King of All I Survey

After deciding to run for Selectman, my first obstacle was that the town of Cheshire, where I lived, required candidates to be registered voters in the town. Of course, this meant one had to be old enough to vote. I was just shy of that by nearly ten years. Most people would give up, and say ok, that seems like an insurmountable obstacle. I didn't think the Supreme Ruler of the Entire Earth Solar System and Nearby Space should be a quitter.

The state of Massachusetts, I found out, did not have any particular requirements for town officials to be of a certain age, or to be registered voters, so it was up to each town to set their own rules.

Solution number one would be to find a town that didn't have age or voter registration requirements and get my parents to move there. Getting my parents to move to another town was going to be difficult, if not impossible. Even if I could, I probably couldn't get it done in time to register as a candidate. The last day to get filing forms would be March 13th of next year, for the election on May 5th. Only twenty verified signatures were required for the nomination forms. I figured I could find 20 people to nominate a stray cat, never mind an outspoken kid who challenged the existing Board at town meetings.

Getting the rules changed to allow a kid to run, however, would be more difficult. I began by telling my father that I was really interested in local politics, and I'd like to attend town meetings, school board meetings, and even zoning meetings to learn about how things work in government. He agreed, I always wore a dress shirt with my clip-on tie. I sat near the front and always brought a notepad and pencil and scribbled notes furiously when people raised issues, or the board members spoke. I wanted to make it obvious that I was paying attention and really interested in the goings on. I had a small portable relay unit in my pocket that allowed Joe Torres to listen and watch the proceedings and even converse with me, telepathically. He recorded everything, so my note taking was just for show.

Occasionally, I raised questions, always being extra polite and addressing people with sir or ma'am and thanking them for their answers. On several occasions, people commented to my father that he was raising a very polite little boy who was either going to be a politician or a reporter. I'd always chime in and say, "I'd like to be a Selectman. What's the biggest thing I could do to get your vote?" Sometimes, they'd just laugh, but sometimes they'd answer. Afterwards, I'd ask my father for their names and Joe would make notes. I was learning and building plans.

Meetings were few and far between, however, and I had plenty of other business to keep me busy.

As the Jupiter station was being built, Earth Friend tried to sell me sensor platforms to integrate with my Base systems to monitor traffic around the station and watch it being constructed. I reminded him that I owned half of the enterprise and the construction machines had sensor feeds as would the station itself, and they could easily be routed to my systems here on Earth without any expense whatsoever. He wasn't happy that I caught him trying to get more money out of me, but he had to agree.

I did buy other sensor platforms, with shielding similar to that of my Super-Secret Planetary Leadership Headquarters treehouse Fortress. I had an array that could cover the entire Earth's surface from low-orbit and remain undetected. They even had avoidance systems that would allow them to dodge anything conventional Earth Tech could shoot at them. I also had a few patrolling around the solar system ready to identify and follow any unidentified craft moving or entering the system. Other purchases included my own trans-dimensional local transport unit. It could instantly, well instantly as far as human perception went, transport itself and its contents, me included, to a distance up to just beyond the moon's orbit. Mine was much smaller than the van-sized one that Earth Friend had used to land in my backyard when we first met. His doubled as temporary living quarters. I intended mine just as a way to move around. I also wanted it small enough to appear inside buildings without any issues. It was just about the size of an old-fashioned phone booth, the kind the old black and white television show showed as a convenient changing room for Superman. Mine was a little shorter, about six feet three inches tall in total.

Using my visuals from my orbiting sensors, which could photograph a chickadee on a bird feeder in high res from low orbit, Joe could plot out the coordinates for anywhere I wanted to go. If I were not too cautious, I could have used it to enter the Oval Office, The Kremlin, or even Fort Knox. The latter was largely underground so we would have had to bring other sensor data from the orbiting probes to pinpoint a safe spot for me to materialize, but it could be done, Joe assured me.

I also invested in small, cloaked sensor drones that would follow each of my parents around as a security precaution, and another to watch over me from overhead to detect anyone following me. All the sensor platforms and drones had some weaponry, just in case. Between those and the science info I was downloading into my brain, I quickly exhausted the coffee revenue that was coming in. It was a good sum, but weaponized, cloaked sensor platforms were really expensive. I'd eventually need more to get better coverage of the entire solar system on a constant basis rather than just using roving patrols. I had, however, borrowed as much as I dared. The debts carried interest and it would be some time before the refueling station came online, and even more after that before we paid off the construction costs and could reap the full profits of that enterprise.

I was able to license chocolate in its many forms from cacao nibs to milk chocolate to the Galactic Union citizenry in partnership with Earth Friend, this time at a fifty-fifty split. I wanted to introduce new items slowly, for now. There was no telling whether they'd be quickly passing fads or long-term cash cows and I wanted to hold as much as I could in reserve to space out Earth's income opportunities over time. If chocolate went well, I'd go for vanilla next. I couldn't think of anything that would be sought after by the Grestalli People of the Galactic Union who subsisted entirely on photosynthesis with some air and mineral rich water thrown in to build body mass, and to create the flower-like appendages they used for reproduction. There were plenty of other races who ate and drank like humans, more or less. While coffee and chocolate didn't appeal to all of them, they each found a big enough market base to provide me with enough GU credits to pay down my loans on schedule and to start building an emergency cash reserve.

Meanwhile, I used some of my fake game company dividend dollars to buy myself a computer, and I made a ruse of taking online classes to help explain how I was about to become a math and science savant in time to get out of having to attend the fourth grade.

I also bought myself some really killer gaming consoles, but I had to strictly limit my time on them. I had an Empire to run after all.