Span of Influence Read online

  Pathway to the Stars:

  Part 7, The Span of Influence

  Author – Matthew J. Opdyke

  Publisher – Matthew J. Opdyke

  Copyright © MJO Publications, 2019

  All Rights Reserved

  Kindle Edition

  ISBN – 978-1-951321-06-2

  Library of Congress Control Number:

  2019918436

  Disclaimers

  This is a work of science fiction and utopian fantasy. The names, characters, businesses, places, incidents, locales, and events are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious way and with the utmost of respect toward all parties.

  Reading this text and enjoying it may take you on a journey that is enjoyable while increasing your reading comprehension level as well as your philosophical, emotional, intuitive, and creative literacy. If there are any blatant errors or constructive suggestions, please advise the author through email, at:

  [email protected]

  This book was written using the mind and heart of the author, and in many cases, it was written completely “off the grid.” In brief moments if there is a quote, the author uses quotations and directly sites the author within the text. In many occasions, the author wrote prose and phrases that are spoken every day, or in the past, and should never be taken from any artist since a major part of any amazing story brings a sense of normalcy. Otherwise, this text is original in every sense, wherein, in this book the author also suggests we search for the well-being of those around us as well as ourselves.

  Table of Contents

  Pathway to the Stars: Part 7, The Span of Influence

  Disclaimers

  Table of Contents

  Preface by Author

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1: Understanding More

  Chapter 2: Let’s Investigate

  Chapter 3: The Intrigue of Buyouts

  Chapter 4: Buffeting Attacks

  Chapter 5: A Big Meeting

  Chapter 6: Every Ocean Wave

  Chapter 7: Is this the Future?

  Chapter 8: A Driver for Change

  Chapter 9: Benevolent Leadership

  Chapter 10: Special Day, Special Night

  Appendix

  Appendix – Character Summaries (Spoilers)

  Appendix – Glossary

  Appendix – Artwork & Inspiration

  Appendix – Bio of Author

  Appendix – Published Works

  Appendix – Thank you

  Appendix – Farewell for Now

  Preface by Author

  A Cosmic Legacy: From Earth to the Stars is a part of the many stories within my heart. Here, I have taken the time to break them down into smaller portions allowing people to savor the words within a little more slowly. Between the Further Than Before: Pathway to the Stars novel series and the Pathway to the Stars booklet series, this is part seven of the booklet series. Within this text, we will learn of Eliza’s rise as she builds her industries and becomes involved in the political foray. In the words of a friend, “Eliza leads a bold innovative political and technological vision.”

  In this portion of my Space Opera as with each part, I will attempt to inspire and provide broad insights on the sciences. I will also make an effort to help everyone worldwide through my science fiction and fantasy novel to reach a moment in life where our energies are directed toward the kind of pursuits that will allow humanity to rise and bring a legacy to many civilizations Universe-wide with a goal of preserving the Universe itself.

  I count myself lucky to have breathed life into the innovations, environments, and characters within. Genius minds, creative spirits, and philosophical depth await, so please enjoy!

  Very Respectfully,

  Matthew J. Opdyke

  [email protected]

  https://www.mjopublications.com

  https://matthew-opdyke-ftb.com/

  https://smile.amazon.com/author/matthewopdyke

  Epigraph

  “Heal, don’t harm. Yet, be strong with clearness of mind, be very capable, and be properly prepared if healing does not work and as such, if lives are at risk, do what needs to be done to protect life, longevity, and an environment conducive to innovation and preservation of a noble and mighty legacy.”

  ~ Vesha Celeste

  “Nature and humanity can be amazing, but likewise, it can be brutal. Brutality, as far too many know it, is unnecessary if we consider and implement one thing, innovation with purpose—a good purpose is brutality’s ideal replacement, and it comes minus unnecessary misery. It’s starting to become clear to me now what it is that we can do and how we can do it.”

  - Eliza Williams

  “Brutality has never been strength, it has always been myopia and cowardice, it has never led to lasting success and never will, it has always been a failure to raise the bar for humanity, and it has never given us the seeds of hope, because brutality is akin to uncontrolled chaos and as a result it is a failure to give humanity a legacy worthy of preserving.”

  ~ Yesha Alevtina

  Chapter 1: Understanding More

  Database Moon Archive, Celestial-Sol Entry Date: 2018 December 25. Yesha Alevtina trains Vesha Celeste. In this crucial part of her training, Evan Bauer and several other highly intelligent scientists are recruited and introduced. Eliza has big plans for their future, but for now, she needs them to do some important research. These memories are shared by the collective minds of the leadership of Eliza, Yesha, and James within the Virtual Universe, interfaced within the Pathway Melrose Campus. Input by Eliza Williams, Founder and President of Pathway Industries, 2008-2015.

