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Subject: +*+*+*+ Solomon's Private File #85 "Rare Earths" +*+*+*+
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 2015 18:27:24 -0400
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Solomon's Private File #85
These stories about Stephen and Solomon take place starting in
1950's. Stephen wrote about his life in letters to a penpal, and then
in a secure blog, in case he lost his memory again, in the master
computer in his school for gifted students, which he started attending
in 2016 in a new incarnation, until his death. Now his son Solomon is
attending the same school, and is writing in his own secure blog for
his future incarnations.
All characters are fictitious, even if some of them might have names
that belong to some actual people, or act like people we know.
Solomon is 16 in this story, in the Winter of 2042-2043.
Solomon's Private File #85 "Rare Earths"
START Page
I received a lot of grins back at the office. I said to the secs, "I
was on a mission. Naturally, a secret. Interesting, though. Oh, is that
a growl?" Chuckles. She got a call. Then she looked at me. I pointed
up, and she nodded. I sighed in resignation. Chuckles. She said, "Take
it like a man." I said, "If only we had one available." Louder
chuckles. The Psych Department Head was with the Director. He said,
"We've reviewed your reports." I said "Fine. Thanks for the info. Done
now?" He grinned and said, "No." I sighed and said, "You know what the
hardest part of these missions is? Talking about them. So, on with the
torture." He said, "They're sending us tracking information of that
fake bomb. We're all watching that with interest. They've decided not
to release any information about the Moscow bomb. What do you think the
other team will do when it doesn't blow?" I said, "If the total
blackout persists, they will continue as if nothing happened. Oh,
right. It didn't." The shrink tried not to laugh. I said, "They won't
know why. Could have been a problem with the bomb, from some idiot
losing the key, or it just broke, or they were discovered. If they
don't detect a change in security people that will indicate they're
known, they will just continue with their plans. I assumed you wanted
that, so you can see how successful they are, versus the security
that's supposed to stop such things." He said, "Right. Few people would
think of that, but you did. What if we lose track of them?" I said,
"Did you REALLY have to ask that, and right after that bit of fur
stroking?" They laughed. I said, "Right. I aint gonna purr on command."
More laughter.
The shrink said, "Your angel dialog was brilliant. We'll try to use
it ourselves." I said, "Would work best on prisoners who had not been
abused, or confined for long." He said, "I agree. Prison induced ego
defense mode. We want to avoid that." I said, "If in a group, you have
to remove a holdout fast." He nodded. He said, "You still won't do this
yourself?" I said, "Right. I do it by ear, kind of, and when I can
control the entire situation. How you would have me do it, wouldn't
work for me. There is more to it than might show at first glance. For
instance, I worked on my team very hard before we even met our targets.
How they behaved in the capture and during the discussion, played a big
part in the result." They thought for a while. Then the Director said,
"I missed that. Russian police and military are well known for their
brutality in that kind of situation, but we saw none of that." I said,
"First I made them fear me. Then respect. Then admire me for my
abilities. Then admire me as a man. They didn't obey me out of
discipline, but out of love. Those we captured could see all of that,
if unconsciously." The shrink said, "Wow!" He beat the director by a
half second. I said, "Oh, an echo." Chuckles. I said, "So you see the
whole situation was planned for, and I made it work for my goals, one
of which was turning the terrorists. When have I not done that, when I
personally controlled the situation?" There were some Ohs. They let me
leave.
The next day, the former bathroom bomber asked to see me. He was
grinning, I said, "So they made you look at it." He said, "They did, in
the psychology department. Then I was told what you told them about how
you prepared your team. Then they asked if I could do something like
that. I laughed. They asked why, and I laughed harder. Then they
brought their boss in. He saw me laughing, and guessed correctly why. I
spoke for us both when I said, 'We can't even understand how he does
it, after he explains it so carefully to us. Doing it on our own?
Impossible!' The boss agreed and thanked me for my insight. I had to
come tell you about it, which he knew with some amusement." I said, "I
thought you knew me well enough to know I would know what was going to
happen with you there." There were some twisted emotions coming from
him. He said, "Yes, I should have. I think I did a little. I just had
to share it with you." I said, "Yes, not so much for imparting
information, but to share the humor of it between friends. That's what
he knew." He said in surprise, "I see it now! That's true. Hmm, you
psychologists are seriously devious people!" I wiggled my eyebrows and
gave him my best evil grin, and he laughed. He was still chuckling as
he left. My school mates were laughing hard in my mind.
