more money than that, she was going to have to keep sufficient capital on hand to maintain her current investment results. It would be a while before some of her current investments started to pay off, but when they did she’d be rolling in money. The water processing company would generate billions all by itself, but that was far in the future.
“That’s not enough,” Betsy said with a frown.
William laughed at the expression on her face. He knew that she had no idea of just how much money that was going to be in the near future. Provoked by his laugh, Betsy glared at him.
He said, “The economy is going to go bust pretty soon. You’re going to remain one of the wealthiest people in the world. That five to ten million you’re going to be investing now is going to be worth a lot more than you think possible.”
“The economy is going to be that bad?” Betsy asked.
William nodded his head. He glanced at the door and said, “Bill is going to be a very wealthy man soon.”
“I’ve read all of his business projections. He’s latched onto a gold mine,” Betsy said.
“You’re the one who is going to make him that rich.”
“That’s nice to know. What am I going to do?” Betsy said wondering what William knew that he wasn’t going to tell her.
“You’re going to be Betsy, that’s all.”
She wasn’t happy to hear that. She was tired of being Betsy. She didn’t know what she wanted to be, but she felt there was something about her nature that was keeping her from finding love.
“I’ll just be Betsy,” she said with a sigh.
“Sally is moving in with her boyfriend. I suggest that you move into her apartment and sell your condo,” William said, ignoring the sigh.
“Why should I sell the condo?” Betsy asked.
She didn’t want to sell it. She actually liked the place a lot. It was in a good location, had a great view, and was decorated exactly like she wanted. There were a lot of good memories of evening chats with Sally over ice cream.
“The housing market is going to take another hit. This one is going to be really bad,” William said. “You’ll want the cash in hand, preferably in the form of gold, when the market collapses to make the appropriate investments.”
“You can tell me that?” Betsy asked surprised that William was sharing the future with her.
“Yes, particularly since it deals with your service,” William answered. “You’re going to need to invest in some properties like the one in Vancouver.”
“You mean that I’m going to need more safe houses,” Betsy said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Economic turmoil brings a lot of changes, and most of them are unpleasant. In the near future, a lot of evil people are going to become desperate. That’s never a good thing,” William said.
He didn’t want to tell her that she was going to have to sign them over to a corporation that he was setting up for the Druids. As bad as times were going to get, the Druids were going to need places to stash people who were in trouble. He was well aware that Betsy’s service wasn’t to rescue people, but to make the conditions right for the other Druids to do their jobs.
Getting worried, Betsy asked, “Just how bad is this economic collapse going to be?”
“Take the list of the thousand richest people in the world; by the time the dust clears, only a quarter of them will remain on that list. There won’t be any billionaires left in the world,” William said.
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Betsy stood in front of a full body mirror, looking at her reflection. She was wearing a black robe. This was the first time she had put one on. Rather than having the full length sleeves of Druid robes, the robe she wore was sleeveless. This allowed the golden torq, her symbol of service to the Two-Sided One on her arm, to be visible. She turned a little to catch her profile in the mirror. Then she turned the other way examining her appearance once again. She decided she liked the way the...
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It was three o’clock in the morning when the jet Betsy was on arrived at the Honolulu airport. It touched down on the runway, and taxied over to the hangar. Betsy looked out the window. There was one person on duty, along with the limousine driver waiting for them to exit the jet. The man on duty was wearing the overalls that identified him as a mechanic. The limousine driver was wearing the typical black outfit of commercial limo drivers everywhere. While gathering her stuff, Betsy asked...
Ling woke up, immediately aware that every part of her body hurt. She started going through the mental inventory of body parts. Ribs? It hurt to breathe, so she had a couple of cracked ribs. She gingerly moved her arms, legs, fingers, and toes. She was relieved to discover that there weren’t any casts. There weren’t any broken bones. She tried to locate a muscle that wasn’t screaming out in pain and failed, miserably. She knew it was going to hurt to get up and try to move around. She...