  Toward the end of 2010 and throughout 2011, Dr. Eliza A. Williams began looking into various companies, businesses, corporations, and each of the industries throughout the US and throughout the world. She did so, with a lot of interest in buying them out, or at a minimum, investing heavily into them and becoming the major shareholder. Her priority to that end, was the quiet and amiable investigation of every employment center or economic or consumer hub possible.

  Eliza desired a fuller understanding of their hiring processes, management techniques, and treatment of employees and customers. She would accomplish this by sending out swaths of Pathway LLC representatives to apply for and work for each of them while providing continuous feedback from the ground up.

  While her organization numbered at nearly two-hundred million by December of 2010, all of them, while willing and ready to help, were currently engaged in other quests, missions, and tasks, so she took it upon herself to search for and recruit eleven more scientists. Nonetheless she let Yesha and James know of her goals.

  As it turned out, each scientist she felt was right for this endeavor was either a US citizen upon birth or had emigrated legally to the US, courtesy of the efforts of her best friend, Yesha Alevtina.

  Upon further research, Eliza learned that each of the people that she had her sites on had yearned to do great things in science, if given a chance to practice their skills in an environment where private funding for this was much more prevalent. Yesha had seen that as well, and sent three people her way, after recruiting, training, and sending them to James for their first assignments.

  As always, Eliza, Yesha, and James were pretty much in constant contact with each other, sharing their current plans, their goals, and the issues as they arose. At times, they would find solace to focus and dedicate themselves to whatever task was at hand. No matter what Eliza’s goals were, however, Yesha and James were on board. In this case, they understood that Eliza wished to do an investigation of the plethora of industries to see exactly what it was that was slowing down human progress and stymying the increase in the well-being of the ever-g
rowing population outside of Pathway.

  By August of 2011, there were nearly eight-hundred-million Pathway citizens. Earth’s non-read-in populace continued to climb, however, and it seemed that for as much as their efforts were helping so many, there were continuously many more who had never heard of nor knew of the opportunities provided by Pathway of living a life of purpose with increased quality and well-being.

  The seeds of this reality presented itself to Eliza much earlier, in August of 2010, to be exact. This was the same evening she had met Amber Blythe. Shortly after taking Amber through the Virtual Universe she met Evan Bauer for the first time. He had been working at MIT on a joint project with Harvard, and as an associate part-time professor at Harvard, she had been put on that team as well. This joint tasker by Harvard and MIT had to do with working on newly developing technologies, and, one called optogenetics.

  Evan Bauer, only thirty-one years old at the time was heading the task force and had a lot to offer the public community, especially when it came to cures that dealt with neurological disease and non-invasive surgery.

  He had noted that she was quite gifted in this same arena and while on a break, he had asked her how she knew so much. Naturally, her conversation navigated toward essential details about Pathway and she ended up inviting him to the Melrose Campus. Once he’d arrived, he was particularly intrigued and agreed to go through with the Virtual Universe training the same evening as Amber, but about three hours later.

  It wasn’t until entry into the Virtual Universe, when Evan bore his history and past as clearly as he could to Eliza, and together they watched, mulled it over, and made sense of it all…

  Evan Bauer was a man with a light tan complexion and dark and wavy hair on top. He was clean cut, with a well-trimmed dark beard that faded and blended with the hair on the sides and back of his head. Golden fiber-like highlights in the dark irises of his eyes made him look as wise as he indeed was. He looked in every way every bit the genius he was touted to be. His father was from India and had met and married Evan’s mother on a diplomatic assignment in Israel, who happened to be from Bethlehem. Neither had been religious, but both had been enveloped in the cultures that sprung from the regions wherein they were raised. When they decided to move to the US well before Evan had been conceived, they took note of their genealogy and changed their last name to Bauer. Evan grew up loving science, and many years later he had specialized in neuroscience with further focus on non-invasive neurosurgical procedures, studies, and treatments for more than the last decade.

  Over the last few months, Evan had worked as part of Eliza’s elite team to bring clarity to the positive results of the small little details as they affected the mind. He did this, all-the-while working with Amber, updating and upgrading the biopods, as well as the citizens of Pathway. He helped many who were read-in within the Virtual Universe but had also begun to translate his knowledge and studies of the established neuroscientific advances for proliferation into and throughout the real world. Despite his natural talent for well-being-oriented technology, he chose to live in a more organic manner.

  Even though in Pathway, biopods, nanos, the Virtual Universe, and so much more were already developed, in the real world they were not. As brilliant as Eliza was, she also was smart enough to know that everything she created could benefit from input, updates, and upgrades from other brilliant minds. Amber Blythe, for example, had quickly taken the reigns of physiological optimizations and improved upon them in spades.

  Every day, Eliza’s recruits were coming up with enhanced upgrades to each technology she introduced and came up with innovative solutions mitigating as yet unforeseen disasters, long before they could occur. They were proactive in every step, while working as team members, leaders, and motivators all who were new in this growing organization.

