The gentle blended hum of the sixteen cylinder engine behind us crept into the two person c***pit. A cassette playing supernature by cerrone, put us in an intrinsic techno vibe as the soft lights inlayed into the upholstery pulsated in rhythm to the sound system. Ruby let out a relaxed sigh and wrapped her arm onto the inside of my elbow as I shifted into fifth gear and maneuvered into the first turn along the short drive to the Dan Fenner mansion..
“I'm glad that we are coming here to discuss something other than business and whales for once Nathan, we should get out more.” Ruby said longingly.
“Ye I know shawty, but I bring you with me to my meetings because I want you to know how to handle yourself and my business in case something happens to me. Plus I know you like to see the ocean and breathe the coastal air. But I agree Wednesday after I sign the orca pod adoption papers in Seattle, I’ll take you to see a show at that venue you like, and afterwards take the train downtown and find somewhere to get a few drinks” I winked at her, and her grip on my elbow tightened.
“You know I would love that Dr.WhaleGod, I want you to take me out on the town forsurrrree” she replied giddily, glancing at my orca warden patch on the lapel of my Military overcoat.
I rest my right hand on her upper thigh lightly gripping her low cut dark purple tights and let the bottom of her dress drape partially over my hand. Her hand still wrapped on my inner arm she started to move her fingernails slowly up my suit sleeve until she wrapped her hand around the left side of my neck and leaned in to kiss the other side leaving saliva and a faint sideways black lipstick kiss on my skin breathing softly on my ear as she regressed into her seat.
“We almost there” I said, gripping her thigh harder and she blushed as I accelerated into the next turn that I knew led to a straightaway.
“ Just around the next turn.”
I put my other hand back on the wheel and accelerated to 134 mph going down the one and a quarter mile road named Sparkwood. I entered the unmarked black marble paved driveway slowly, and admiring the ornate whale statues and busts of famous ecologists. Approaching the manor the tape ended, I decelerated and the engine revved up as I downshifted the 7 speed manual Cizeta about four hundred feet from the gate. I looked to my left and saw an immaculate maze like garden. I used the remote control Dan had given me to open the large sliding brass gate outside of his campus, through the gate and to the left I saw the immaculate maze like hedge garden with a scale model of the solar system hidden throughout it showing the sun and planets at a scale of one to twenty thousand. I parked in the driveway just outside of the garage to the noise of the cassette deck motors whirring. I told Ruby we would meet her outside and we would go down to the back three season pergola near the edge of the u shaped cliff outlining a sandy alcove to watch the sunset. As I reached for the handle, I glanced at my watch it, six thirty three PM. I went to get Dan from inside and told Ruby not to forget the bottle of courvoisier champagne out of the hood of the car, and that we would be down soon with an opener and glasses.
I walked through the arched oak and patina copper inlaid door on the side of the black brick wall of the garage. The lights turned on automatically creating a halo of white light around a silver BMW Nazca M12, and a red chrysler town and country. I walked past the silver supercar and reminisced on our past hardships and the hard work we had gone through to accumulate such an amassment of wealth. At the end of the last fiscal year our profits had been up two hundred and fifty eight percent and a net worth of over seven hundred and fifty million dollars. We have twelve employees.
I find it increasingly hard to understand this wealth we have amassed while physically I am able to see the numbers and charts of our earnings and the outcomes of smart business decisions. But to think of my position on this world as being directly related to the number in my bank account did not appeal to me. I feel as if my business is taking too much of my time. I want to retire. How do I feel as if I am sixty five or older when I am just over halfway through my twenties.
This thought rang through my conscious as I opened the stainless steel door that entered to the mudroom, I walked past the coat rack lined with a wide variety ornate jackets and rustic themed coats suited to Dan’s varying tastes. I went towards the main staircase that led to a balcony, passing on my right the deaf butler Albin. He was setting up a mini bar. I reached the top stair and could faintly hear dan humming walking in a winter wonderland. I knocked on the hand carved doorframe of his office as I pushed open the door. Dan was wearing an American flag speedo and lightning blue shutter shades, doing a line of cocaine off of the cover of a book titled:Spotting the transient orca”.
“Yo” I said addressing him familiarly. “Getting ready for the party?”