Sweating profusely, Betsy wrestled the fifty-five gallon steel drum down the ramp from the ‘Bloated Shark’ to the dock. The wooden ramp creaked under the strain of the load. Forty-five gallons of salt water weighed over three hundred and eighty pounds. It was a little too bulky and heavy for even Betsy to carry. The Bloated Shark was the name she had given the tugboat she had purchased for a research platform. When she had found it, it was just an old tug that had seen better days. It had...
“Hello,” the man said when Betsy stepped into the instrument room on the tug. He was big as a mountain, with tattoos that ran the full length of his arms. His legs were the size of tree trunks. His hair was cut short, and he had a scar on his chin that gave him the appearance that he ate small babies for breakfast. He was holding a screwdriver in his hand, which was pointed in her general direction. “Who are you?” “I’m Paul.” “Well, Paul, what are you doing on my boat?” “I work for Dr....
Betsy stood atop the building looking down at the people below. Several people were looking up at her, thinking that she was going to jump. She smiled, backed up a few steps, and then ran forward and off of the roof. She spread her arms and legs wide while gravity made its presence known. The people below screamed thinking they were about to see her splatter on the sidewalk. She was only on a four story building, so it wouldn’t have been that great of a splatter, but people aren’t rational...
Betsy waded ashore. She had a large fish, which she held by its tail, slung over her shoulder nearly to her waist. It was flopping around, but she ignored its motions. Once away from the water, she dropped the fish on the sand and removed the rebreather from her back. Then she knelt down, and with her knife, filleted the fish. It didn’t take long for her to remove several nice fillets from the fish. She took a minute to wash the fish filets off in the ocean as well as return the innards to...
Once the family left, Betsy and the staff settled into the process of learning to live together. There were quirks to learn and preferences to discover. The house, with its wide open spacious rooms, was designed to give great views of the exotic landscape. It did not promote privacy, particularly with six people living in the house. Betsy was willing to drop her clothes without a moment’s notice, and head out to the beach. She was just as likely to wear clothes around the house as not. About...
In the process of selling the idea of their filtration system, Jake and John Widmeir had made two interesting discoveries. The first was that Betsy Carter had almost limitless energy. They had been told that, but seeing was believing. She could keep going long after everyone else collapsed from exhaustion. There had been one funny little incident in which a cocksure kid had thought he could keep up with her, in the workout room of the hotel. She had walked out bubbly and full of energy,...
Carl had no real idea where he was. Upon learning that he was single and lived alone; Betsy’s father, Ed, had insisted on taking him to the Carter home, where Carl would get around the clock care. It was an offer that Carl found nearly impossible to turn down. It wasn’t that Carl was concerned about the care he would receive in the hospital; but what would happen after he was discharged, was an issue. There was no one at his apartment to take care of him, and he wasn’t about to ask one of his...
Head buried in her closet, Betsy was tossing clothes out left and right. Charlie and Alice were standing at the door watching her. They were a little amused by her behavior. Alice said, “I do believe that Betsy is in a tizzy.” “Tizzy? Yes, she does look like a person in a tizzy,” Charlie said. “It could be a dither,” Alice said. “No. It’s definitely a tizzy, not a dither,” Charlie said. “I wonder why she’s in a tizzy?” Betsy growled and then muttered, “I’ll show them a tizzy.” “I have...
Charlie was seated at the desk in her office inside the house, watching Betsy fidget in her chair. They had returned from the capital the previous day. It was necessary to get caught up on all of the work that had accumulated over the past few days. Fortunately, it hadn’t taken nearly as long as she expected to get caught up on the business aspects of Betsy’s life. The staff had taken care of nearly everything in their absence. She looked down at Betsy’s calendar for a moment, flipped...
