GIBBS

 

Friday January 10 - 2024 Pacific Standard Time

Five days until Turbocharger activates

 

Pierce Carver, U.S. Senator and head of the Senate Transient Affairs Committee, was one of the most powerful men in Washington. He had the ear of the President and held the purse strings on the largest of America's clandestine "black budgets". The gullible fool was also eating out of my hand like a pet.

Well, technically it was one of my servants that was feeding the old goat. My white tuxedo wearing staff were making the rounds filling the guests full of champagne and little sandwiches made from imported Wagyu beef. Someone told me the little finger sandwiches cost about forty-five dollars a piece. The guests were inhaling them though, so it was worth the cost. I certainly wasn't crying over the price tag because Senator Carver had pulled out all the stops to bring in the big league from both industry and government.

He'd even brought along his toy soldier Doug Basser, the general in charge of the CTTC. I could relate to Doug, he was ambitious and successful at his chosen career like me. Though he wasted his talent on public service. Doug would have made an excellent executive at one of my companies, and he might anyway once he retired in a few years. It was one of the concessions I had made with Pierce for his support.

There was so much fame and political muscle in the house that two different TV networks had sent crews to cover the reception. You know your party has star power when reporters show up to film it. I'd even managed to get some screen time with the News Seven crew alongside the head of the state's environmental caucus. The clown doing the interview—David Scott I think his name was, never heard of him before—must have been new. It was cake to maneuver the line of questions into my home territory. I've given this particular speech so often that it was no sweat on my part to give the rookie reporter canned answers on how many jobs I'd created in the state, or how I've lowered the carbon footprint with my green industries.

It was all a gas. Not that any of it was technically untrue. But the real moneymakers for Verdant Global Industries were my government contracts, not the green mumbo jumbo. That was thanks in no small part to Pierce Carver's work behind the scenes. He'd been skeptical at first, but after I brought in Lucius for a consult, Pierce saw the light. Personally, I'd been a scholar of exotic phenomenon for some time but it was loose change compared to Lucius. He'd had a lot of practical experience with it. He also had a way with persuasion. When he spoke people listened.

Since then I'd gotten billions in contracts for construction in support of the government's Slipstream project. And it was mostly just a huge stroke of luck. Had I known the government was into exotic phenomenon like me I would have gotten involved sooner, but it just fell into my lap. Now I just needed to find a way to move some of the artifacts from their vault in Utah into my own collection. That kind of large scale movement of high value assets wouldn't be easy. The feds hated parting with property, but with enough time and nudges in the right direction even the bureaucracy could be enticed into considering the removal of some "excess" inventory. All it took was a few years of steady good will and putting the bug in the right ears. I could do that.

"And why on earth do you have a…whatever its called? You don't strike me as a man that's into agriculture." Carver was pointing his champagne glass at one of my glass display cases. It was one of the larger full length displays. Inside was the Silver Scythe of Alalakh, which as you can imagine looked like the farming implement. What wasn't obvious to the casual observer was that the blade's gleam and sharpness wasn't something added after archaeologists had dug it up from Hittite ruins. They found it just like that. Even after thousands of years under the desert it could still slice paper. Another odd quality it had was that dust didn't cling to the rune encrusted blade or the weapon's shaft. And yes it was a weapon.

According to legend it belonged to some mysterious being that came after nightfall to cull the weak and infirm. Usually the legends were right about this stuff. I would love to have seen this thing in action…from a safe distance of course. This being must have been off the scale in exotic power because even today the Geiger counters simply went nuts around the Silver Scythe. What made it all even more exciting was the imprint on its shaft. There were wear marks where hands had gripped it, but there were gaps in the wear tracks where finger joints should have been. It made the grooves look as if they were carved out by skeletal fingers. Can you believe that? Whatever wielded this fantastic weapon probably inspired the myth of the Grim Reaper.

The king's ransom I'd paid for the Silver Scythe was worth every last dollar.

"Of course not. You know me better than that, Pierce. This was a weapon. If you'd like we can take a look at the khopesh I have up on the mezzanine."

It took Pierce a moment to process that. That man could not hold his champagne. But as long as he stayed coherent enough to introduce me to more of his influential friends, he could have whatever he wanted from my wine cellar.

"Remind me what a 'khopesh' is again, Mister Gibbs?" Honestly, Doug Basser was a little slow on the uptake, but he looked good in his blue uniform with a chest full of medals.

"It's a type of sword popular in Egypt between 1300 and 3000 B.C.E. Fascinating specimen I have upstairs."

As long as he was near me when the reporters filmed us I didn't mind the stupid questions. When my campaign started I needed exposure with him to show the public I "support our men and women in uniform". That went over well with voters according to my PR staff.

As I guided Carver and Basser up the steps to the mezzanine floor we passed one of the senator's friends who sat on the board of the state's largest manufacturing and freight workers' unions. I got his business card out of the conversation we had, along with a promise to set up a meeting with his friends for a discussion about financing my bid for the senate. Cronyism was not yet dead. It was good to have someone like Carver at my side.

We managed to get to the case for the Khopesh of Eannatum without Pierce tripping over his own feet. But before I could ramble off my knowledge of the sword, someone began shouting downstairs.

Basser's bald head turned at the sudden commotion, his military instincts were kicking in. "What the hell is that?"

A pair of my plainclothes guards from Praetorian had surrounded one of the News Seven camera techs. The newsie was throwing a tantrum about something they'd said to him. That was really odd to me. I thought they had thoroughly vetted all the guests.