EPISODE 2
A Change on the Horizon
The next day Leonardo shared the folder that had the pictures of New Zealand and Fiji with Florencia. “What do you think” asked Leonardo looking over her shoulder at the pictures and briefly describing what he remembered of the locations. “The New Zealand location looks very interesting, the lush vegetation, the trees, the dock and the house. With its scenic surroundings and the waterfall in the background. I like the location, is there a road nearby” she asked.
“There is a dirt road which is a mile long from the highway. Just before reaching the house there is a flat open field of 30 acres. The owner moved to Australia after his divorce and placed the location on the market” said Leonardo turning to Florencia, then back at the picture.
As Florencia continued looking at the picures, she said “I also like the atoll in Fiji, with the crescent shaped turquoise lagoon and the large sandy beach” Florencia said while looking at the pictures and placing them on the table.
“Yes the atoll is very beautiful, I called an agent earlier about the atoll and she sent over more information and pictures of other islands. There is this one I want to see and do some more research about it. I will have to make arrangement with Vector to go out there sometime this week” said Leonardo as he moved to the bay window and looked out at the ocean.
His cell phone rings and it indicates Vector, he answers it and says “Hey Vector whats up” while looking out at the ocean. “Leonardo did you make arrangements with the bank representative about moving the gold from Portobello to their vault in Switzerland” asked Vector. “Yes, it’s been arranged. We need to pick up the gold and transport it to an empty warehouse in Panama City that I rented for a month.
Also there are special pallet containers I rented from a local mining company to place the bullions in. The cotainers too were rented and will be there in a few days. After we pickup the gold and take it to the warehouse, we will load up the containers and have it transported to the airport. Where it will be loaded onto three rented 747’s and flown to the vault located in Switzerland. I hired security gurards and 20 armored trucks to haul the gold to the airport. So, everything is in place and schedule for next Wednesday at 9:30 pm for the pickup” said Leonardo.
“Sounds good to me. What time will you be over at my house” asked Vector. “I’ll be over at 6:30 and get her done by 8:00 over there and be back at the warehouse by 8:05” said Leonardo. “Alright, I’ll put that on my to do schedule” said Vector. “Can you take me out to Fiji tomorrow, there is an island I would like to see” Leonard asked while looking at Florencia. “Sure, what about after breakfast” Vector replied. “Ok, sounds good” said Leonardo as he ended the conversation and turned to Florencia.
“Flo, Vector and I will be going to Fiji tomorrow morning and we will be moving the gold over from Portobello to the warehouse Panama City I rented next week” said Leonardo placing his cell phone in a phone holster. “That will be fine. I’m going shopping with Artemesia and Velidia tomorrow, so I will see you when you get back” said Florencia.
“Ok” said Leonardo as he went into his office. The following day Leonardo is walking up to Vector’s garage and sees Vector putting away some garden tools and asked “How’s Rocky and Frank doing. Did they go surf.” “No, they are inside studying up on the Aku software. I bought them a shaping machine and having it shipped in next week. So they are taking lessons on the internet” said Vector as they walked over to the door of the spacecraft which opened up in front of them. “Great, I can learn to use the software at home and shape a few boards myself over here” said Leonardo getting into the craft.
They flew over to Fiji and went to the island that the agent suggested and slowly moved around it, taking in all the related details of the location and it’s vicinity to New Zealand. After Vector took pictures of the plan view, side elevations and the topography and plant types. The island was around a mile square, with mountains, valleys, beaches and lagoons.
Leonardo mentioned to Vector to land near one of the beaches where a lagoon was located. They walked around and followed a stream in land until coming across a small waterfall. Looking around Leonardo was getting an ideas of building a research there. “What do you think Vector” asked Leonardo. “Nice, I like how relaxing it is to be here” answered Vector taking in the view.
“Leo, I’ve been meaning to asks you. How did you get the power of being able to look into the future and the past” questioned Vector out of the blue. “I was in search of an island for the King of Spain and came across it. There was this one man who lived there on that island with others. He made surfboards and surfed. But he also had special powers of being able to see into the future. He wanted to pass his ability to someone else since he had no offspring to give it too. Long story short, I inherited that power from him. That changed my life forever and was able to do things I couldn’t have imagined before that. This was before you and your family showed up to our haceinda for employment.” recalled Leonardo.
“I remember that day when Outaforium took us from the exploding island of Etobiius to Panama through the worm hole. The same one that transported us from the 16th century Panama City into the 21th century Panama City. I too was working for a king who ruled Atlantis and had sent me to design and engineer new structures there on that island of Etobiius” mentioned Vector after listening to Leonardo story.
They continued to talk about old times as they walked back to the spacecraft. Flying back to Panama,
Leonardo was thinking about the island that they just left and calculating the cost of a what if we built there scenario. After returning home Leonardo began planning what he wanted to do in New Zealand and Fiji.