“Yeah” he paused I have something you need to see, passing the the other line on the hardcover field guide.
“This still part of that same s*** we got in the caymen islands last month?” I asked
“Can’t you tell?” he said. “Of course it is.” “Anyways where’s that avant garde new wave disco girl you always rollin’ wit?”
“Ruby is out in the pergola with some champagne, so what is it that I need to see?” I said before I plugged my left nostril and sniffed the line through a gilded metal cylinder.
Dan procured a manilla folder and showed a decoded telegraph message outlining an attack on one of our protected orca pods. Underneath where photographs depicting a russian whaling boat and bloody dorsal fins penetrating the rough waves of the West Pacific. Then another snapshot depicting the remains of our military stealth boat which once was the base of operations for a sniper team I had personally assembled from connections I made during my black ops sniping campaign during the cold war. My left eye began to tear up, many good men were on that boat fighting to protect the innocent orcas. Now all lay dead or dying in the water.
  I looked at Dan with a piercing stare. “How did this happen, where did you get this information.” I asked putting the small box of cocaine back into the hollowed out coconut shell guised as a decoration. After another forty five  seconds I flipped around and repeated myself, “Where did you get these documents Dan!” I said accusingly pulling a Black clove out of my pocket hard case and lit it with the electronic filament.
“They were sent as is, dropped off by an anonymous courier.”
“I expect it to be the somalis, due to the multiple seventies era russian RPG blasts on the port side of the boat.” He replied.
“Dan, I’m going to contact the families of these men at my home office, I will be back in time for the party I’ll tell Ruby to wait here. She is out back in the pergola with a bottle of particularly tasteful champagne I brought hoping to hear good word from our team.” I said leaving the doorway and going for the deck on the back right corner of the home. Descending the steep flight of stairs to the black marble path leading to the pergola, I saw Ruby sitting with her back slanted toward me and her thin form was silhouetted by the glimmer of the early afternoon sun on the ocean. The beauty of the scene was enough to quell the sledgehammer of tribulation I felt in my abdomen. I opened the screen door to the spacious abode. I sat at an angle to her and she looked at me inquisitively, giving me a glance that asked ¨where are the glasses¨
I answered to her stare with telling her ¨an operation in the west pacific had been compromised and that I needed to call the families of some dear friends of mine.¨
She looked up at me briefly, eyes shining with questions. Then she looked down, she could see the despair etched onto my face. ¨I forgot to grab the personnel files from the file room, I will make these calls and return here for the official start of the c***tail hour.¨
¨OK! I?l wait to open the bottle until you get back¨ she said brandishing the frosted glass of the bottle. I stepped closer and she looked up at me. I clasped her jaw and turned her head so I could kiss her cheek. She tugged on the collar of my shirt but I moved away, I didn't have much time and I couldn't lose focus.
¨I'll be quick¨ I said turning away, Ruby was blushing hot pink and was biting her lip, why was she so lit right now? she is acting like a schoolgirl.
*¨I guess she isnt too far from one, she did only graduate high school a year and a half ago¨*
I got the folders containing the files of men sent on that mission, looked down and said goodbye to Dan. I left the same way I came, it was six fifty-seven PM and the mini bar was nearly set up. Once outside I started the one and a half million dollar supercar and slowly backed it out of the driveway and back onto sparkwood. I revved the engine and deftly operated the turns, I prefer driving alone. My thoughts wandered to Dan and our company, then to the relationships I missed out on with my former comrades.
