A Short Story

[geronimo]

Driving through the early morning mist, Craig felt alive. His career as a marketing executive was going very well, he was making a fortune and more importantly, having the time of his life.

 

Craig Jefferson was a product of the multi-level marketing system, starting as a direct salesman in storm windows, he quickly became a top closer and moved onwards and upwards. He was riding high on a wave of positivity, there was no such word as “no” and everything was achievable.

 

He was now regional sales manager for a luxury property developer in the UK and had all the trappings associated with high fliers, Porsche Turbo, six bedroomed house, vacations in St Lucia and so on. Life was pretty good for Craig and he never lost sight of that. As a salesman, Craig was a force to be reckoned with, but his real forte was his ability to pick up on someone and unlock their hidden selling potential.

One time, a few years back, he’d pulled into a tyre shop in his Porsche to have the front wheels balanced. The young black mechanic told him he needed to change the rear tyres and Craig said he’d do that soon.

 

The fitter smiled as he took off one of the huge Pirellis, running his hand over the treaded surface. “Well Sir, I’d say you drive this car the way it should be driven and those shoes ain’t up to a hard drive anymore. I wouldn’t be waiting if I were you! Shame to wreck this baby for some worn out shoes!” he remarked.

 

After being closed on all four wheels, close to 900 quid, Craig got talking to the young man and within six weeks he was earning a fortune selling BMW’s!

Roy Martin, like many others, was a born closer and it only took a person like Craig to see that.

 

Craig was on his way to meet with all his managers, this meant super hype, champagne, lots of cash. The multi-level marketing sales scheme is like a well-oiled machine, everyone is on commission only. The guy at the bottom, or in the front line as I like to call it, is motivated by someone who has just a little more than he does, his area manager. That person, in turn, is also motivated by someone who has a lot more than he does and his job is to make the manager see how he too, could have a lifestyle like this. And so it goes on, each taking a slice of the pie and all of this is paid for by the consumer!

He was preparing for a presentation in Guildford when his keen eye caught something. In hindsight, it was the smallest of things, something that would have slipped by most people. Craig however, was definitely not most people!

 

He liked to film business meetings whenever possible for training purposes. It was the most effective way to train closers. By closely observing body language, the closer had an insight into the client’s mind and more especially, their mood.

 

Prior to the training session, he would trawl through hours of video, looking for examples to highlight.

Craig sat riveted as he watched a video of the previous month’s sales meeting, a typically booze fueled, hyper environment, designed to feed the growing ego’s he’d so carefully cultivated.  Craig suddenly grabbed the remote and rewound a few seconds, doing so again and again, unable to comprehend what he’d seen!

 

There were about 15 guys stood around the buffet table and to the left, away in the corner, at the back of the room, Jack Finchley was pouring himself a drink and as he turned away, the glass momentarily left his hand and froze in midair. Jack quickly looked around before plucking it out of the air and everything continued as normal.

 

Craig’s mind raced, How could this be? He went to rewind the tape again but stopped. He’d seen it enough times to know what he witnessed. It only lasted a second or two, in the bottom left hand of the screen and if you weren’t really looking, it would pass you by.

His mind raced as he tried to analyse this. After a few days of pondering he decided to seek some advice.

He thought carefully about the people he worked with and chose Steve Marsh. There was a level of trust between them and he was sincere enough.

“What the <deleted>………” Steve said shaking his head in disbelief. “How’d he do that?”

“What other things is he capable of I wonder” he added.

Come to think of it, I remember seeing him open Dave’s car door, left the keys inside, well you know what a plonker Dave is” Steve announced.

“None of us actually saw him open it, kind of like, there it was!” he held open his arms.

“You saw the tape” I added,

“Yes I saw it, and to be quite honest, it’s a bit freaky!” came the reply.

Over the next few days, three more people had been invited in to this special discussion. Craig felt it important to involve a few healthy young minds to bounce this around and see where it might lead! Things kind of took hold of him, perhaps there’d been lacking a certain challenge in his work of late, so he immersed himself in this project, as he liked to call it. He had a big wall chart with different aspects, pictures of Jack Finchley, basic information known to the group, all the things they had amassed on this man. Nigel and his wife were invited mainly because his wife was a sci fi buff and they in turn had told Ruth, who brought her boyfriend along. Before long there were seven of them.

 

“Perhaps he can just stop time, you know, everything, while we just walk into a bank strongroom and empty it!” Nigel enthused.

“OK, So as I see it, we agree to invite Jack to Ron’s house, on the pretext of a birthday party, and then we observe him. This might lead to a confrontation, in which case we join together and show him the film! If, on the other hand, the evening ends without incident, we pool our resources and have a meeting tomorrow to discuss further action. Are we all clear?” Craig reviewed.

