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The Schuyler Fortune IV: Raspberry-4
"I didn't know if the two of you had come to a decision at this point about children but wanted to pass things by you. I know it is last minute, for sure and I hate to put you on the spot and will not pressure you in the slightest."
"The pregnancy has gone well. They appear to be healthy, at term and a little wild, if the surrogate mom were to be asked. They've been very active inside."
Eric asked Dr. McGill for his cell number. "We'll call you back in ten minutes."
Brent and Eric quickly decided that this was the opportunity they had hoped for and together they prayed for guidance and strength and called Dr. McGill back to accept.
The household had developed a new process for emergencies. If an urgent situation came up, Eric would call a two-digit number and several things would happen at once. After Eric and Brent talked for a few moments, Brent said he thought this was a perfect example of a good time to use that system. Eric picked up his cell and clicked twice on the number three...
A text went out to the pilots of all of the jets, the Housekeeper, the Security Chief, the scheduling secretary, the grandmothers, Loren and Selene, the Schuyler Bank CEO and the trusts and funds offices to be on standby for an `urgent situation-not life threatening'.
The housekeeper and security staff hustled to Eric's office along with the cook and maintenance crew chief. The housekeeper was delighted to hear the news and began to act as a note taker.
The scheduling secretary kept duplicate notes in case one missed a point for organizing what had to be done and when.
Eric, on a conference call with trust legal asked the trust office legal staff to begin adoption proceedings in the city and state of New York. Brent contacted the social work department at Columbia University's maternity center to coordinate the adoption sharing the Schuyler trust's contact information with the social worker. Eric asked the trust legal office to contact a friendly judge in the city was asked to help speed up the process as possible.
A jet was dispatched to pick up Brent's family in London and return with them as soon as possible.
In London, the telephone rang in the evening at the Smythe residence. When Linda answered, she heard the shaky voice of her son who asked her to get dad and sit down to chat on speakerphone as he had news. They heard his voice crack as he told them they were going to be grandparents of twins tomorrow.
Brent explained the circumstances and listened to his mother, delighted, and his father, pleased but calm, say that it was too bad they couldn't meet the twins for a while.
"No...Mom...Dad...listen...a jet is just now taking off from Teterboro in New Jersey and will land at London City Airport in about seven or eight hours to pick all of you up, the bros too. Can you be ready and packed and be at the private terminal by then? All you will need are passports...if someone doesn't have one, the Schuyler offices in London can get an emergency passport within an hour."
He gave his mother the number to call if needed.
"We want you to be here for the big event tomorrow if you want to come. If you can come, we will email you the details of where and what exact time to meet the jet. It will only have to refuel and re-provision some things and it will be ready to return."
The housekeeper and a maid were asked to organize supplies and equipment for the babies. The security chief prepared for extra staff at the hospital and said he would arrange transportation with the scheduling secretary back and forth. He also volunteered to keep Brent's parents informed about the jet's arrival times.
Brent decided this was a great time to prepare a suite for a nursery along with Loren and Selene and in addition, said he would ask Selene to go shopping with him for little guy clothes at Bloomingdales that afternoon.
The housekeeper began to plan for company and notified the kitchen and maid staff. The museum was to close tomorrow. Eric and Brent began to think of names, but nothing clicked with them. It seemed as though they would have to meet the boys first.
Then a bomb dropped. A social worker from Columbia called and stated that Eric and Brent had no right to jump to the head of the line of adopting parents, especially in view of the fact that there had been no legally required home review or parental education process including parenting classes.
She apologized for being the splash of cold water but said she had rules to follow. She also muttered something about `damn rich gays' thinking they owned the world but wouldn't repeat the phrase when asked. Eric and Brent prayed about it again and called the trust legal offices to see if they could sort something out.
They also called Dr. McGill and reported the problem. Dr. McGill didn't see any problem with temporary custody while the above matters were being straightened out which made Eric and Brent feel slightly more at ease. He promised to call the head of the social work department.
The judge called an hour later and told them he had granted temporary custody of the boys to them in view of Eric and Brent's well-known character and resources as being in the best interest of the soon-to-be born infants. Eric thanked the judge and wondered what roller coaster he and Brent had just jumped on.
After Brent's hilarious trip to Bloomingdales that afternoon which Selene described Brent's idea of shopping as "let's get ten of everything in the store in case we need it."
More than one Bloomindale truck was scheduled to deliver the goods the next day.