I was asked to speak with State. I ported to an assistant's office. I
said, "About China?" She grinned and said, "Partially. We have a
serious shortage of rare earth metals." I said, "Light a fire under the
prospectors with promethium? Oh, one of them that's radioactive.
Rarest, too. Sorry you missed a good pun." She said, "Oh. China has
pretty much the lock on the market, with the best source, a big open
pit mine." I said, "Lots in California. Not producing enough?" She
said, "Right. Same for Canada. It's not the mining that's really the
problem, but the processing. Very difficult and time consuming." I
said, "And it produces radioactive waste. We remove it from governments
for free, but not from private companies. We can do something about
that. And we can improve the processing, but you know it can't really
be kept secret." She said, "Still, better than nothing." I said, "We
can create better recycling methods, too. One problem is scale. They
are using a gigantic open pit mine. Big as half a county. We can't do
that." She said, "True. Know of any other sources?" I said, "New ones?
I'm looking now. Has to be in the US?" She said, "If possible." I said,
"Alright if cold?" She said with a smile, "Alaska?" I said, "Yes.
Antarctica and Greenland, too. Can't access the one in Montana. City
won't like that. You don't want to mess with the one in Yellowstone.
Get a geyser up your butt." She laughed hard. I said, "Biggest useful
undiscovered deposit in this hemisphere is in Mexico. If I tell you
where all those are, will it do any good?" She said, "I see what you
mean. Ramp up time. The government doesn't own and operate mines." I
said, "So what do you actually want from me?"
She said, "Beyond interesting conversation?" I just grinned. She
laughed. She said, "You won't pressure China?" I said, "Nope. But there
is a deposit in Burma that a company is polluting with. You could offer
to help them to assign that to a more responsible US company. A
friendship thing." She said, "Oh! That's a good idea! Right up our
alley." I said, "Bowling for mines. There is another option. We have
assisted some private companies in the past to do progressive things
with our intellectual properties. Solar power products, for instance.
Think I should get to work on that?" She said very seriously, "Yes, I
think you should." Then she grinned. I gave her some information, and
ported to a meeting I called.
Race, Chad, Percy, and Rod where there. I explained the problem. Rod
said, "Been a severe shortage. Hard to recycle from electronics." I
said, "That's one angle to work on. Another is processing the ore. Lots
of chemistry." We looked at Chad. He sighed and said, "I'm mostly
organic." I said, "Well, aren't we all?" I got poked with chuckles. I
said, "I have some ideas." I said some of them, and they looked at me
strangely. Rod said, "Setup would cost. Safety is the main concern.
Acid under high heat and pressure. Wow!" I said "But the possible
yield." He said, "Justified for a pilot plant." Race said, "One of our
mining companies will buy the Mexican deposit. Alaska would be tough to
get environmental approval. We'll apply to State for the Burma project.
Will tell them you sent us. Going to salt the mines?" I said, all
innocent, "Who, me?" More pokes. I said, "With stuff from landfills,
first, to one of our recycling companies." They nodded. Percy said,
"Give us specs on your new recovery techniques? Hey guys, I know him!"
I gave him a crystal. He said, "Our guys are having a little problem
"Seriously, it's not good for your people to depend on me. They NEED
work." Nods. I said, "Ha! No secrets around here!" They laughed,
knowing my students had objected. Race told me which company for Burma.
I passed that on to State. Rod and Percy set up a pilot test plant at
one of our mines in South Africa. It worked too well. I had to add some
more emissions controls and scrubbers, and acid recycling and
reclamation processes. By then, we were already working the Mexican
mine.
I had a meeting with the State rep. I told her the news. She said, "I
thought it would take years!" I said, "You said that too slow." She
laughed. I said, "Full production in the Mexican plant in a few weeks.
Will match China's internal prices, even at a subsidized loss until it
can be made up with volume. We're ready to tackle Alaska. We don't care
to go through the horrible political process. Bribery tastes bad. Tell
them it's a national defense issue. Military electronics made in China
because they don't want to export the materials we need to make it
here? Shove it up their trade imbalance." She grinned said, "I'll pass
that along. Contract bids?" I said, "With our new process, we can
outbid anybody, and with proof. Using them in Mexico and South Africa."
She said, "You could port some from space." I said, "Could, but would
have to falsify records. Not nice." She nodded. She said, "Want
credit?" I said, "Absolutely not! Hostage Tibet." She nodded. She said,
"Do they have a useful deposit?" I said, "Yes. Ecology too fragile to
make it feasible. Yes, there I could extract and refine it my personal
way, and they could sell it, but that's a BAD way to fund a country.