As entrepreneurs we have been devising devices with unparalleled aesthetic as well as functional design, for much of this design we use data collected from behavioral studies and movement of the orca in its natural environment. Dan and I met while attending MIT, I in my second year towards a double major in fluid dynamics and mechanical engineering and while he was in his third year towards the double major of Mechanical engineering and behavioral science. I ended up rooming with him for my third through seventh year and I shared with him my fascination of the orca, which led to a plan to create a company together, the product of long sleep deprived nights running off a constant supply of espresso from a homemade machine and cheap pizza. This led to unprecedented success in a co-founded company using new fangled simple machines to increase the efficiency of almost any device, especially electronic circuitry. We essentially bribed the United nations into issuing a global ban on the harm ( direct and indirect), hunting of, or capture of any living orca. This lead to my thoughts regarding the current situation. My fallen comrades, a twenty two man unit of elite black ops snipers, intelligence officers, and demolition experts. After the space race thing calmed down, we turned to the black market. We used our knowledge of global police tactics, communications, weaponry, and contacts to form a large scale acid, cocaine, and gun running gang known as the Bilge water pirates. We had headquarters located in Roanapur, Thailand, I being the lead sniper with most KIA’s was the leader of this gang. While just beginning our large scale operations, I wound up on a commando mission after the rest of my crew was headed to a rendezvous point equipped with anti-aircraft, and TOW missiles through a longer trail but with more passable terrain. I took a shortcut through a mountain pass to set up an overwatch over the target, a rival cocaine manufactory in Eastern Peru. I was trekking equipped with an M107 Beretta .50 sniper, and the .45 Mateba auto revolver I still carry to this day now modified with a 6X6 rifle scope but at this time I had it equipped with only a suppressor. While maneuvering this trail I came across a seemingly abandoned small military type hut near a cave. These mountains had a long history dating back to the ancient inca tribes and this could be seen by heavily eroded monuments and paintings around seemingly inaccessible caves hundreds of feet above. I began to attempt to open the olive green wooden door with an opaque dusty window, when I heard a group of people exiting the cave and raised voices. They were a city english and deep spanish accented voices. I crouched low and ran towards a nearby boulder but one of them shouted at me to “Stop!”
I quickly looked up and counted 6 men and an exotic looking girl no older than 17. The men looked rough, probably low level thugs from the nearby manufactory, and the girl had a thin exotic complexion with dyed red hairs. Her face and arms were scratched and bruised.
The group of men, probably after seeing the twenty nine inch barrel protruding from my back drew kalashnikov style rifles and various handguns. I c***ed the hammer of my mateba and… six suppressed shots, six headshots. I was shocked. This girl hadn't even began screaming and was just looking down, a film of blood streaked on her cheek and dripping down her hair from the man standing nearby on her left. I reloaded while walking towards her. She was shaking, but I asked her to get up, grabbing her arm.
“What is your name?” I asked still holding her arm.
“My name is Madelyn, I’m 17. I used to live on the aleutian islands.”
“Are there any more inside?”
She glanced around her, “No” she replied after counting the bodies,
“OK, good. Come with me”
She was wearing a tattered army style jacket with various modern bands and three small aliens sewed on, drab green short shorts with cargo style pockets and blue patterned Vans mountain climbing shoes with diamond treads. We reached the point I had chosen to provide overwatch for my team to move in and destroy the compound. The raid went flawlessly. The Javelin missiles were launched into the broadside walls blowing gaping holes in the brickwork and at a nearby armored vehicle. Madelyn yelled shortly in excitement as I started picking off runners with the .50 caliber rounds. In my peripheral I saw her hair being blown back from the shockwave revealing a tight necklace made out of shells. The anti air missiles were deployed against multiple helicopters. Three men swept the complex and Madelyn attached to my harness and we repelled down the cliff to meet with the Javelin team at the exfil point.
Madelyn revealed that she had come to southern Mexico 4 days ago with her family to go scuba diving and swim with sea turtles. The columbian cartel happened to run the all inclusive resort they stayed at. The cartels kidnapped them and flew them to southern columbia extorted her parents for all the money they could possibly get and then executed them. She told me that she had managed to escape the cartels at the very moment they executed her parents and actually killed several of them before running in an unknown direction (I clarified it as being south) and was then recaptured hours before I showed up after hiking through the jungle for two days. Little did I know that then, but this girl would go on to be the co-runner of our elite gang, and to be the bearer of a name that still rings fear into the hearts of criminals worldwide. *The Bilge Water Pirate Queen*. After I announced that I would be retiring from a direct leadership position in this collaboration, to pursue a business venture with a friend I met in college. Madelyn protested this and tried to dissuade me on multiple occasions but at the end of my dissolution process she insisted that she leave with me. That night in the penthouse of our gangs hotel/headquarters the largest party Roanapur had ever seen was thrown, we left that vile city in a style that it’s citizens would never forget.
