Chapter 10

Thursday was her one day free from school and Cassie finally made the meeting with Maj. Woods. The problem that she was bringing to Cassie was that she was effectively operating two departments with only herself and two NCOs. She was the head of the legal department on site, and in fact was the only trained lawyer. She was also the acting head of Human Resources. This had come about due to the fact that all employees were on personal contracts to the corporation.

There was no standard contract that fit all employees. There were variations in positions, salaries, and benefits. Even in those, no two were identical.

One example was June and Betty. Both were hired at the same time for identical positions, but they were not being compensated at the same rate or getting the same benefits even though they had the same rank, Colonel.

Maj. Woods had found very few of the employees with the similar contracts, even at the same rank. Those that were, in most cases, were doing staff jobs.

Her request was for a larger staff or separation of the two different jobs.

After Cassie had heard the problem and Maj. Woods' suggestions she thought for a moment.

"Major Woods, I need more input on this before we can make a final decision."

"At this time, let's just put a temporary fix in. You are head of our legal onsite department. This is your training. You are obviously well suited for this, as this examples show. So, for now, that's where I would like you to stay."

"I am not just blowing wind at you. You have found a problem that needs fixing. So now it's time for those that can fix it to do so."

"Schultz, schedule another meeting in a week. Make an appointment with Clint before then to discuss this with him."

"Major Woods, thank you for bringing this to my attention before it got way out of hand. I will see you again next week. Schultz will let you know the best time for our next meeting."

With that Major Woods was dismissed.

"Schultz, add this to the thousands things on my list to do. This one is urgent; it bears directly on our recruitment of more people."

They spent the next couple of hours finishing up paperwork.

That afternoon Cassie was sitting back relaxing and scanning the estate. The construction was moving forward like crazy. The first thing that had been completed was a whole new high security gate entrance.

It was now a full security entrance. Any truck or vehicle entering had to go through a security obstacle entrance. There was no way any vehicle could crash the entrance.

Once past the primary entrance, the vehicle was in the outer ring which would contain the main Administration, medical facilities and primary training facilities.

Clint would have his headquarters in the Administration building along with the base commander.

The main road from the primary entrance continued to the main house, but as it came over the ridge, where the main house could be seen, a secondary gate was installed. This was connected to a new security fence that separated the outer area from that of the main house and the facilities around it. Her SOC would be in that area at the main house.

As soon as residences were completed in the outer area there would be a shake out of the cadre separating her SOC and personal security out of the mix and assigning the rest to the outer area.

Now she was pulling back from organization and training for awhile as she concentrated on her schooling.

The Friday drive into the campus was the same as normal. Her scans picked up nothing unusual and her perimeters also noted nothing. Cassie closed her eyes and leaned back, scanning herself. She had no feelings of unease. She felt normal.

On campus she reported to the Dean of Math's office where they sent her to the testing center. Cassie spent the whole day with the exception of lunch taking tests. For the next three days she did more of the same. She was given problems by the Dean himself to work on at home.

The second week it was the Physics department with more testing; here too, the Dean gave her problems to think on and to write about. In those two weeks she turned in more homework then she had ever done in her life for school.

The third week, one of the advanced graduate students was assigned full time to travel with her. He talked and talked and talked. It was like being in a physics lecture hall eight hours a day, discussing String theory, multi-dimensional universes, worm holes, black holes and Warp fields. She began to worry that her head would actually explode.

Her sensitivity was becoming extremely acute. It was almost like she could feel the imperfection of the enjoinments of the connecting boundary of matter and its neighbors.

When each day was done and she came home, she was chased out to Sensei Inoue to be pounded on. The day after she completed her testing, she was hit with a surprise. She had not expected it. She had not been told to look for it. She had no warning.

Cassie rolled out of bed and Cpl. Lambskin opened the door to her room at the same time. She moved to the shower and quickly showered and performed her other necessities. She stepped into her bedroom as Cpl Lambskin laid her clothes out on her newly made bed.

Cassie froze when she saw what was lying there. "My Gi?" She asked.

"Yes, Ma'am! Sensei Inoue, left word for me this morning."

"God, I hope he finds what he is looking for soon."

Cpl. Lambskin held up a light robe for her to slip on. She then removed the covers from her breakfast sitting on the table. She must have slipped the food in while Cassie had been showering.

Cassie ate her light breakfast of a small bowl of multi-grain hot cereal, wheat toast, a touch of margarine and half a grapefruit and of course her Moko pot of coffee. In less than forty-five minutes from the time her feet hit the floor she was headed to the dojo.

Cassie could not believe what her scan showed. The Dojo was full. Every senior NCO and every available officer was present. Cassie slipped in and found an open spot along the wall to kneel.

She scanned the mass of people here, and like she had first thought 'everybody' was here. Sensei Inoue was not alone either. There were four strangers that she had never seen.