The modern person, who has lived a significant percentage of their life in a digital economy, can not imagine what life would be like without checks, credit cards, debit cards, and online banking. Mortgages, rent, utilities, and insurance are paid with check or by electronic transfer. Large purchases and consumer goods are paid with credit cards, or checks. Plastic is not reserved only for big items. People will whip out a credit or debit card to pay for a five dollar lunch, or a cup of...
With Sally away on her honeymoon, Betsy was at loose ends. After Chuck’s kidnapping, she just didn’t want to take off for the ocean for a week at a time. At this point, it wasn’t necessary. She had all of the biological data necessary for her dissertation. All that was missing was sufficient tracking data to support her arguments and time would take care of that. She didn’t need to tag any more sharks since she had already tagged far more of them than was necessary for her dissertation. For...
Ling said, “You look like hell.” “I’ve been around your daughter for a couple of days,” Gary replied pointedly. He tried to count the days, but they all ran into a blur of move and move and move. He had never been so tired in his life. Trying to keep up with Betsy was a constant effort. She was always in motion and that required him to always be in motion. The normal human being wasn’t built for that level of activity. “You should get some rest,” Kelly said. Gary pointed at Ling and said,...
In what has to be one of the greatest plays on words of all time, Mark Twain wrote: ‘Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt.’ “This can’t possibly be happening. It’s impossible. I just won’t accept it.” Everyone has observed denial at work. Everyone has experienced denial for him or her self. Denial is a universal experience. One can deny it, but that denial rather proves the point. Denial is an unavoidable consequence of how the human mind works. The human mind makes gross generalizations...
In the short time she had worked for Betsy, life for Charlie had been interesting. Still unable to get around with any kind of ease, Charlie was more than happy to sit behind the desk and take care of the hundreds of little things, that had been ignored by Betsy. She’d been stunned to discover that Betsy hadn’t even bothered to open a local bank account. She had been shocked one day, to discover a past due statement buried with the stack of mail that had accumulated over a couple of weeks....
Betsy was pacing around outside the construction site. The site engineer (Stan Kubrick) and one of the foremen (Jim Franklin) were there with her, wondering why she had literally dragged them away from their homes. Chuck was standing under a palm, enjoying the shade, while George was nervously licking his lips. A man wandered by and stared at the group for a second. Finally, he approached and said, “Hey, Jim!” “Hello, Kirk.” “What are you doing here?” Kirk asked. He had been working on...
Betsy stood in front of the little stand that was selling meat. The stand had once been a little souvenir hut that had sold glitzy trinkets to tourists. It had a fake grass roof, giving it a kind of hokey appearance that tourists expected of a tropical island. She wondered where it had come from, but wasn’t interested enough to ask. A bird flew overhead and landed upon a branch of a nearby bush. She turned to look at it. It was a red crested cardinal. Like many of the more common birds on...
Betsy skipped down the hallway pausing to read the sign on each door. The other students in the hallway would move over to the other side to avoid getting hit by the jump rope. She stopped in front of one of the doors and read the name off the nameplate aloud, “Sally Tilton.” She stepped back nearly hitting a student with her jump rope and read the sign on the door aloud, “Keep out.” She stopped swinging the rope around, but kept up the jumping motion while knocking on the door. She called...
Betsy paced the floor, criss-crossing the living room in her house. Fortunately, the house was built with a wide open spacial style that allowed her a lot of room to move. If the room had been a bit smaller, she would have been bouncing off the walls ... literally, not figuratively. Not for the first time since returning to the house that morning, she asked, “Where is he?” “I don’t know,” Charlie answered without having to ask who he was. “Why isn’t Gary here?” “He had to go to the...
With the destruction of the economy, a number of things had changed in the world. One, which almost no one would even think about, was the disappearance of certain specialty shops, of which bridal stores were a good example. There just wasn’t a place to buy what had become a traditional wedding gown. What few dresses had remained on the shelves of stores at the time of the collapse had long since disappeared. Young couples getting married now tended to wear nice dresses and suits. The new...
