Now that Liedecker is aware of the mounting consequences of his actions, he has no choice but to come to the table with Wosniak. The meeting they have will change his life forever. Continue reading
Vincent’s plan succeeds, but can he manage to keep his composure as the consequences of his actions begin to mount? Continue reading
Two months after his father’s death, Vincent sets in motion his plan for vengeance. And the first step is going among mad people. Continue reading
Vincent mourns the loss of his father and begins to think of methods of vengeance. Continue reading
February 2044
The light of day was quietly dying and the lights of the city were winking on to greet the night.
Wosniak was growing impatient, waiting in the sunken parking garage of one of his legitimate holdings beside a small fleet of vans whose markings indicated that they belonged to a carpet cleaning service. They were a loner from the holdings of a late ally in the organization. One of many late allies.
He hated to admit it, but the brash young man had been right: they were losing this war, and he wasn’t sure that even the next step in military technology would pull them back from the brink.
It was an idea that haunted him on a nearly constant basis in recent days. This wasn’t the first time that proper organized crime had been in danger, crowded out and outperformed by less nuanced gangs or infiltrated and crumbled to dust by police forces.
The mafia no longer existed, if only because they no longer used that word. But the organization was in just as much danger now as its predecessors were. Suggestions had been made that allying with criminal syndicates in other cities could save the fifty … Continue reading
February 2044
She at alone at a lab table, eyes flitting between three monitors and her own portable computer as the results of a battery of microscopic scans were broadcast to her from apparatus in other areas of the lab.
All of her focus was directed on her task; analyzing, documenting and evaluating the performance of surgically implanted devices in frogs, designed to boost the efficiency and strength of their leg muscles. It was a focus not simply born out of a desire to do good work, but out of a passion for her field.
It was a boundless and overflowing passion that drove her to pontificate on it the finer points of neuromuscular interfacing, nano-matrices, and nerve splicing to anyone that would listen.
He didn’t understand any of it, but Vincent loved to listen to her for hours. For a few long minutes, he just leaned in the doorway and watched her work. But this wasn’t the time for dawdling, he needed to move quickly if he was going to get everything done that needed it.
“Ya know, you’re even more beautiful when you’re being intense, darlin’.”
Isabelle Cummings reluctantly tore her gaze away from her work. A hint … Continue reading
September 2043
John C. Liedecker wasn’t one of the founders of Dayspring College. The place had been a small friendly four year college that fit its name and not much up for twenty years before John Liedecker moved from Memphis to Mayfield to be near his holdings.
It was Liedecker, however, that jumpstarted the tidal wave of funding that made Dayspring into a large, serious college with nationally competitive programs and transformed Mayfield from a town with a college to a college town.
A favorite anecdote was that Liedecker’s first donation, the one that paid for the construction and furnishing of the D. Hong Center for Robotics in full, was made on the same day his first child was born.
Another favorite was that despite donating an average of a residence building a year, not a single building on campus was named for him because he didn’t stand on such things.
Both were true. What it boiled down to was that when John Liedecker talked about investing in his children’s future, he meant it in the most literal sense. The only favor he received for his generosity was a significant reduction in cost when his first born decided to attend … Continue reading