 

They were to ensure that Jack had no access to any weapons, although it seemed he didn’t need any! They also went to great lengths to make sure that no one else would turn up unexpectedly and that everything was at hand, should it be needed!

The day of the party had arrived, Craig was busy attaching the hidden cams around the house and there was an air of excitement as they waited for Jack to turn up.

 

Jack Finchley was largely unknown to the group, having only started working with them a month or so before. Apparently just walked in to a showroom and asked how to get involved in the Sales side. An amicable guy in his mid-thirties, Jack had some experience in Timeshare in Florida, at least that’s what he told the team.

 

“Here he is” Someone shouted, as the headlights swished across the walls. Everyone went about doing normal things as Jack walked through the door,

“Figured I had the right place” he smiled, a bottle of expensive scotch under his arm.

They exchanged small talk while snacking on pate and toast. Ruth had been given the task of watching him eat and drink, looking for anything out of the ordinary.

 

“So how long have you lived in this part of the world”? She asked Jack.

“Oh, I just moved here from Wales, Cardiff was my home for the past two years” Jack replied, raising his glass.

Throughout the course of the evening, quite a lot of questions were being thrown Jack’s way, which he answered convincingly enough and all seemed to be going along without any problems. To the untrained eye, it looked very much like Jack was being invited into a new circle of friends, nothing odd in that!

The evening ended soon enough and after everyone said their goodbyes, Craig was on the phone, recapping all the data they had got during the night. The next morning, he emailed the team, delegating different people to check out aspects of Jack’s story. Everything checked out!

Nothing untoward had occurred during the course of the evening and curiosity was fuelling Craig’s mind.

They had a meeting the following week and it was decided that they would take this a step further. They were going to drug Jack, restrain him and then confront him with the video clip when he woke up. After a lot of discussion it was decided that this was the safest thing to do. Nigel was the one entrusted with spiking Jack’s drinks and he had procured a tasteless, colourless and odourless substance that would render anyone unconscious within the hour! Jack was to be given a glass that was distinctive, to prevent any mishaps!

 

The room had been prepared and Jack was to be strapped to a chair in front of a computer screen, which would then show the clip while he was restrained by the thick leather straps.

“Any questions, people”? Craig shouted as they prepared again for the target’s arrival.

“What if he doesn’t show”? Steve asks.

“Of course he’ll show, remember the Charlie we said we’d have”? someone replied.

They all smiled as they did a line.

Jack’s arrival was perfectly on cue, as he walked in the door, Craig was upstairs, walking around the bedroom, practicing his speech,

“So, you see, one of us is indeed very different to the rest of the people in this room tonight, and this is our little way of showing that………..”

Laughter and intense conversation followed, lots of drinking and snorting coke left Craig a little blurred as he tried to keep track of Jack’s drinks. Then he remembered walking to the bathroom, Ron’s house was big and it seemed to take forever. Then oblivion,

Craig awoke to find himself strapped to the chair,

Jack’s curious gaze came into view,

 

“So, you see, one of us is indeed very different to the rest of the people in this room tonight, and this is our little way of showing that” he said.

Horror encircled him as he heard his own words. Craig looked at the others one by one, they all had this knowing look on their faces as they looked at him.

He tried desperately to comprehend what was happening, when he suddenly felt an overwhelming feeling of calmness, the others walked over and unbuckled the straps, releasing his heavy body. He could not move. Like someone had turned the power off!

Jack sat across from Craig and began to speak,

 

“What you noticed was a mistake on my part, nevertheless you persisted out of curiosity mainly and here we are! It is not me who is different in this room Craig, but rather you. There has been a de-population program going on for a decade now, all part of an agreement between your people and ours. We are all a working part of that program and our goal is almost achieved”

 

“Your goal” Craig muttered.

 

“Humanity found us, or should I say it the other way round, and we quickly established a mutual relationship. What we brought to the table was the technology which was eons from where you currently were, and more importantly the knowledge about where you were heading. Once we convinced those in power of what was going to happen, they agreed to explore the possibility of saving the planet. Massive immediate depopulation was the only way to go. It was decided that the best way to achieve this was to take people at random, leaving behind a morphed life cell to continue to operate as normal. Effectively that person’s energy has returned to the cosmos”

 

“Where it would have returned to anyway” he added, reading my next question.

“So, you’ve been killing people off for the last ten years?” I said.

 

“Yes and very effectively I might add! To date, the actual current human population is actually a little over 650 million, a little higher than we wanted, but we’ll be finished soon and then we’ll leave you to get on with things” He added.

 

Ruth walked over and she continued,

 

“The one thing about your species is its inability to remove the traits of greed, aggression and envy from the gene pool. This has always been a barrier to further development but would have come if there had been time”

“What do you mean”? Craig quizzed,

 

“The insatiable demands upon the natural resources were going to create an event which would result in the destruction of the planet, and all life on it! The human population needed to be brought down to an acceptable level and then, provided certain fundamental changes take place, the future looks good for humanity and all the other things that exist here.” She explained.

