Jacob walked off the ship, followed by Bob. The soldiers who had decided to return to Earth agreed to stick around until they dropped off Min-Jun and to help keep an eye on their alien guest.
To say the Korean entrepreneur was upset would be an understatement. The man had to be sequestered to his cabin before they even took off, because he tried to access a part of the ship he wasn’t authorized to access. It was one of the soldiers who had spotted the man and followed him.
Jacob had no idea what the man planned to do if he gained access to the engineering space. He probably wanted to disable the ship and delay his return.
The joke’s on him; Jacob erased all of the man’s digital storage because of that little stunt. He even flooded the man’s room with a sleep agent and made sure he didn’t miss any hidden devices, which was a good thing. The man had more than one secret storage device squirreled away on his person.
Considering how shifty the man had been on the station, Jacob wasn’t surprised to find him in possession of spy devices.
Jacob had compared the devices to the intelligence archives he had stolen while on Earth the last time, and they matched up with some old soviet era spy tech. He doubted Min-Jun worked for Russia, but he wouldn’t put it past the man working for the North Koreans.
When the ship arrived in South Korea, there would be a few people from interested parties within the South Korean government there to question Min-Jun. The search was sure to turn up the hidden devices on the man’s person. Those devices would be blank, since Jacob removed the actual analog media from the devices.
When Jacob had first looked for people to recruit, the man’s credentials had seemed good. There was nothing that stood out as suspect, and the man’s attitude had been cordial. That all changed on the station.
It was a stark reminder that information could be falsified. He would take far more time vetting anyone else he brought back. As for volunteers, well, he had no shortage of those.
During the landing, the White House staff had forwarded Jacob a website that someone claiming to be him had set up. That person was charging ten thousand dollars per person to reserve a spot aboard the ship during their next visit.
Over forty thousand people had paid the price and signed up on the page.
Jacob sighed.
“Is something wrong?” Bob asked as he glanced around at the security detail nervously.
“Oh, it’s not about them. I expected security,” Jacob gestured to the soldiers who made a rough circle around the ship to keep onlookers away. “It’s nothing you need to worry about, just some bullshit I need to take care of before we depart.”
“Oh,” Bob replied.
It wasn’t even all that big of an issue. Jacob had already located the scammers. They were overseas, but he could have the combat bot there within a few hours to deal with them. That would stop this scam, but it wouldn’t stop the next or the next or the next, so Jacob decided to send a much stronger message.
He first bricked all their hardware remotely, then he emptied the bank accounts of anyone even tangentially involved in the scheme. After that, he routed the money through a thousand different companies and banks to make the trail impossible to follow. Once that was complete, he erased the bank’s records of their accounts having ever existed. By the time the bank sorted out that mess, the money would be long gone.
Jacob could have returned the money to the rightful owners, but if you were dumb enough to believe paying ten grand for a trip into space, without verifying who was making the offer, was a smart financial choice, you would probably lose your money another way.
So instead, Jacob distributed the money to a bunch of worthy charities. Finding charities that did actual charity work instead of lining the pockets of their CEO’s was actually more difficult than stealing the scammers’ money.
He finished all that before they arrived at the limo, which was waiting for them just inside the security cordon.
“Captain Jacob. Once you and your associate are situated, we will bring you directly to the White House, where the President is waiting.”
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Bob stepped into the large SUV, his eyes exploring the opulent interior. Jacob just grumbled. “This would have been quicker if we could have appeared above the White House.”
The Secret Service driver gave a strained smile at that, but did not comment.
The airport was across town, but it’s amazing what a full motorcade could do. They cleared the roads, and they arrived at the White House in under ten minutes.
President McConnell was waiting to greet them. “Captain Jacob. Glad to have you back. And this must be your friend, Mr. –”
“Could you just call me Bob?”
“Certainly, Bob,” the president replied without missing a beat. “We have a lot to discuss, so why don’t you two follow me?”
“I assume this discussion will touch on the fact that I can’t transition to the surface?”
The president made no outward reaction to the words, but his heart rate did spike for a moment, probably because Jacob’s tone had been one of annoyance.
“I sincerely apologize for that, but certain things have changed while you were away. Among those was a new UN charter concerning alien interactions and data security.”