  Eliza realized quickly the asset that existed in her own ability to delegate to others the many projects and scientific responsibilities. This allowed Pathway to move forward exponentially in the arena of technologic advancements. As it was, no one in the public eye knew about any of these advancements. Evan sought to help society mature and become educated enough on these types of technologies to assist them in becoming as well-versed and capable as Eliza had been over the last decade.

  Yesha explained to Evan, with Eliza present and inside the Virtual Universe, “Together with Eliza, we’ll explore the continued growth of Pathway LLC to Pathway Industries. We will then conduct private investigations, followed by large buyouts of corporations that are some of the biggest offenders of humanity. Eliza envisions and brings to reality the most significant overall influences and seeks to provide a pathway to citizenship in her LLC, growing her company to that of a major industrial complex, retaining the talents of some of the greatest titans of global industry.”

  Eliza agreed. Her instructions had been to apply for these jobs, just as anyone struggling would. Despite being optimized both physiologically and neurologically, they would regularly report their progress with various necessary details and specifics so she could correlate and accurately interpret the data and information. Eliza had a very educated and wise hunch as to what the source of the problem was for the economic downturn of the US, but she wanted to do proper and somewhat organic research before jumping to make significant changes, based purely on speculation.

  Reports came in, like, “I applied, but I was overqualified,” or, “I applied, but did not have the vast set of specific skills they were looking for,” or, “I applied, got an interview, but never heard back.” Many reports arrived that eluded to trumped-up job requirements and the lack of honest willingness to train prospective employees on the part of so many employers throughout every industry. It became increasingly clear that her hunch was becoming confirmed more and more. Still, there was a lot more she wanted to know and evaluate before making her next move.

  Eliza gathered prominent members of Pathway together in the Group Virtual Universe Interface and deliberated. “We need to know the culture of the many work centers, the real mission of each corporation, how the employees are being treated by their superiors, and the motives of the various management and human resources departments. Are they there to bring people into a team with a noble mission and a healthy and productive work environment? Are they there to do the corporate bidding? Are they there to squeeze more money away from the workers or resources from this Earth to drive up costs for revenue? What are they doing to fine-tune the necessary processes, the training programs, and benefits packages to raise the quality of life for those careworn most? Are these companies there because they genuinely care about the employee, the services or products they are providing, or the long-term viability of the mission and the industry?

  “We need to know the source of the downward spiral of the various industries that have led to revolving doors and people being treated as replaceable things rather than valued potential. Oh, I know the core of the cause, because I have come here to the Virtual Universe and melded minds with every citizen that has been fully read-in, and I have seen enough to make many lose hope.” The leaders there, the scientists who had been involved with so much of Pathway’s growth thus far, along with Yesha, James, and his first two-hundred-thirteen Pathway LLC crewmembers witnessed as she glowed with the desire to help humanity. “We cannot let them wallow away as empty husks of themselves sauntering on in mundane biddings and treated like cattle.

  “Why can’t every country prosper through fair trade, proper education, and the sharing of resources? There are certainly enough minerals, nutrients, possibilities for fertility in the soil. There are more than enough people who can work together in a network of diverse skills and abilities to lead to a healthy mindset that will assist humanity in moving forward and seeing through to taking care of the much bigger picture.” Sharing all of this, Eliza was determined to document, analyze, and create simple solutions to reverse the current decay of society.

  Everyone in the Virtual Universe bore witness that day, mi
nd-to-mind, that Eliza wasn’t one to stand idly by. She was someone who would find a peaceful, brilliant, effective, and efficient way to solve each of the problems plaguing the terrestrial public.

  She continued, “What has happened to the idea and the actual building of products to last? Can they not build products with versatility and the capacity for added options rather than engage in complete restructuring or replacement with little thought for intuition? Can they not build with quality, longevity, and appreciation in mind? Can they not build products, services, and processes with the capacity and space to provide updates and improvement without throwing away a product altogether? Why all the irresponsibly discarded waste? What has caused so many industry leaders to change things merely for the sake of change, rather than for the sake of the improvement of the quality of the process, the product, or the service? Where has the desire to raise the quality of life gone? Why is infrastructure so outdated and crumbling? With all our knowledge, why aren’t products much more capable now than they currently are? How is it that leaders have failed to think long-term and instead they have gravitated toward immediate satisfaction while forsaking quality, longevity, upgradability, and satisfaction for the consumer? Satisfaction and well-being can always be had if proper vision, mission, health, training, compensation, loyalty, morale, and thus innovation drove these industries. So, what is it that has failed and what can be done?”

  Doing this, asking these questions of her neurologically gifted representatives was in no way intended to be corporate espionage, subterfuge, nor anything of the sort. Eliza’s request for intense investigations was designed for statistical feedback regarding the actual climate of the various factions of the many industries she was interested in understanding. She hoped to get to the bottom of the decaying economy, turn things around, and get humanity back to where it needed to be, so we could take the steps necessary to be worthy to journey the stars. Eliza continued.