 

“There have been others, who have seen things like you did, so we just recruit them into the program” Jack came back in.

“Where do you come from”? Craig asked the inevitable,

Jack smiled,

 

“Where do any of us come from? The universe, or rather your understanding of it, is very limited. Let’s just say that there are more universes than grains of sand in the Sahara. Life is abundant and you are very backward compared to most life forms. There are several we have encountered that have no physical presence, no matter to speak of. In all the life forms we have encountered, we have never seen a life form that is at the top of the food chain yet seems determined to destroy its own habitat! You are the first!”

 

“What do you get from all this?” Craig’s mind was sharpening,

“Well let’s say it’s an energy thing. When you die, your energy returns to the cosmos and we channel lots of that and use it where we live. We are actually your saviours and not a moment too soon it would appear”

 

“I still don’t really understand, are you going to kill me”? Craig asked.

 

“You will be free to do whatever you please. This day is the day of your total liberation and you will always remember that” Ruth spoke.

“So, if I decided to walk out of here and visit the police, that would be ok”? Craig asked.

Jack smiled and shrugged his shoulders,

 

“Of course, be my guest. But think first what it is you are going to tell and then think very hard about who you are going to tell it to!” he advised.

“Are you going to take the risk that I might go to the authorities”? Craig insisted.

Jack placed his hands on his lap and explained a few things,

 

“The authorities, are we talking about the same authority that we are working with? Yes, the very same! Save yourself the trouble young man.

Whatever strange naïve ideals you hold regarding your government and their intentions will not detract from the fact that the human race is becoming uncontrollable. Technology is making it worse, the situation is fast becoming unmanageable. We ran a simulation of what would happen if nothing was done to intervene. Within a few decades, natural resources had run so low that the precious economy, which had propped up the capitalist system for so long, finally came crashing down. A state of worldwide anarchy immediately followed. Millions were killed in the ensuing riots and conflicts, spawning disease and eventually nuclear war as the major players fought over the rest. Our intervention led to the sitting down of all the big players and a frank discussion of the possible options to what had become obvious to them all.

 

The only solution was to de-populate the planet. It needed to be fast, within two years so the perfect system was put into place, individuals were taken over by recelling, a technology you aren’t aware of yet. In short the subject would appear to all intents and purposes as the person he or she is, however there is no substance, or spirit as you call it. All of the billions we have already planted are programmed to disintegrate at a given time in the future, leaving about 500 million humans left alive. From then on, breeding will be a criminal offence, punishable by death. Those remaining will be forced into a life of servitude and selected breeding will establish a race of beings that are ready for the advancements we will give them.”

The enormity of what was said gripped Craig. He knew that mankind had too much knowledge for his own good, yet had never anticipated anything like this.

“So, all of you, with the exception of myself, are actually not human anymore” he challenged.

 

“That is correct” They all replied together.

 

“Come now Craig, I understand what you are going through. This self preservation thing, it’s so strong in all life forms. It has to be otherwise you would not survive. Some of your scientists, Charles Darwin in particular, were right on the button regarding life and its origins. The you, that is you, will cease to be you very soon. One person’s lifespan is but a nano micro second in the big picture. We offer you a chance to become part of the future of this planet Craig, your cosmic energy will be used to create something positive and your fellow humans will go on to eventually discover what is actually out there”

“Ok. Supposing I agree to this. When does it happen”?

 

“It already has Craig. You are already responding as a recelled entity” Jack announced.

[Peterw42]

Is this some sort of explanation for Yinn's meteoric rise to POTY ???

[geronimo]

Just now, Peterw42 said:

Is this some sort of explanation for Yinn's meteoric rise to POTY ???

JT is the recelled entity .....

[sipi]

A short story?

It took me 5 minutes to scroll it.

I'll try again tomorrow.

[White Christmas13]

Yes were is she? no post whats so ever

[473geo]

8 minutes ago, White Christmas13 said:

Yes were is she? no post whats so ever

Pay attention in her thank you post, she announced no posting/Tvisa for a week to chill and relax after POTY

[sirineou]

And the winner LOOPY  Longest Op of the year goes to Geronymo ????

[White Christmas13]

2 minutes ago, 473geo said:

Pay attention in her thank you post, she announced no posting/Tvisa for a week to chill and relax after POTY

So she migrated then?????

[White Christmas13]

2 minutes ago, sirineou said:

And the winner LOOPY  Longest Op of the year goes to Geronymo ????

[sipi]

I've worked with a few Craig's.

[canuckamuck]

The takeaway is that re-celled entities make top drawer sales staff. I think the same is true for lawyers.