The week went by and it was time to transfer the gold. They flew over to the cave at Portobello, where they were hovering in front of the mountain side. Vector turns on the sensors to detect where the cavity entrance was located in the mountain. After locating it he presses the matter removal button and the rocks, soil and plants are encapsulated into a rectangular block form. Then like a large drawer Vector slides it out and moves it out of the way near the cave entrance. The large rectangular mass is held in place by an anti-gravity force field.
With the entrance exposed the gold is then removed from it’s resting place. By using the same device he does the same with the gold and places it at the opposite area of the entrance. After completing the task of removing all the gold, Vector picks up the block of rock, soil and plants and places it back into the entrance of the cave. Then he hovers over the gold and clamps onto it and makes it invisible. After getting things ready, he fly off back to the warehouse in Panama City.
Having made the trip in a minute, he hovers over the warehouse before landing. Leonardo gets out and goes over to the warehouse and opens the sliding doors. He goes inside and drive back out with a forklift and a container pallet, the gold is lowered in front of the warehouse opening. Still above the pile of gold Vector scans the gold and grab a block of bullion bars weighing 5 tons with his anti gravity device and places it into the container pallet. Leonardo then takes the container back into the warehouse and gets another empty container. It is 8:30 and the transfer of the gold onto 20 containers is complete. At 9:00 the 20 armor pick-up trucks showed up and would take the gold to the airport.
“Well, one less thing to think about for today. Shall we head back home” said Leonardo. “Alright, lets go” replied Vector. After locking up and making the warehouse secure, they flew off and was back home within less than a minute. “Go surf tomorrow” asked Vector closing up the spacecraft. “Yeah, that sounds good to me. I will be by tomorrow morning at 5. We can take my car. Think the boys would want to go” asked Leonardo. “Does the pelicans fly in formation. I will ask them when I get in. Most likely we will be here in the morning to go, otherwise I’ll call if they don’t feel like it” answered Vector with a wave as he walked toward his house.
After returning home Leonardo sees Florencia reading a book. “How did things go Leo” asked Florencia. “It went according to plan and that takes care of that. We will need to go over our mining plans and see if we should sell our interest or hold on to what we got. We will be sailing over to Hawaii for a couple months next week” mentioned Leonardo heading into the kitchen to get a bite to eat.
The sun is just beginning to rise above distant mountain as the foursome paddle out into the lineup. “How do guys like the new software that you are learning” asked Leonardo looking at both Frank and Rocky. “Great, I can hardly wait to get the machine and do a few blanks” said Rocky. “Yeah, I’ve been thinking about going shorter and get more progressive with my surfing. This is going to be fun” added Frank looking at the peak sets coming their way.
They would enjoy the morning surf with a few others. After a couple of hours more people showed up and paddled out. The pack grew and Leonardo and Vector decided to go in, while Rocky and Frank stayed out longer and got to know some of the guys who were out there with them.
Drying off Leonardo says to Vector “I called the agent about the Fijian island we visited and told her I would take it. After that I bought the New Zealand property as well. So Flo and I are going to Hawaii in two weeks for some time off and get ready for the move.” Meanwhile out in the water Rocky is paddling back out after someone had cut him off on the wave he was on. Rocky looked at the guy and just kept paddling back out. The guy said to Rocky “Go back to where you came from.” Rocky looked at him and didn’t say anything and continued his paddled back out.
Rocky paddled over to Frank and told him about the guy cutting him off on the last wave. “He’s a jerk, I saw him do the same thing to another guy about 15 minutes ago” said Frank. “Lets go in, I think dad and Leo might be waiting for us” said Frank.
Getting back to the car Frank and Rocky got their towels and dried off. Leonardo and Vector were still discussing what they were going to do regarding their finances and projects on their minds. Frank walks up to his dad and told about what had happen to Rocky. Leonardo was listening in on the conversation and said “Don’t mind him, there is more better things to do than to fight over a wave.”
After returning to Vector’s house Leonardo drops them off and drove the short distance to his house. Thinking to himself about going to the harbor and doing some work on his catamaran GWTF (Go with the Flo). Entering the house Leonardo notices a note that Florencia had left on the kitchen counter. It was a reminder that she went shopping for office supplies with Artemesia and was going to look at some laptops.
It wasn’t long before Leonardo was at the harbor walking along the dock and looking at the other sailboats in the harbor. The flags were waving and the halyards swayed in the breeze. Getting to his boat, Leonardo looks around the cockpit before going into the salon. Walking over to the Computer Center which consisted of his Multi-media and Nav stations.
Sitting down in the U shape desk configuration he looks at all the electronics in front of him. The all in one AIS and Radar, the Forward Looking Sonar, and a BGAN with its auto tracing antenna location system. Then swiveling around to his other systems of laptop, drawing tablet, audio video system and a HDMI connection that is tied into his TV, located in the middle of the salon hidden in a console.
