4-2: Trading Game - Like a Movie Monster

Paul- United Human Faction- Day 26

            Sharon joined Paul in his room to prepare the final steps of her power transfer. The Southern Command would be Paul’s duty once she left for Hawaii. The transfer was simple enough, but they needed to keep to their paperwork and computer registration. They were official to the end.

            Once they finished, they sat back in unison and let out a sigh of relief. For now, Sharon’s job was done.

            “I think I’ll head down to the docks for a little while,” Sharon said, walking out the door.

            Paul was left alone to survey the success. He would be able to do the same for Sharon’s replacement when he arrived, but first he would test his abilities. He checked every record, whether he read the information was another matter, and then moved on to the border records.

            Karen had written the coding for their network, and she had written it well. The computers were constantly reevaluating the borderlines based on every ounce of information coming from front. From the full map, the lines moved slowly, but there were always meter-wide corrections being made. Paul was amazed by the complexity.

            He finally broke the spell of the border estimates and checked the Southern Command Console. There were several reports in the inbox that held no significance to him. The computer could deal with basic reports itself, but there were several that caught its attention. They were tragedies and casualties. They were losing more men than he had anticipated, but there was one individual left unaccounted for. He didn’t recognize the name at first, but when the photograph of the man appeared on the screen, he was taken aback.

            The man he saw was involved in too many parts of his job. Paul had been forced to clean up after his sloppy mob killings more than twenty times. He had changed the man’s status to “KIA” five times, and not once had he actually been harmed. He had been forced to console Carlos about the man’s complete lack of discipline. Just days before he had argued against Sharon’s promotion, and now his suspicions were finally confirmed.

            Richard was a traitor. Paul’s judgment had taken years to be proven, but now he had his chance. The chain of command was changed immediately, but Paul still doubted that his foe was truly gone. Richard would never turn against the Faction, that much was clear. He feared for the man who had filed the report.

            John would be in his prayers.