Ever since I have always directed viable jobs I either find out about from informants or any job I personally need done to this group who now has started a new company under the guise of a small scale special delivery shipping type of company named Black Lagoon.
I arrived at my office, a small dark stained pine and bullet proof glass room in the middle of the woods about a quarter mile from my main house. I called the families of the fourteen men. Only four had answers but I left my number for them to get back to me, just in case. I got back into the gray and red two seater cabin, I backed in so I shot out directly towards Dans house, I reached sixty five before I reached the end of the driveway, I have multiple hidden driveway signs along both sides of the coastal road leading towards my house for this reason.
I pulled through the large gilded gate that led to Dan’s signature black marble driveway, and pulled up behind Ean’s BMW and Billy's El Camino. *Good some guests have arrived* I walked around the left side of the house and back to the pergola where I could see Ruby, now in an armchair with a blanket huddled against the light drizzle and dropping temperature. It was about half as light maybe a little brighter than when I had left about an hour ago, it was seven thirty four. I knocked on the outside of the pergola.
“Ruby people have started to arrive, let’s go inside. How was the sunset?” I opened the door with my left arm raised and put it around her grasping her left shoulder as she walked under it.
“This is such a beautiful place, I wish our house was on the outside edge of the bay like this I love seeing full view of the ocean.”
We walked through the front door, Robbie was shutting the door as we approached from the left side and he didn't see us. I opened the door seconds after it was shut and shook Robbie's right hand as my left draped off of Ruby's shoulder. After handshakes and greeting I asked
“Ruby mix us some drinks?”
Of course Dr.Whalegod, accompany me too the bar?” She asked assertively draping her pointer finger across my elbow.
We left Robbie and the other guests waiting to be greeted and walked across the room in a beeline for the bar. Ruby stepped behind it and began to crush mint I assumed was for a mojito, her favorite. I decided to stick with the citrus theme and asked for a Paloma. Madelyn approached us leaving her conversation with Tanner and picked up what I now knew to be her drink left uncoastered on the ebony wood bar. She drank the small glass all at once leaving three partially melted ice cubes and a red plastic sword.
“Ruby, when you're finished with that paloma would you mix me a dirty banana? I need something stronger than that gin and tonic.”
“I'm not sure I know the recipe off hand” Ruby said shyly
“Nathan has never made this for you or told you of it?” Madelyn asked, giving me a genuinely surprised glance.
“I can make it don't worry about it Ruby, I’ll teach you right now” I took a sip of a particularly strong paloma Ruby knows I didn't f*** around, and walked to the other side of the bar. I chose a large curved glass and a larger plastic sword this time yellow and put four thinly sliced bananas onto the skewer. Then handed Madelyn the yellow homogenous mixture. Her eyes widened as she smelled the aroma of dark rum, banana liqueur, and cinnamon. After the first sip she said “Nathan, you have an exxxtra expert touch with bananas!!! This drink brings me way back, you’re such a pro!” She mixed her glass with the skewered bananas and then put it to her lips sucking the banana flavored drink off before savoring the first of the four rum soaked cavendish fruit.
Ruby and I returned to the sitting area of the room, I sat in a dark green armchair that seemed vaguely familiar for some reason. I set my glass down onto a glass and black marble side table and Ruby sat on my lap due to lack of unoccupied seats. She crossed her legs but I could help but think that her dress wasn't long enough to sit in such a position, but I really didn't care, we were all mature adults here. I couldn’t imagine Ruby was entirely unaware of her position either and that she didn't mind the attention I now realize she was getting from many guests in the room especially Billy who was blatantly staring at her. I noticed his face looked long and his eyes were hollow, I couldn't help but notice he looked a little distraught, or guilty it was hard to tell. Nevertheless he was secluding himself in a dark corner on a small wooden stool. He had maybe two sips of a gin and tonic on the floor next to him. He caught me, catching him staring and looked directly at me and blinked with a blank expression. I smiled warmly and gestured he come over here. He looked around himself nervously and slowly got up and walked towards us. He bent over to shake my outstretched hand.
“I think you forgot your drink rockstar” I laughed gesturing to his full glass at the other side of the room.
“Oh yes you are very right” he laughed in what I thought was excessive relief, looking back at his solemn drink.