Jacob didn’t even attempt to hide the snort. “The UN? They are functionally useless. Why would you or anyone care what they think?”
“Technically, you are correct. The UN is an even more bloated bureaucratic cesspool than the US government, myself excluded, of course.”
“Of course,” Jacob agreed doubtfully.
Instead of taking offence, McConnell chuckled. “Fair enough. As I was saying, the UN might be functionally useless, but they still hold a lot of sway. Which means even the President of the United States has to play along to a certain extent.”
“Where are you going with all this?” Jacob asked, ignoring Bob, who kept glancing over as he grilled the president.
From his friend’s perspective, it probably looked extremely out of character for Jacob. And if he were the same man who had never left Earth, it would have been, but not anymore.
It was also quite easy not to care how people perceived your words when you knew there was nothing they could do about anything you said or did. Jacob could have done pretty much anything he wanted on Earth the last time he was there. He hadn’t done that then, and wouldn’t do it in the future because he wasn’t some monster or tyrant.
The only time he had gotten aggressive was when people in positions of power, either in governments or the civilian sector, had decided they had the upper hand. He quickly disabused them of that notion.
“I suppose what I’m getting at is that the US can’t act as a silo against any possible alien aggression. The UN is still working to pass its ridiculous charter, and likely will for years to come, but just the fact that it was introduced goes to show that people are terrified. In an effort to cut through all the red tape, the nations you visited to spread this new technology have all agreed to come together to form a new governmental entity. One designed to rapidly apply the technological innovations into something that can protect us from what’s out there.”
Jacob rolled his eyes at that. Their efforts would probably bear fruit for a few decades before this new entity also grew slow and bureaucratic, becoming just another overfunded, underperforming governmental resource hog. He chose to keep that opinion to himself, however.
“And this is how Earth developed the technology to stop my ship from transitioning to the surface?”
“Correct. I apologize for not notifying you of that, but the scientists involved in the project said they needed data untainted by prior knowledge of the subspace shield.”
“Shield?” Jacob asked.
“It’s not an actual shield. That’s just the name that garnered the most approval. The scientists relayed all the technical jargon to me, but I’ll admit I zoned out halfway through their explanation. If you’d like to know more, I’m sure one of them will be more than happy to talk your ear off about it.”
“You’re not going to keep the information to yourself?” Jacob asked in genuine surprise.
McConnell smiled. “If it had been up to me, the data would be top-secret, hidden behind the strongest firewalls our great government can produce, but it wasn’t.”
“This new entity,” Jacob guessed.
“Precisely. There was a vote, and those in favor of sharing the information with you barely won out over those who wanted to keep it from you. It was the fact that you might be able to help improve the technology that finally secured the few swing votes needed. Not that it would have mattered much had it gone the other way,” McConnell added.
The president wasn’t wrong about that. He had just been experimenting with his new AI-enhanced powers the last time he was on Earth, and he had expanded on those quite a bit since then. Their so-called strongest firewalls were little more than tissue paper. They would have better luck putting the information on actual tissue paper and hiding it from him that way.
The three of them entered a meeting room, and a few familiar faces stood, with one exception. Alana Brown remained seated, her usual cold demeanor on full display.
Jacob ignored her and shook Nathaniel Stern’s hand.
“Welcome back to Earth,” the NASA scientist greeted enthusiastically. “I see you got an upgrade.”
The man was pointing at Jacob’s face.
The man had a devious look of amusement in his eye before he spoke. “While I didn’t mind the previous model, as staring at an unchanging face has become the norm for me lately.”
Jacob couldn’t help but snort and glance over at Alana, who looked even more stoic after Nathaniel’s words.
After the amusement faded, Nathaniel continued. “But this does make reading your expressions much easier.”
Jacob also greeted Sergei and Elena Volk, but ignored Alana, much to the chagrin of the president. Alana didn’t seem to care one way or another about being left out of the greetings.
“Are we done with this waste of time?” she asked. “I have better things to spend my time on than watching a bunch of idiots make small talk and crude insults.”
Jacob could practically hear the president’s blood pressure spike at the woman’s words. He gestured to everyone to sit, then turned the meeting over to Nathaniel.