February 5th 2145
Will had managed to lighten up a little since the news hit but he was still nervous. He currently had three major contracts under his belt so this was the last thing he needed. He was waiting in the dark meeting room now, pacing in front of the table his dark camo jacket wiping around with each tern. He never dressed up like a monkey, his casual clothes were his business cloths whether designing a new spy sub or addressing the House of Commons.
"How did Saudi Arabia of all country get technical information on plasma? The RDA or somebody else must have had a hand in it." Will thought to himself.
The door started to open; good his first two men had arrived. Conner Fettel and James Torrent, they were in charge of weapons development and testing. They honestly loved there job but they were also a nuisance. Inseparable but always bickering couldn't go thirty seconds in conversation without insulting the other and they were always late.
"Wow! I, I almost can't believe it!" William was obviously mocking them. "ONLY five minutes late, that's a new record you know. "...and even better! You're both dressed up as monkeys." He exclaimed referring to the suits they were wearing.
"Hay! It's not our fault you like calling conferences in the middle of the night." Conner complied defensibly.
James was looking a lot less flustered then his partner, "Its only dusk Conner, a perfectly acceptable time for a conference as long as it is important of coerce." He replied calmly.
"yeah but with Will hear important is probably getting contracted to the near impossible task of building a Death Star." Conner retorted.
Will smiled and shook his head, "All right, all right calm down you two, I don't want something so trivial starting a shouting match. Not that this meeting was called over trivial matters."
Just then the wall sized screen at the far end of the room started up, a black man with dread locks and a bright coloured shirt appeared. Edward (or Eddy as he preferred to be called) was Scorpio Industry's representative for the Caribbean, the Falkland Islands and other members of the commonwealth in that area, he also oversaw the secret submersible maintenance and refitting station there.
The Commonwealth had many similar bases around the world that nobody else knew about. William almost hated to admit it but the Commonwealth was paranoid, they had spies in every major country (even a few on Pandora), tight border patrols, a relentless immigration system and complicated satellite jamming and scrabbling devices to stop others from looking at them. What was even worse for Will however was they had good reasons to be paranoid, if the rest of the world caught on that the Commonwealth was a step in the right direction of paradise the immigrants would start flocking in from around the world and it would destroy everything they had worked so hard to create. Then there was their technology, it was years ahead of everything else the world had so America, many other nations and even the UN might start a war over it.
"Mon, why are you calling at this time of day? I was in the middle of having lunch with a very pretty lady." He had a strangely harmonious English/Jamaican accent.
The comment caused James and Conner to start sniggering but Will just rolled his eyes. "Come on, this is meant to be serious guys. How often do I call a priority one meting?"
"Every time you blow something up." The sarcastic tone came from his head of finance Richard Baker. A greasy character if ever there was one. He simply took his seat without another word.
Next to arrive was the company's star lawyer David Miller. He defiantly enjoyed his job; embarrassing the trivial demands of others such as last week after the unveiling of plasma tech the RDA tried to claim reprimands for the drop in shears it had cased. However he did let certain things drop, like honest requests for compensation.
"So what have you got for me today? Have these two been disturbing the peace again," he gestured at Conner and James who had started bickering over a rail gun design, "or is it something more challenging?" straining his glasses as he sat down.
"He's blown something up mon." Eddy joked.
"For goodness sakes it was only two incidents and I wasn't even present at the one in Manchester." Will had quickly got board of the long running joke that he deliberately blew up his own labs for fun. Yes he liked fireworks and personally testing some of his weapons but he kept it strictly inside the firing range. "But I can guarantee a challenge for you David."
Over the next few minutes the rest of the department managers arrived and his African and Oceania representatives hooked up to the video conference line. "Just one more now." Will thought, "dam it where is Loki?" Just then the last quarter of the screen flickered to life displaying the words INCOMING TRANSMITION, it then went to static and then the words ADIO CONECTION ONLY flickered on to the screen.
"Sorry I'm late; you know how the military are about using the com array for personal calls. Had to jury-rig the equipment on Victory to get a connection, but the techies won't be pleased about the mess I left." His voice was stunningly similar to William's if it weren't for the subtle mechanical clicking amongst his words he easily would have passed for him. "So which city did you blow up this time? Cardiff? Liver Pool? How about Sunderland? Such a depressing name Sunderland." Will and Loki were close but they were like twin brothers, they would stick by each other till the end but they annoyed each other just as much.
Will slumped his head against the table and chuckled hysterically. "As I recall I left you in charge of the Manchester reactor when it blew." He accused raising his head from the table.
"Hay I was on down time when the reactor breached, don't blame me for the job of some lousy Techies."