A team of footman used hand trucks to wheel the many boxes from the delivery platforms to one of two destinations, the newly named 'nursery supply room' in the staff quarters and another suite.
The latter suite was being remodeled in a big hurry. A set of grand double doors was being installed between that supply room and the nursery. New closets and shelves were installed and some remodeled. The nursery decorators were hard at work with light blue paint and mobiles and soft lights.
Eric and Brent sat down and ticked off items on the infants' lists with Carol and Blossom. Bottles...check. Formula...check. Baby wipes...check. Baby wash-cloths...check. Liquid baby soap...check. Soft baby brush and comb...check. Soft baby towels...check.
Small baby diapers...check. Soft cotton baby blankets...check. White cotton onesies...check. Eric explained to Brent that infant onesies were a single piece jumpsuit made to facilitate diaper (nappy) changes. They had Velcro or snaps on the over-the-crotch extension of the garment to provide easy access to diapers
Two baby cribs...check. Two changing tables...check. Two baby car seats...check.
Picture (framed) for the nursery wall showing two young children crossing a rickety bridge over a raging stream guarded by an angel...already hung at grandma Blossom's direction from storage. It was the identical picture Eric and Loren had seen all their lives as children after being adopted.
And on it went. A long list...all checked.
Both men passed on the idea of a wet nurse.
There was a staggering variety of styles and colors of infant clothes (for hot and cold weather and rainy weather) and diapers and socks and toys and educational rattles and classical music players, and a Perego twin stroller.
The only nursery items missing were two small baby boys, age zero.
Brent's family arrived from London late that night via Teterboro, then the Schuyler helicopter to the Manhattan heliport, then by limousine to the museum, tired and excited. Brent and Eric met the family at the door. Even his little brothers were psyched about the trip and being new uncles.
The family was shown to their suites to rest and refresh as they wished prior to breakfast after filling out their preferences for breakfast items the next morning in their suites. Andrew knocked on Daniel's door to wake and bring Daniel breakfast, heard Daniel's shower running and began to set out his breakfast. He turned to see Daniel come into the breakfast area of the suite without threads. He looked up at Daniel's face and told him that breakfast was served and brought him a dry towel and light robe.
At 9 a.m. the next morning, all of the family on both sides gathered at the Maternity Center waiting room. An hour later the suspense peaked as a team of physicians and nurses emerged smiling, inviting the family to the viewing area.
Eric and Brent met their two sons then for the first time, the boys smaller than they had imagined, sleeping, dark hair, brown-tanned, dark eyes. Linda said it first. "Finally...some color in our family!" She heard laughter all around.
Dr. McGill told them then that the boys' biological father was partly Hispanic from Colombia and part Scot. "The babies are healthy and came through the delivery just fine. The mother is doing well and resting now. Here are the boys' blood types and vital statistics...nearly the same for both, but we don't think they are identical. We still have some tests to do to establish that. If all goes well, they can go home tomorrow since their birth weights are good and they are well then."
A celebration lunch at the Museum followed. The happy dads and grandmothers teased Robert about how easy being a grandfather really was.
Mateo Robert Jerry Schuyler-Jones and Paulo Michael Marcus Schuyler-Jones weighed six pounds, thirteen ounces each and their lungs worked just fine.
The twin babies were given their first limousine ride guarded by a security system rivaling the White House with a security staff as professional as any and dying to meet the new babies who slept their first night in cribs in the museum nursery. They were loved crazy by his great-grandmothers Carol and Blossom and their grandma Linda and grandma Olive when she visited from time to time.
The twins had a long plane ride to London early on to see their new uncles who liked them for a few minutes. It was a little tough for an eleven-year-old and seventeen-year-old to relate, since the babies didn't yet play well as a team. They yawned through a quick visit with King William and the Duchess who had enjoyed the Eric and Brent's wedding and had looked forward to meeting Eric and Brent's children.
Mateo and Paulo were among the first to see floods outside the transparent ceramic walls of their block and the first to see seawater lapping at the now permanently closed gates.
Five years before those waters rose, the Schuyler trust in the form of Eric and Loren and their spouses along with Joseph, James, Mateo and Paulo visited Colorado and they reviewed real estate proposals developed by their real estate department working with local and national real estate firms. The family knew that sea levels would rise in Manhattan. Data from the Dell had projected real trouble in five years- time with semi-permanent flooding on the island.