The desert stretches from horizon to horizon, existing in both time and space. One man gazes upon it and sees paradise. Another man gazes upon the same scene and only sees desolation. One desert, two men, and three entirely different worlds. It is not a mystery why people argue and bicker over nearly everything. If two people can’t agree on something as vast and as timeless as a desert, why should it be a surprise if they can’t agree on much of anything? The variations in preferences of even...
Charlie was wheeled out of the hospital in a wheelchair. As with a lot of patients, she had argued that it wasn’t necessary, except that it was. Her prosthetic was packed away in her luggage, which Betsy was carrying. Either the infection had been a little more aggressive than she had thought, or she had really been a lot more tired than she had felt. She was so weak that she was afraid that she might not be able to use the crutches she’d been given. Once they were outside, Betsy handed the...
Tight-lipped, Ed stared at the man. Talking with him was a constant assault on his truth sense. The longer he talked, the worse the lies got. It was as if one lie emboldened the next. Ed said, “She was drugged.” “The test results were lost,” the man said with a smirk. Ed’s truth sense stabbed him in the brain upon hearing the lie. He said, “Quit lying.” “I’m not lying. They were lost.” “She was drugged, and you know it!” Ed shouted. The man replied, “She chewed his arm off and beat him...
Chuck wandered over to the security center and office building construction site, searching for Gary. The building was still a long ways from finished, but he could imagine what it would look like when it would be completed. The foundation was in place, the framing was complete, and some of the exterior walls had been added. Chuck found Gary inspecting the building. Gary was checking to make sure that nothing that didn’t belong had been added to the walls. There were folks who would be...
Chuck was seated in the backyard passing the time by watching a couple of birds working together in building a nest. Watching them build a structure for the results of their mating reminded him that he was going to be married soon. He was looking forward to the event without the kind of nervousness that plagued many grooms. There was only one downside – he wished his parents were still alive to see him get married. He wished his parents could have met Betsy. He was sure they would have loved...
Sally walked into the room thinking that she had made a horrible mistake. There were a lot of people, none of whom she recognized, moving around. She grabbed Gary’s arm to prevent being separated from him. Betsy had disappeared somewhere into the heart of the party. It was a typical frat party – a lot of testosterone driven young men, scantily dressed young women, too much booze, not enough light; and loud music, which made talking impossible. The air had the lingering hint of a sickly sweet...
The sound of waves crashing along the beach provided a background noise that Betsy found particularly relaxing. She was sitting tailor fashion on the beach, looking out across the ocean at the distant horizon. This was about as calm as Betsy could appear to act. It truly was an appearance of calm rather than true calm. She was digging two holes. She was excavating one hole with each hand, and using the sand in the other hand to fill it in again. The strength required to shove her hands into...
By the morning after the altercation with Kyle, the swelling in Carl’s face had reduced to the point where he could see again. His nose was still tender, but most of the pain was gone. It was hard to believe that Kyle had been able to hurt him so badly, with just two punches. He’d been beaten up a few times in high school, but that had been nothing compared to the previous day. He had awakened that morning to find Betsy, wearing a knee-length skirt and white blouse, seated in a chair reading...
Ling, pulling Cal behind her by his ear, followed Millie and Melvin out of the plane. Betsy was inside with Kelly and the rescuers planning how to free the two men trapped in the chairs. Jimmy was over by the fire piling branches on it after getting it restarted. Ed was with him giving him pointers on the care and management of a good campfire. Ling threw Cal to the ground. Looking at Millie, she asked, “What’s the story with him?” “He’s an asshole,” Millie answered. “I figured that much...
“I agree. I will see what I can do to convince a certain young man to become a caretaker.” Harry stood behind the young man watching him. Unable to keep silent any longer, Harry said, “You’re talking to a mongoose.” “I know,” the young man answered. “They don’t talk back,” Harry said making reference to the weird one sided conversation he’d been listening to. “You don’t know that. In fact, she’s quite talkative,” the young man said while rising from his kneeling position to face...