Will just smiled and decided to lay the matter to rest. If anybody discovered what Loki was it would case an ethical debate where he and Loki would end up locked up for a few years, but the higher ups in the government and the military knew. Loki was currently on one of the Atlantic sea forts overseeing the construction of Victory, Britannia and soon Phoenix.
Will began, "So every bodies hear? Good, down to business. I've got some funny news and some not so funny news. Some of you might have already herd that Saudi Arabia has accused us, threw the UN, that Scorpio Industries is producing biological weapons."
The room went silent, then people started whispering amongst themselves, then a few chuckles and finally an all-out round of laughter. "Bio-weapons? Next you will be telling us Americas striving for world peace and the RDA has started donating to charity out of good will." One man exclaimed.
"Saudi Arabia accusing others of making biological weapons? They've attempted to make more bio-weapons then numbers I can count! And those are some damned high numbers." Richard said.
When everybody settled down, more or less, Will continued. "That's where the not so funny news comes in. They have substantial evidence to support their otherwise dodgy claim." William was using a serious tone, which made everyone else uncomfortable.
"But how can they have evidence if we don't make them?" James asked. "It's illegal and I know you wouldn't permit it, would you?"
"Normally I wouldn't but the item in question is not intended to be used as a bio-weapon, it is only a biological weapon by definition."
"Well what is the "item in question" anyway?" Conner asked irritably.
All eyes were on Will now, "Plasma reactors." The two simple words started a commotion that would have embarrassed even the House of Commons. "Just settle down and listen would you?" Every one of the people in front of him were trusted friends, but they could be thick sometimes.
Will continued, "Now, when plasma is introduced to Selenium Chloride it creates large quantities of noxious gases in lethal concentrations. Now we all know from the Manchester incident that reacting plasma does not like the outside world, the combination renders it a Biological weapon. Although not a very effective one it's enough to start an investigation." The explanation seemed to satisfy them.
"Excuse me…" David spoke up, "in a court of law that would be considered a chemical weapon not a biological weapon, technically speaking."
This seemed to annoy Richard, "What relevance does this have? Instead of one crippling allegation we have another, so what?"
Conner caught on immediately to what David was saying, "Because, Dick" Richard hated that nick-name, "it will bog them down long enough to move sensitive data and prototype equipment away from the facilities that are going to be investigated." The venomous response annoyed Will. The finance sector had a stereotypical reputation for being greedy and because of it they took a lot of flak, it made Richards job difficult.
James added to the comment, "He's right. There are a lot of things locked up in those labs we're not ready to reveal and I suspect that the investigators picked for the operation were on the RDA pay roll before the allegations were even made. If we behave snobbishly enough they should only suspect we're trying to be difficult."
"Well it's the best suggestion so fa…"
"Wait!" Ben interrupted, he was head of health and safety, "Did you say RDA? …coolant." He muttered the last word to himself. "The RDA is involved for sure, right?"
"Yes…" Will responded. Everyone was confused now by Ben's behaviour.
"The RDA is fond of a specific type of cheap coolant that contains significant amounts of Selenium Chloride, its illegal hear, doesn't meet safety regulations. One of their research stations blew recently and the area was contaminated but they never reviled what by." He was beginning to make sense now. "I make a note of investigating such incidents, what if it was stolen plasma?"
A fierce grin came to Will's face, his eyes once again aflame with the disaster turned opportunity. "You've earned yourself a healthy bonus Ben. Terence," head of logistics, "I want you moving our stuff now."
"Roger."
"Conner, James you help him, I don't want those labs suspiciously empty." Luckily for Will most of the parts and weapons for Victory and Britannia were being assembled on site. "Naomi," head of information management and secretly hacking, "clean out the data banks, I want no mentioning of Victory, Britannia and most certainly not Phoenix."
"On it." Con and James responded in unison.
"Gotcha." Naomi said
"David, I want you working on that court case, try to hold of the investigation but don't act desperately we want to swing this back at the RDA if we can."
"All ready on it." He said furiously typing on his lap top.
"Loki, I want you getting satellite images of that RDA lab and any other evidence you can get for David."
"Yessir!" he responded in mock seriousness.
"Bruce," the Oceania rep on the video link, "I want you to get in contact with the West Coast Resistance. We gave them some plasma AA guns to field test, the RDA probably stole the plasma off them." Scorpio Industries had weapon grade plasma pinned down, just not reactor grade plasma. "Tell them they're not in trouble if they did, it might have helped put another nail in the RDA's sizable coffin."
"Consider it done mate." He had the iconic Australian accent.
"Everyone else, do what you can to help. I'm going to inform the cabinet; being their main weapons supplier they're going to want answers. End of conference." "After I get some sleep that is." He thought. And with that everyone got up and left, the video links cutting out.
