Read Online Dry Ice by Bill Evans, Marianna Jameson - Free Book Online
Authors: Bill Evans, Marianna Jameson
Ads: Link
larger experiments that were then tested, but never letting anyone know that he was forming a larger, much different, focus. He’d heard too many stories—some real, some probably not—of how badly the government had treated Tesla, and the tales resonated too closely with his own experiences. He wasn’t about to squander his genius.
Then Croyden Flint offered him the opportunity to devise the master plan for a new weather research installation, the first of its kind. The old man had promised him everything he’d ever wanted, if Greg would create a system that enabled Flint to exploit agricultural markets by controlling the ultimate means of production: regional weather on a global scale.
Greg had accepted the offer without hesitation, and he’d delivered the goods on time. After two high-intensity years spent planning and five more spent building and testing every aspect of the installation, the results had been perfect, inflating the wildest dreams of the executives and bringing to fruition Flint’s three-generation quest for market domination. Then, a year ago, TESLA, fully operational and completely flawless, had been given the go-ahead to come on line.
The executives, immensely proud that their investment had been worthwhile, viewed themselves without irony as the most magnanimous of corporate stewards. By moving high and low pressure systems around the world, by stopping, starting, and diverting storms, TESLA allowed Flint AgroChemical to moderate rainfall, relieving pressure on critical water supplies. Delusions of godlike grandeur had the executives directing Greg’s team to stave off floods and droughts, saving lives and reversing desertification. All the while, they crowed privately to themselves and one another about their ability to enhance sustainable worldwide agricultural food production.
By diminishing the awesome power of cyclonic storms, the executives saw their actions as selfless opportunities to give battered populations and economies a chance to recover and rebuild. Of course, Flint made huge profits every step of the way. From betting on weather-related outcomes in the stock market, to increasing sales of seed and the pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers required to make genetically modified crops grow, to buying and selling those perfect crops grown under perfect conditions, the executives took advantage of every possible mechanism to reap their just rewards.
The chairman, who had always understood the larger perspective, saw to it that the company reaped the unjust rewards as well. Croyden took a great deal of pleasure in the downfall of Flint’s competition as his enemies lost ships full of goods to storms at sea, as their crops and customers were lost to the capriciousness of nature, when prices for their primary crops went into freefall as markets suffered from surpluses due to weather that was too good to be true.
TESLA’s atmospheric “adjustments,” as Croyden liked to call them, were untraceable, and the operations were conducted so neatly and at such a distance from the firm’s Connecticut headquarters, that they quickly became mundane; the consistently perfect outcomes came to be viewed as simply the well-deserved return on a $250 million investment in “agricultural research,” as Flint’s public relations machine modestly described it.
Greg’s Pentagon visitor had warned him that the executives—that band of pathetic profiteers—wanted to oust him. Greg had dismissed the warning as a ploy; months went by in peace, months in which Greg worked for two masters, sometimes for the same ends, sometimes for opposite results. And then it happened. Flint had begun making noise about “bringing him home.” He’d pushed back, of course, and that had ended the conversation. Until today, until a moment ago, when Croyden told him flatly that they were bringing him off the Ice, transferring him to the warmth of the corporate offices overlooking the Long Island Sound, where he
Then Croyden Flint offered him the opportunity to devise the master plan for a new weather research installation, the first of its kind. The old man had promised him everything he’d ever wanted, if Greg would create a system that enabled Flint to exploit agricultural markets by controlling the ultimate means of production: regional weather on a global scale.
Greg had accepted the offer without hesitation, and he’d delivered the goods on time. After two high-intensity years spent planning and five more spent building and testing every aspect of the installation, the results had been perfect, inflating the wildest dreams of the executives and bringing to fruition Flint’s three-generation quest for market domination. Then, a year ago, TESLA, fully operational and completely flawless, had been given the go-ahead to come on line.
The executives, immensely proud that their investment had been worthwhile, viewed themselves without irony as the most magnanimous of corporate stewards. By moving high and low pressure systems around the world, by stopping, starting, and diverting storms, TESLA allowed Flint AgroChemical to moderate rainfall, relieving pressure on critical water supplies. Delusions of godlike grandeur had the executives directing Greg’s team to stave off floods and droughts, saving lives and reversing desertification. All the while, they crowed privately to themselves and one another about their ability to enhance sustainable worldwide agricultural food production.
By diminishing the awesome power of cyclonic storms, the executives saw their actions as selfless opportunities to give battered populations and economies a chance to recover and rebuild. Of course, Flint made huge profits every step of the way. From betting on weather-related outcomes in the stock market, to increasing sales of seed and the pesticides, herbicides, and fertilizers required to make genetically modified crops grow, to buying and selling those perfect crops grown under perfect conditions, the executives took advantage of every possible mechanism to reap their just rewards.
The chairman, who had always understood the larger perspective, saw to it that the company reaped the unjust rewards as well. Croyden took a great deal of pleasure in the downfall of Flint’s competition as his enemies lost ships full of goods to storms at sea, as their crops and customers were lost to the capriciousness of nature, when prices for their primary crops went into freefall as markets suffered from surpluses due to weather that was too good to be true.
TESLA’s atmospheric “adjustments,” as Croyden liked to call them, were untraceable, and the operations were conducted so neatly and at such a distance from the firm’s Connecticut headquarters, that they quickly became mundane; the consistently perfect outcomes came to be viewed as simply the well-deserved return on a $250 million investment in “agricultural research,” as Flint’s public relations machine modestly described it.
Greg’s Pentagon visitor had warned him that the executives—that band of pathetic profiteers—wanted to oust him. Greg had dismissed the warning as a ploy; months went by in peace, months in which Greg worked for two masters, sometimes for the same ends, sometimes for opposite results. And then it happened. Flint had begun making noise about “bringing him home.” He’d pushed back, of course, and that had ended the conversation. Until today, until a moment ago, when Croyden told him flatly that they were bringing him off the Ice, transferring him to the warmth of the corporate offices overlooking the Long Island Sound, where he
Similar Books
