"Great 21st Century Novel"

165. Sheila was flustered, caught daydreaming again of Ben Rawlings, trying to cover, confronted in the meeting . . .how would she escape? "Well, Ken, Ben Rawlings, from our Pirc division, has just passed me this memo from our European offices that details the recent acquisitions and mergers activities that have been lead by Lizzy, er, excuse me, Elizabeth. At which point Fritz interrupted and asked, "who was it that was saying that I became irrelevant?" and Doyle, trying to track the social politics in the room attempted to log in to RHP on his laptop and saw the message, "We anticipate another 6 hours before we go back online. We apologize for the inconvenience."

Originally posted by coquette
165. Sheila was flustered, caught daydreaming again of Ben Rawlings, trying to cover, confronted in the meeting . . .how would she escape? "Well, Ken, Ben Rawlings, from our Pirc division, has just passed me this memo from our European offices that details the recent acquisitions and mergers activities that have been lead by Lizzy, er, excuse me, Elizabeth. e anticipate another 6 hours before we go back online. We apologize for the inconvenience."

Originally posted by Great Big Stees
166. Doyle was beginning to loose his patience with RHP. "How many times do we have to endure these outages?" he said. "How can we come to any resolution of these issues if we can't make a play?" " Liz can you get on the horn to Russ , back in Britain, and find out what's going on and report back to me ASAP?"

Originally posted by Grampy Bobby
167. "Yes", Liz answers, "in about two hours when the GMT window opens."

169. Doyle woke after a fitful sleep and clicked on the RHP link and got a LOG IN window!!!!! He entered delighted to greet his 1,854,263 game count, with 20,653 waiting moves (10,546, against heng). As he studied the first board, he was struck by a vaguely strange feeling as he studied the kingside attack with an advance pawn about to queen in a game that had started with the French Defense but was nearing an end game stage. He realized that he had previously thought the game was over - dead - but somehow, Black was finding strange and incredible defenses and Doyle suspected his opponent was using Fritz. His cell phone rang, much to his irritation, until he saw the number from his office and knew that he would hear Sheila's voice.

170. Ken liked Elizabeth's initiative and thinking. She was deserving of Royal Rank by reason, not just by fortune of birth. He needed everyone thinking outside
the suggested lines of the program because he knew how to defeat programmned thought and so did their adversaries. "Outstanding thinking Elizabeth", Ken
acknowledged, "But what about predictability? What of the Church?"

171. The team was starting to come together. Except for one, the team was slowly starting to focus. In every Account that he had ever activated there was always one.
But Ken would take care of that personally. Activating trained special operators was always tricky. First, they didn't know that they were sleepers, and second...
well, The Company had sent him for a reason.

172. Ken was always prepared. He was never caught off guard. Like Fritz, he anticipated every move, but he never revealed his internal state in public. But he was not perfect, and like everyone, including Fritz, he had weaknesses. There was momentary eye contact with Sheila and a series of red images flashed through his mind.
His pulse quickened. But for now he had to finish activating the agents.

173. The briefing continued, "Though it is illegal, Some of you will have to change your name, some of you will have to move frequently or travel far and often throughout the checkered territories." A rapid sequence of images flickered across the screen. "Sometimes you will not have time to think. You may become stuck, trapped, captured, or worse. Sometimes you will be stronger and sometimes your opponent will be stronger by the numbers and in fact, but your training will kick in, or you can always contact Fritz." Another rapid sequence flickered across the screen, this time computerized images of numbers, equations, statistics, probabilities, calculated lines, graphs, and geometric grids.

174. A rapid sequence of red hot images flickered across Ken's mind. Sometimes you will not have time to think he thought. He would have to leave soon. Sheila's mack red lips WERE perfect. Their eyes met again.

175. Ken looked at Fritz. Fritz was one of the best mathmaticians and operators The Company had ever recruited. He had also worked for the Church and was or is possibly a member in the Order of the Diagonal. A Bishop once remarked, "He sheds light when all is dark, but will always remain taboo." Ken had known Fritz for sometime. He was and is a solid Company Man, more of a consultant though than an employee. Ken and Fritz had been recruited around the same time, but from different paths. Ken liked Fritz, and they worked well together, but as their careers progressed there was a subtle uneasy competition between them. Ken didn't realize this in the early days. He had always considered Fritz a Wunderkind and the more talented operator in most aspects of Company business. A decade ago he often deferred to Fritz's judgement, but as time passed Ken relied more on his own hueristics than he did on Fritz. Though he never expressed it, Fritz resented this, and Ken knew it.

176. Ken scanned the faces in the conference room. He had taken skulls in the service of the King, and knew he would have to do it again. He liked to believe that he did it in the service of the people, pawns and princes alike. He did not love the sword for its brightness nor its gleem. He loved only that which it defended. But he knew that was not entirely true either. Each of the faces he scanned would have to come up with their own reasons and excuses to soothe their concious. The world is a checkered sea of confusion in which a man can drink, a mosquito can bathe, and an elephant can drown. Ken paused, then reached for the stainless steel pitcher and poured cold but iceless water into a clear glass. He drank and another series of images flickered across the screen. End games... the images
were of death.

Originally posted by Kentron
176. Ken scanned the faces in the conference room. He had taken skulls in the service of the King, and knew he would have to do it again. He liked to believe that he did it in the service of the people, pawns and princes alike. He did not love the sword for its brightness nor its gleem. He loved only that which it defended. But he knew that was not entirely ...[text shortened]... nd another series of images flickered across the screen. End games... the images
were of death.

177. Sheila realized that she had just escaped that trap through a clever combination of a quick feint, a subtle complex flirtation, and the meandering minds of men once certain thoughts had been triggered by the most subtle of sensuous suggestions. Still, she had to "navigate" the afternoon safely, where she found herself committed to an analytic task group with Doyle, Ken AND Ben. She realized that their session would not be "all business," so to speak, but she had to avoid petty jealousies. She recognized that Doyle was the Alpha male, Ben her fantasy man that was the steeler of her heart, and Ken, her recent . . . well . . .yes . . . her most recent .. .. yes . . . .ken YES KEN . .. ken . . .ken . . .(she then noticed the look on Doyle's face, a calculating look, and she understood better what the afternoon would hold for the four of them . . . . How do you spell Cacao? Of course, if you are the dyslexic Sheila, it's Cocoa!)

178. Meanwhile, the Fonz finally woke up after getting knocked out by Kervey. He promptly grabbed the closest blonde and said, "Heyyyy"