Ms Parker

Abigail Parker stood pack and watched the arrogant macho asshole who stole her promotion because of what dangled between his legs as despite what the man thought it was NOT his brains that landed here it was that the Company was VERY MUCH still a male driven company since Tessa Nolan, the TRUE genius behind how the Company had been able to backwards engineer alien technology that for four decades now had given them an edge over every single company in the planet.

They had current touch screen cellphones when the rest of society was just starting to use large and clunky flip cellphones.

They had late 90s laptops back in the early 70s

And back when the Company was founded in 1961 they had 1980s level of home personal computers.

That was all the tip of the technological iceberg with the Company. And it all traced despite what the Board likes to tell everyone in the Company and those few outsiders that got to see the first two levels of the Company about who was to thank for it all.

The ‘public’ face for the success and founding of the Company was with three men as those three had erased the true architect technologically for the Company.

There was NO mention of Tessa at all. Not just in the Company, but out in the real world too. Records of her birth, education, working for the CIA and later for what would become the Company had all been erased!

The only reason that Abigail knew if her was that her mother had been the original head of the secretary pool back in 1961 and raised Abigail on tales of the woman’s genius.

Ever since joining the Company 30 years ago Abigail had been very quietly and very careful looking into what became of Tessa.

The woman had allowed the Company to forget about her by 1963 as she spent most her time in her lab hard at work. By 1967 she was forgotten by all but her three co-founders and a half a dozen backers for the Company. When she popped up in 1970 making waves about money she was owed and the way the Company was run things got nasty and in 1971, a decade after creating the Company she was gone.

No one knew or cared as she left behind a treasure trove of inventions, a few dozen complete, twice as many half done and hundreds more baseline ideas for even more items that remained stalled for decades before scientists hired by the Company could complete Tessa’s work.

Abigail was one of the few that knew WHY the Board wanted Pickpocket. It wasn’t about the money he stole, the Sim-Suit he was wearing, the leaking of incriminating files to the public it was for the Sphere.

The Sphere was Tessa’s greatest creation, a mental copy of her genius infused to the AI she had created in 1968 that was still decades more advance that anything currently.

For decades the Company had access to 12% of the Sphere’s AI and 25% of Tessa’s unfinished designs and completed ones that was the corner stone of the Company.

Pickpocket has somehow accessed 80% of the AI.

The Company WANTED that access as much as they wanted the Sphere and Tessa’s work.

“Sir the teams are ready,” Abigail stated when her pad informed her of their request to report to McCormick.

-0-

Ethan turned and nodded at his secretary. She was far too OLD for him and he had no less than six replacements lined up once the mission was over.

The Old Hag thought she was smart not tripping any alerts on digging into Tessa Nolan, a spiteful scientist from the early days of the Company.

He didn’t have access to files in this Tessa Nolan, all he knew was she was hidden by the Board. Ethan could guess why. The silly cow no doubt tried to use her sex to advance her career then cried foul when she didn’t get what she wanted.

Money!

She pushed and the Board silenced her and from what little he had gleamed from files he COULD access she had vanished back in late 1971.

He pushed thoughts of both women from his mind and grabbed the tablet from the Old Hag.

The screen showed the leader of Team Five, the first of two heavy armored agents assigned should they be needed to take Pickpocket down.

The screen showed his old Army Ranger buddy, Jeff Campbell.

Jeff was a 6’3” tall man with a brown flat top and matching brown eyes the same age as Ethan. He was sort of like a brown haired version of Bo Duke from that old 70s show his Dad always raved about.

“Ready for the call,” Jeff said with a cocky grin on his face.

Ethan nodded and tapped the screen to bring up the leader of the second armored team, Cole Decker.

Cole was his replacement for the chick that had been running Team Six, Claire Johnson.

Decker was a tad thick headed in that classic Dumb Jock sort of way, but he was good at taking orders and very, very loyal to Ethan.

“Team Six Locked and Loades!” The overdone bodybuilder of a goon said with a smirk on his face.

Ethan nodded and tapped the pad again, this time bringing up Tom Smith.

Smith was a 6’ man with a bland face, balck hair and blue eyes who never smiled or showed emotion. He was all business, which was fine but he was also a VERY BY THE BOOK type that I’d things got dicey could be an issue for Ethan.

The man’s blank face looked up at him, clear images of the square and crowds behind him.

“My people stand ready Supervisor,” Smith said flatly. The man was running the three four men field teams undercover in the crowd.

Ethan nodded and handed the tablet back to the Old Hag. He w stepped back to the microphone and hit the button to speak.