Thank you for your support! Happy reading!

  Note 1; Also yes, I'm still shooting for Mid-April for a book release on Amazon which will be a sequel for one of my other series! I hope I can work hard enough here with this story and KTAW to earn your support!

  Note 2; Chapters on the research side of the story are now marked when you pull up the chapter listing so you can see which ones those are. (2 so far).

  Research arc Chapter; Just who is Dr. Brocksin?

  The cell phone rings.

  And rings...

  It goes to voicemail. "This is Dr. Brocksin. I'm away from my phone right now. But my patients are important to me. I'd love to help you out but I'm away from my desk. Leave me a message and I'll try to get back to you within 48 hours. Thank you..." click.

  "Brocksin! You fool! What the fuck have you done! You have no idea the shitstorm that you've created!" the voice was literally screaming in high volume. A male voice. Not just any voice but the voice of his CEO and boss.

  "Brocksin. Call me back. If you don't call me back by the end of the day, you can find yourself searching for another job dumbass!" Click.

  ...

  5 minutes ter, also going to voicemail.

  "Brocksin call me back. This isn't a game. This is really annoying. You have no idea the questions I'm being asked right now... Call me back," the CEOs voice was still angry as hell, but he'd dropped that st part to a whisper.

  5 minutes ter.

  "BROCKSIN! CALL ME YOU FUCKING MORON! I've got the MILITARY asking me what the hell you guys were cooking in that b down there! My g-d man. Do you understand the shit storm coming down on me?! PLEASE, please please call me!" this time he's upset but begging and not as angry.

  But Brocksin never called him back.

  ...

  In the CEOs office...

  The CEO himself was pacing back and forth in front of his desk with extreme stress. He'd never had a situation this stressful in his life. It had started early this morning. A couple of spooks had visited his home asking questions. At the time he'd gotten lucky. His mansion's guards had arrived to throw them out before they could get anything out of him. It was still stressful though. And because they were spooks they couldn't prove they were who they said they were. So he had a loophole.

  But it shook him up.

  Instead of spending time with his favorite android lover he'd gone back to the office and spent the night there. He was sufficiently rattled.

  And then a general from the military kept calling and leaving him voicemails about once an hour since 4 AM this morning. All of those calls he'd avoided. The voicemails were vague but sounded angry. But yet they only said to call them immediately.

  He didn't like being asked to account for things he didn't know a lot about. So he went digging into the files.

  And... the deeper he dug the more he felt he didn't understand.

  First, the research project headed by Dr. Brocksin was approved by the company. And by the previous CEO. That was actually worse than what he'd hoped for. He'd hoped there'd be some loophole where he could cim, that that guy had gone off on his own. Maybe cim they didn't know any better. But there's very clearly a research grant awarded to Brocksin and several other researchers to do a project for the company.

  He looked over the notes. Damn no loophole. Plus the budget for this grant was huge. Easily four times bigger than any other research grant that they'd given to anyone else.

  The grant and its contract were very specific and binding. The company would provide everything, include lots of big personal expenditures for Brocksin's life upkeep. They even gave the guy a yacht and a mansion package, which is unusual though not impossible. Brocksin and his research partner had approached the company a few years ago promising they had research that could potentially give the company a drug that would promised eternal youth. The previous CEO had gone all in with it, buying into Brocksin's big dreams.

  The CEO snorted in mockery. There's no way someone could produce eternal life from drugs and money. That didn't make any sense. They weren't gods!

  But the drug was being sold on the market now. It had been released to the public. And it was a solid money maker. It also had lower refund requests than any other drug he knew of, which made him feel relieved. That was good right?

  But why are they asking about it...?

  The more he researched the more he was intrigued. And a bit scared also.

  First, when he looked up Brocksin, the man had truly established a name for himself. Award after award for all kinds of new medical technology seemed to just fall into this guy's p over several decades. First, he had like 4 medical degrees, some of it being really advanced cutting edge technology stuff. 2 of those degrees were from Ivy League schools. The 3rd was an 'honorary' medical degree gifted to him for being some kind of damn genius. He'd been a researcher for over 20 years. During 14 of those he was the head researcher. And... it didn't look like any of his projects had failed, which was what surprised him.

