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Message: [quote author=Kolya link=msg=638 date=1157357749] [color=#FFCC00]Part II[/color] Anatoly Korenchkin rarely remembered his dreams and when he did, it was usually in the form of fragmentary and fractured moments. He had been born 62 years ago with an eidetic memory, able to absolutely recall faces, numbers, facts and figures with enormous accuracy. These talents had served him well in the period of 2078-2092 when he made a living primarily as a gangster. He could maintain inventories, balance sheets, every aspect of a business' bookkeeping entirely in his head, obviating the need for physical records, for potential evidence. He was always scrupulously honest in his mental bookkeeping and that honesty lended him the trust of others and that trust led to his fortune. Sitting on the edge of his bed, the old man thought of the dreams and how they brought him back again to those years. Not the way he normally recalled things, precise, ordered, perfect, but more as a sweep of emotions. He saw flashes of his gangster clothing, his gangster furnishings and his gangster walk. In those years, he had been forced only to kill one man himself and he realized quickly how little taste he had for the strong arm, the gun, the knife. However, he had made no illusions about the necessity of such things; it was simply much easier and efficient to have others do it for him. He had awoken from these dream-memories feeling vaguely uneasy. Those were such...desperate times. To always live with fear...to be surrounded by men of low character and taste. First, in St. Petersburg, and then in America, in New Atlanta. After the fall of the corporations, however, the UNN began to crack down. When the Luddites took control, Anatoly knew he could become a very wealthy man if he were able to provide technology to those who wanted it. The more the UNN exercised its might, the higher a premium he could charge for his wares on dozens of illegitimate markets in which he had trafficked. In order to fight rampant technology in the private sector, the UNN had to grow its technological sophistication. Law enforcement officials were replaced by cybernetics. Tall, strong, tireless, unmoved by the sight of cash or the touch of a woman. How does one blackmail a m/35-16 security bot? Stripped of the normal, time honored tools that have served criminals since the inception of time, Anatoly had to become more creative. He couldn't beat the system. So he hacked it. Anatoly established a broad web of hackers, some as young as ten or eleven, the oldest barely nineteen. They hacked the government for their employer, impeding or shutting down any and all law enforcement mechanisms which proved uncooperative. The hackers never knew who Anatoly was by name, only cypher. He liked to keep at least two or three layers of buffer between him and the actual mechanics of his crimes. The UNN crackdown transformed Anatoly from successful to monstrously rich. While the authorities might have caught on to the shape of Anatoly's ring, they never succeeded on linking it to its master. Eventually, one of Anatoly's "urchins", as the media had taken to calling them, was captured and convicted on sedition chargers. Veronika Red was the girl's handle and she'd been caught breaking into the very sensitive financial records of an extremely powerful UNN official. The wheels turned and a moderate offense was turned into a serious one and a serious one turned into a capital crime. She had clearly tapped into the wrong man's file. So as this 16 year old girl awaited execution, Anatoly pondered his option. Letting her die would hurt his business, his reputation amongst his direct inferiors, certainly. But to intervene would be risky. He had scratched a lot of very important backs over the years. But in the end, he decided the exposure would be imprudent. So it was done. Important butts all through out the higher levels of the UNN were protected. The girl was murdered by lethal injection. And the world, not surprisingly, continued to spin on its axis. However, following this, Anatoly felt he had enjoyed less and less his chosen avocation. Governmental controls on technology were slowly slipping away, making his product less valuable. The slackening of the tech restrictions also meant countering law enforcement that much more difficult. In addition, he had developed a terrible ulcer during the show trial of Veronika Red. Perhaps it was time to move on. Since the events on Citadel station, the TriOptimum Corporation had nearly ceased to exist as a legitimate business. Suffering literally dozens of class action law suits and hundreds of individual complaints, TriOp had been compelled to pay billions in compensation for the lives lost and pain and suffering inflicted aboard Citadel station. The company had been left alive primarily as a debt-paying entity. Anatoly saw an opportunity here. Some thirty years after the Citadel incident, people had begun to forget the specifics of the event. TriOp had literally tens of thousands of valuable patents, trademarks and copyrights. They had hundreds of brand names, which the consuming public still held in good esteem. TriOp was, in his mind, perhaps the most undervalued commodity in the history of value. And so he took his millions of black market gains and bought 51% of the TriOptimum Corporation. And he grew the business, exploited brands and leaned on his contacts in the UNN to relax technology restrictions even further. TriOp's fortunes began to change. And now there was Sarah, Delacroix's marvel. A real-true blue breakthrough, a wonder of modern science. The first functional device capable of propelling matter at faster than light speeds. He had recognized Delacroix's genius early and had set about personally managing her growth in the company. She had contributed much before, but never anything as...practical as this. Her device, well, her theoretical device, would rewrite every paradigm. She had willed into existence the ability to collapse space and distance practically meaningless. And she had done it on his dime. What would that mean? For a species crowded into a collapsing planet at the center of a series of wretched, foul-smelling collectivized off-world colonies? It would mean opportunity, possibility. It would mean hope, packaged, sealed and marketed exclusively by the TriOptimum Corporation. But more importantly than that, with TriOp as the sole provider of this technology, the UNN would lose their ability to hold him in their grip. The public wanted the stars and Anatoly, through Delacroix and Sarah, would deliver to them. Surely they would not allow the government to get in the way. But it worried him. Diego was smart and Diego knew all. But Diego had illusions of his own importance. And that made him underestimate Anatoly. He had no idea how much pull TriOp had now within the UNN. Korenchkin rose, got out of bed, went to the bathroom and had his teeth brushed by the Dentu-Brite. But Delacroix was making noises now. Sarah was being rushed, she said. She needed another 5 years to complete the prototype. She had emphasized to need the potential side effects of Sarah. "Like what?" he had asked her. "I have no idea. That's why they need to be studied." Anatoly hated this about scientists. He knew she wanted the time. Part of it was the classic engineer's need to tinker and part of it was...fear? Was that it? Was Delacroix afraid of her creation? But Anatoly couldn't allow that much time. Time opened up so many unpleasant possibilities. Sarah, stolen. Sarah, shut down by the government. None of them were particularly pleasant. Sarah would open many doors. Behind some of them would be the lady. Behind others, the tiger. But wasn't it always that way? He knew, despite Sarah, despite Diego, despite everything, those doors would eventually be flung open. Soon the committee would convene and the final shape of things would be known. There would be much hoo-hah, much gnashing of teeth and much publicity. He would sit in the background and watch others fight his battles for him, just as he had always done. Anatoly spat in the sink, enjoying the electric-minty residue left behind on his teeth. He made a mental note to send of case of Dentu-Brites to Captain Diego. In the upcoming weeks, his famous smile would need to look its brightest [/quote]
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