Dad could have done that with astro-gold. Anybody finds out, and the
world's economy is practically destroyed." She said, "Frustrating, but
I understand. They have a good thing going, and it doesn't use
environmental resources. Great work!"
A client came in. I took his file and looked at it. I said, "Oh! One
of those. Hmm, is my computer on..." He grinned. I said, "Quite a
record. Proud of it?" He said, "Of what I did, not that it's on my
record. Get me disapproved?" I said, "Not being proud of your work,
would have." He looked at me in total astonishment. I said, "Why FBI?"
He said, "Condition of my parole." I said, "Did the others of your
group receive the same er, offer?" He said, "No, they didn't." I said,
"Were you told why?" He said, "No. What difference does it make?" I
said, "I'm disappointed in you. Feel the same about code?" He said, "I
get it. A test." I said, "That's what we do here. So?" He thought a
little, and said, "Maybe because I did it for fun and the challenge,
and not for profit or destruction?" I said, "Being that we are doing a
psych evaluation, tell me why you didn't do those other things. Oh,
don't worry, I won't spread it around." He had a strange smile, and
said, "Just didn't feel right." I didn't say anything. He said,
"Alright, I didn't want to hurt anybody." I said, "Wasn't painful, was
it?" He had to chuckle. We did the usual tests. Then I said, "If you
come to work here, how do you think the regular agents will think of
you?" He said, "I already know. Like an immature worm they want to step
on." I said, "Interesting. I'll have to remember that one. Thanks. Oh,
not to use, but to counter." He grinned. I said, "Now, you're a perp.
This little thing makes a world of difference." I fingered my ID. I
said, "Team player. Can you?" He said, "With my peers, yes.
Competitive, too." I said, "You would have to respond to requests.
Demands from impatient agents. Could even be life and death, such as
with child abuse." He said, "This is serious, isn't it." I said, "Very.
I uncovered one case right here. Idiot applied to work here, while his
kidnapped kid was in his hotel room. Cracked his laptop password to get
more evidence. You guys did that. Want respect, you REALLY get that
here for things like that. Er, even if they think you're seriously
odd."
He said, "I never thought of all that. I could make a difference?" I
said, "Absolutely! Er, yes. Well, I have feelings, too." He nodded. I
said, "There are other positions in that department. Ever heard of
cyber warfare?" He said, "Oh! Yes. Really bad, isn't it." I said, "And
getting worse all the time. Our field agents get all the glory, but WE
know there are true heroes who almost never leave their desks, that
this place couldn't function without. Want to be one of them? It's hard
work, NOT play. Pay's not so bad, though." He said, "I didn't want to.
I tried to fail the approval. I changed my mind. Thank you for giving
me that chance." I said, "Is that your round about way of telling me
you want to be a G-Man?" He grinned and said, "Yes." I said, "You know
we're going to investigate you." He said, "I was told that was already
done. They had to excuse some things." I said, "First year, for all,
they get watched and investigated. You mess up, and you get hard time.
It's not a game here. Life and death. Make a big difference here,
though. We all KNOW it's worth it." He said, "I want that more than I
thought I ever could." I said, "We don't tell applicants if they are
approved here. Mostly. Want to know now?" He said, "Please." I said,
"You're approved here. I don't know what kind of list they have, but if
I were you, I wouldn't plan on waiting long. You know it's going to be
tough work, and they'll be testing you constantly with it before
they'll trust you. Handle it?" He said, "I'll do my best!" I said,
"Good. Wouldn't work well if you tried somebody else's best." He had to
laugh. I gave him back his sealed file, highly recommended. I said with
a smile, "They ride you too much, come see me if you need some return
fire ammo. Please take this with you back to personnel." He left with
an interesting mix of emotions.
Ivanna said in contact, "I loved what you did. You turned him from a
delinquent into a G-Man!" I said, "Stupid labels. He's a unique person,
mostly without direction. He didn't think he could have one. All he
could do was play. Didn't grow up. I showed him a direction, including
the challenges. He took it for his own, as if he were looking for it
all his life. Which he didn't know he was. Growing up now. I have to
like that, and that I could help him." She said, "I love you!" I said,
"We all love each other." She said, "It's hard to compliment you." I
said, "Wow! You just figured that out?" She gave me a rude noise and
disconnected. Galya grinned in my mind.
END Page
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++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Grant
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