  Maybe that's why the previous CEO that he'd repced had awarded this contract? Some would grant the research grant and make a deal solely on the guy's win loss ratio. Especially with a guy that'd been heading up new medical tech that long.

  There were some unknowns too that made it hard to research this. First, all the original board members that had discussed and voted on this project with the previous CEO were all no longer with the company. That itself was unusual. But people come and go in a shark infested company like this anyway. Odd for all of them to be gone though. What that really did was cut him off from asking some of them under the table what went on there. He'd love to be able to ask them what they heard and saw.

  He proceeded to read more looking into Brocksin's file itself...

  3 of Brocksin's projects were listed as 'cssified' with the military. That part scared him a little. But the other research projects were commercial medical technology. He'd invented the procedure for 'healing' android bio-skin over a decade ago; that had saved a lot of headaches when people were trying to figure out how to fix android skin breakages without leaving scars. Prior to that breakthrough people could fix android skin, ... but fixing it without leaving a scar was very difficult then.

  The other researchers were also noteworthy. While Brocksin was technically the head of research himself, he also had his own head researcher. That guy had been with Brocksin for 4 of his test projects and was also impressive. That guy alone also had enough under his belt he could have gotten the project approved also even if Brocksin wasn't there.

  So maybe this is a fluke? Maybe there's nothing wrong?

  He sure hoped nothing was wrong. The eternal youth drug had been on the market commercially to buy for awhile now. Supposedly the research center was actually working on the 2.0 version this time. Someone had approved for them to keep the research going but he didn't see clearly why or who had kept all that going. Technically they already had a working product.

  Why did they even need a 2.0 version? The first one was still new and selling hot. It was even a joke that women would buy it first before even feeding their own kids.

  The expenditures on this project were enormous... Sure it was a perfect money maker, but did they actually need all that to keep going? He was now working in his mind if it were possible to cut the research budget. And since the company contract stiputed they'd get ownership of this thing, he could tecnically cut Brocksin lose. Sure the guy was a winner but he was too expensive.

  And why'd they give that guy the yacht instead of him? That was what really pissed him off. It enraged him. He'd tried to get that yacht in his sign on package when he became the repcement CEO.

  He should have gotten the former CEOS yacht! The nerve of that guy...

  Hell, he'd fire him just for that alone. Burn that fucker! He felt justified in taking the man's research and kicking him to the curb. He'd even ugh about it. They had everything anyway! All the cards were held by the company, not Brocksin!

  Still, lots of people were asking questions and that made him nervous. He also thought he'd have to create a dummy file just in a case. Basically a fake file that was pre-screened to show just enough to answer questions but hide any company sins and not show any guilt. Not that they were guilty, but when things like this happened that's what company officers did. They had to protect their own backside, like any company would do.

  The more he read on Brocksin the more he was intrigued.

  An eternal youth drug?

  He wasn't sure how well it worked. Sure they cimed it worked and people bought it like crazy. But drugs tend to be oversold anyway. So maybe it promised 100% but maybe it only delivered 30%? The sales ad made you question if a drug could even do a percentage of what the ads cimed since there wasn't much oversight now in the market. And then you had to factor out the side effects, some of which could be massive. This was why it was so complicated on how real the drug was. He wasn't sure himself because he'd been working to death too much to even try out this new drug. But his mistress swore by it.

  And intimacy with her had been better since she'd gone on it. So maybe he would look into it more seriously.

  Ahem... he took a sip of water and then went back to the file he was looking over.

  Just reading the guy's BIO and professional history made it seem like this guy could do just about anything. Clone g-d? Sure. Revivify extinct species? Sure! Turn straw into gold? Sure!

  Hm...

  OK, but there were a few issues.

  Why'd they put the research center clear out in the middle of nowhere on that damn isnd? That was so far out there that it inhibited inspects. Very odd. It was even a pain in the ass. The pce was almost impossible to get to. You needed both a refueling ship AND a helicopter to get there.

  He'd also come to the conclusion that Brocksin really had ZERO oversight. And that worried him. He knew that most employees you can't do that. They'll find a way to snitch from the cookie jar. Usually in the form of embezzlement. His own CFO for example, he'd caught several times with some hidden withdrawals. He should have fired that guy actually but the amounts were small and he was technically kind of miracle worker when things go wrong.