After going back out to the cockpit Leonardo is sitting on the helm seat looking out at the channel, He is getting the urge to go sailing and decides too. Turning the engines on Leonardo walks over to the bow dock cleat and unties the line. Going to the stern cleat he unties the stern lines and gets back on board. Looking around he pushes the starboard throttle forward and the port engine into reverse, then forward and angles slowly out into the channel.
Steering out into the bay, staying out of the channel shipping lane he turns on the auto pilot and walks around and pull the fenders onboard from the starboard side and places them in the forward sail locker. Unzips the mainsail cover and exposes the main sail and returns to the helm. Once out into the bay Leonardo lifts the mainsail and unfurled the soline sail from the helm and is doing some single-handed sailing in the noon day breeze.
After returning he has everything ready for the docking, slowly in reverses then neutral. Tossing the bow line onto the dock. Jumping off and tying the stern line to the cleat, then moving forward and tying bow line to the dock cleat. Turning off the motor Leonardo goes and get the shoreline water hose and washes off the top and deck and cockpit before leaving the cat.
Leo walks into the kitchen and see Florencia with a unboxed laptop and says “New laptop.” “Yes, we were browsing around and I happened to see a program of dress making and how it could take the design and make patterns from it. Velidia said she would help me out in learning the software. She is into fashion design as well and learned to use the program within a day, she is very intelligent and has a photographic memory. She get that from her mom and dad. Artemesia help me in selecting which laptop to get and what other softwares to have in it” said Florencia.
“Sound great, you should be busy for a while” replied Leonardo. “Oh Leo, Artemesia invited us over to dinner tonight round 7. So lets plan on attending” smiled Florencia. “Ok, will be in my office if you need any help” said Leonardo.
Vector was in his garage when Outaforium appeared outside of it.“Vector, it is I Outaforium” said Outaforium. Vector raised his head and turned around toward Outaforium. “What brings you to these neck of the woods” said Vector in a humors tone and a smile on his face. “I wanted to let you know, that there is an improved mechanism we received from our planet that will make your spacecraft more advanced than previously. Not as advance as our, but still quite advance compared to before” said Outaforium. “That is interesting what is it and what does it do better” asked Vector.
“It is a device that can make your craft turn on a dime without losing any speed and switch into stealth mode at the same time” answered Outaforium. Vector visualized what Outaforium had said and responded “How or when will you do that” asked Vector. “We will upload the vessel tonight and it will back in your facility the next morning” said Outaforium. “Ok, that sounds good to me. Is there any other news I should know about” asked Vector.
“The repo market had a major disturbance last night. So get ready for the pandemic and economic turbulence next summer. That’s it for now, so get ready” implied Outaforium as he nodded his head and turned around and disappeared. Vector returns to his house with the thought of what Outaforium had said and wondered why the change in the spacecraft and information about the future now.
Everyone was gathered around the dinner table and the food was being passed around. Velidia was passing the salad bowl to Leonardo and asked “How did you and Florencia meet” Placing the vegetables onto his plate and passing it on to Florencia, he said "Its a long story." "We don't mind if you don't mind" Artemesia said looking at Florencia and then at Vector. "Ok" Leonardo said looking at Florencia who had a smile on her face.
Leonardo began his story of how he and his father were map makers in Florence, Italy and a Spanish Captain and his daughter came to their shop one day. “My father sold them a diary that had a small map with a mark on it, a mystery that baffled those who had tried to solve what it meant. The common belief at the time was that it was an island in the Pacific Ocean. Well, that small mark was an island and it changed my life.
After meeting Captain Montoya and his daughter Maria. I would travel with them across the Atlantic Ocean to Panama. I liked Maria and we got along well. But during the trip over she would fall in love with another man, actually one of the officers on board the ship we were on.
After the voyage they would wed and return to Spain. Her father the captain, a rescued passenger from a pirate ship that was sunken by our ship. Who would become his wife and I went on a brief trip to the Yucatan Peninsula. The reason for that detour was because ship the Captain and I were supposed to go on to find that location on the map had been delayed for 2 months. After returning from Yucatan. The Captain, his financee and I were invited to the Governor’s Ball, the governor was Florencia’s father.
That is where I met Florencia" Leonardo said while looking up at the ceiling. “Yes, I remember that day” said Florencia looking at Leonardo as she took over from there “We went on a day sail and after that date, I knew there was something special between us. So we would see each other again. After that the rest became history” Florencia explained while passing the salad bowl to Rocky.
After the dinner Vector was telling Leonardo out in the patio what was happening to his spacecraft and what Outaforium had told him of the future. “I know, let me tell you something else that is going to happen” Leonardo said looking around to see if anyone was around.