“It's going to get watered down with all that ice you know. Clove cigarello?” I asked putting one end of the black paper wrapped clove and herb blend into the corner of my mouth and the other into the element end of the electronic lighter constructed to Dan and I’s personal and very profitable design.
“sure why not they look quality and smell really good” he grabbed my lighter and lit it on his way back to his dark corner to grab the g&t. He bent down to pick up his drink and coughed on the cigarillo, almost dropping it into his drink. *Was he drunk already?* He shuffled back towards us.
“How much have you been drinking tonight BIlly are you ok?”
“My first drink actually, it's just that....”
Albin the Butler glanced at a black and white stopwatch that measured to the hundred thousandth of a second and announced that dinner was prepared and about to be served. Everyone grabbed various belongings and started to shuffle towards the dining hall. I helped Ruby dismount my lap and I hung my seventies digital camo overcoat and straps on the stainless steel coat rack. There was a crowd of people around the ornate, blood red and gold french doors.
“Bon appetit” said Albin, hefting open the large doors.
Revealing a horror that sent my vision black and my consciousness blank as my mind reeled backwards. I ran to the close side of the enormous thirtyish foot long glass topped amethyst geode that served as the dining table. The commemorative golden orca which Dan and I had commissioned on the earning of our five hundred millionth dollar had crashed down on only what I could assume was a human body. I had seen more death and destruction than the majority of the human population, but this sight was unprecedented. A mist of blood coated the walls, floor and chairs in a fifteen foot radius. The nose of the golden orca had broken off and shattered a five foot section of glass and made a foot and a half crater into the marble floor. I couldn't help but assume it was Dan Fenner, my business partner, my friend who lay pulverised by the very symbol that had given him monumental wealth. To see this combination of the co-owner of our business, the golden orca, and the news I received earlier made me lose track of everything even though it was a short distance, I broke out into a dead sprint, pushing past guests and Albin I approached the scene. Ean came up to me shortly after.
“I don’t see a place set so he must not have been eating” Ean observed “ He was also facing the door when he was… er, crushed.
I placed my hand on the side of the gilded cetacean, and observed the crowd still sitting in the doorway. They still hadn't comprehended the situation in the time that Ean and I had already begun to dismantle the situation. As I was looking Albin turned as he was looking at his pocket watch. He made a one hundred and seventy degree turn before sharply inhaling and dropping both the watch and his copper monocle. The sharp consecutive tangs the two objects made by hitting the brown marble seemed to snap a few of the guests out of their confusion.
“Is that… was that… a person!?” Tanner stammered.
Followed by a cacophony of questions from the general crowd. I sighed and opened my mouth, when Ean glanced at me before addressing the crowd.
“Everyone move to the atrium, I need to get a headcount.” While simultaneously signing the phrase to Albin. I walked out of the dining room, glancing down at the mist of blood I walked through. Ruby ran up to my right side and clutched my arm, looking up at me. Her eyes were shiny and wide, her canine was caught on her lip next to the blackish silver piercing encrusted with a small opal nodule.
“Are you going to be ok?” she asked handing me my drink.
I looked at the alcoholic citrus beverage and drank it throwing the liquid down my throat, I felt the sting of tequila on my esophagus. I grabbed one of the sliced limes and chewed it, swallowing the rind and all.
We all filed into the atrium. A large black and white marble orca planter housed a large pear tree in the center of the room. Various other succulents and carnivorous plants lined the outside glass wall. In a special corner there lay a flower bed with four or five exotic species of orchid, all upkept by Albin who was a master botanist as well as a butler.
Albin began checking on the orchids as the other guests spread themselves out around the room with various seats and tables around. A few of them I noticed were eyeing the large orca planter suspiciously as if it were about to fall. Ruby and I made our way to two chairs next to a fountain and a medieval style arched wrought iron and treated wood door. Complete with rectangular sliding spyhole and a steel beam lock. Ean was at the edge of doorway and was engaged in conversation with Tanner either about something in regards to an object in his bag. Eventually he pulled out a seemingly large notepad for the size of the bag, and a large marker. He walked counter clockwise around the room and began writing names leaving ample space between them. When he got to Ruby and I, being the last ones, I asked him if we should split up and look for clues.