  But Brocksin...

  OK, the contract said there was supposed to be a bi-yearly inspection. But when he looked at it, he couldn't find records for it.

  Had no one inspected this pce? What was going on with it? And only twice a year made him nervous. There wasn't even a site manager on the 'inner circle', making him feel restless.

  Also the files for this project were listed as a secret file that weren't to have any electronic records for. That scared him a bit because he'd never seen that. And the girl that was in charge of this file had gone on vacation suddenly about 2 weeks ago. She was 2 days overdue coming back.

  Well I guess some of that was questionable. But there wasn't any big red fgs there. Nothing he could see that seemed like it could be a fire. Well except for Brocksin's personal expenditures, but that could be contained.

  He hit the button for his secretary's intercom.

  "Mary, can you find me the inspection report for Brocksin's current isnd project?" he asked.

  "You mean the one that everyone's asking me about?" she sounded nervous.

  "Y-yes. That one. I need the inspection reports. And names of everyone we've had go to that isnd," he told her frowning.

  "O-OK on it boss," she said.

  "Oh wait. Mary... you said everyone's asking about that project? Why?" he asked.

  "Yes... quite a few people have called in just in the st hour asking about it. I have no idea why they are asking about it," she said.

  "W-w-ell who is everyone?" he tried to sound confident but he was nervous as hell.

  "Well 1 senator called about it. 4 people from the FBI also, 2 of them together but the other 2 solo visits and calls each separate. 3 Homend Security guys all calling separate, and several people actually managed to get past security and approach my desk saying they were spooks. I had security kick them out. But... this isn't a good sign boss," she said.

  He accidentally dropped an F bomb then. And other expletives. The senator alone asking about it might be trouble. Those guys also were expensive to bribe. Actually getting them to accept a bribe was easier than stealing from a baby. Its just that they wanted enough to hurt when you bribed them. "H-how the hell is this stirring up so many people?"

  "I don't know! I just don't know. There's nothing unusual about it that I can see. As far as I know we've been going by the book. I don't see anything that could get us in trouble. This is a good company. Everything we've done is solid market earners and contained risk. We've been careful," Mary returned.

  OK, that helped calm himself a bit. But he still felt a touch nervous given that that many people asking were all people that could become headaches.

  "Could there be a patent issue? I can understand a government visit. But that would make more sense if maybe the military wanted the patent for something? Maybe they want it for treating injured soldiers?" he asked.

  "That's... that seems like a possibility. It sounds reasonable at least. Maybe its something that just everyone wants?" Mary asked.

  He accidentally put himself in a state of denial.

  "OK. Thanks," he said.

  "Um boss, you know since the ison for Brocksin is still on vacation I don't have full awareness of everything until she comes back," Mary said.

  "OK. See if we can call her and get her to come back quicker. Throw out some teasers like concert tickets or whatever if you have to," he said.

  "Got it. On it boss," she finished.

  So the military asking about it kept coming back to him. Were they going to try to buy it maybe? Yeah that must be it. Maybe its something they want to use to fix wounded soldiers or something, he told himself.

  He tried to go back to finding out more, but there was this nagging feeling in the back of his mind that something was wrong...

  He kept looking at what they had on the file...

  It all came circling back to Brocksin.

  And also the raw materials lists of things being shipped to the isnd were a bit vague and used weird names.

  What the hell is this stuff? One of the shipping containers didn't even say what it was, but required air holes modified into the shipping containers. And then he accidentally found a blueprint that had a bucket trine system installed into the shipping container, and water spigots.

  Uh oh... this doesn't look good.

  I better shred this whole damn file, he thought.

  Then Mary's intercom sounded.

  "Yes?" he called out as he's already putting the file in the shredder.

  The machine whirred to life chewing up all the filth that he imagined was in that file...

  "Um, those spooks are back," she said nervously.

  "Send them away."

  ...

  "Mary send them away."

  "I can't."

  "Sure you can. Get legal up here. Also remind them they are on camera. Have them wave for the camera," he told her.

  "I-I can't sir. They are...holding guns on us. They insist you are going to go with them one way or another," she told him.

  He froze in fear.