They were looking for an enormous ranch protected by the Rocky Mountains either in Wyoming and/or Colorado. The decision was Eric's to make but he wanted a consensus before buying several thousand acres of prime ranch land on the border of Colorado and Wyoming at an elevation somewhat higher and both north and west of Denver. On the highest point of that land on solid rock underpinnings, a replica on steroids of the Schuyler museum in Manhattan began to rise from the rock.
Enormous underground vaults eight stories down into the rock were blasted and carved, then building started, again with the bottom layer of solid rock followed six feet higher by a layer of thick reinforced concrete with sensors above and below, then a thick titanium metal floor. Below the metal floor were multiple very wide diameter, short, barrel-like rubber devices to minimize earthquake activity. Above the metal floor were more sensors for moisture, light, movement, temperature, all monitored by computer.
An underground reactor was installed a quarter mile away for heat and electricity for the ranch. Those utilities were transported to the Colorado museum through large flexible metal tubes in a reinforced tunnel for safe passage through the mile of underground rock with minimal potential for earthquakes and flood.
Above the titanium floor were laid six stories of waterproof basement floors and walls of thick granite with multiple large elevators to the top of the museum, another ten stories to the top floor. All of the sixteen floors of the museum were climate controlled, temperature and humidity controlled with backup electrical systems and monitored by computers constantly.
Very little landscaping was done initially. The natural vegetation at that altitude was sparse so the sagebrush and grasses formed the bulk of visible vegetation and the decision was made to wait.
The same type of ditches to bedrock were dug as in New York, in this case two hundred feet from the museum's perimeter, waterproof cement poured to twenty feet, the transparent ceramic walls sunk to bedrock through the cement and when that dried, more waterproof cement was poured on both sides of the wall down into the ditch to fifty feet below ground level to allow for utility pipes and underground tunnels. Above that level, further panels, apposing tightly, were placed with precision to rise eighteen feet above ground, bending twenty degrees out gracefully beginning about six feet above ground level, then continuing up and out to maximum height.
A titanium fence made of vertical, parallel twisted square bars about twelve feet high and four inches apart was planted ten feet into the ground twenty feet outside the ceramic wall. Each bar rose to divide into two curved sections, both in and out, coming to a very sharp point. The ceramic fence towered above it pointed outward.
Both the transparent ceramic wall and the titanium fence had openings for gates of the same material. The titanium fence opened and shut electronically by remote control from the security room and the ceramic gates placed just inside of the ceramic wall on a track, also closed by remote control and slid in and then outward to close the wall opening tightly, waterproof with the adjacent portions and the portions beneath the wall.
Just outside the titanium fence in the back of the museum, uphill from the main building was an enormous structure built of transparent ceramic with adjustable air openings to release heat or conserve heat, which served as a hydroponic greenhouse heated by sun and reactor steam.
An identical underground structure was built right next to it looking to a more inhospitable climate in the future. The same material formed above and below ground tunnels to the house and utility tunnels to great water reservoirs of transparent ceramic filled by snow each year. These utility tunnels contained water pipes and steam pipes to keep the snow melted just enough for very cold water to flow to the museum.
Hangars and runways of scored transparent ceramic material were installed with reactor steam tunnel heat to melt the snow under the runways and taxiways. Underground jet fuel bunkers were installed and connected to the hangar for refueling.
Two-lane underground tunnels were built from the security garages to multiple secure compounds in Denver.
The tunnels ended in buildings resembling warehouses.
A basement floor of the museum was reserved for food storage and arms to augment the security barracks armory. A four-bed hospital with an OR suite and an ICU room was placed on the third basement floor. The fourth, fifth and sixth basement floors were for the art collection. The Manhattan repository contents were now in a similar repository in Denver, bigger and more secure because all of the globally-loaned Schuyler trust art objects had been recalled due to conflicts, unsecure capitals on the continent and other safety considerations including climate changes. All of the art objects were removed from Manhattan and moved to Colorado for safety.
Some farming, primarily chicken, pork and cattle farming, were banned temporarily because of the high amounts of methane dumped into the atmosphere and the excess amounts of water and grain used to raise them. The sea stopped being the primary source of sustainable food after some time. Enormous underground reactors provided energy for light, for the production of pure water from piped-in sea water; fertilizer from multiple sources grew a wide variety of fruit and vegetables in hydroponic systems underground. Many northern industries, Ross Pharmaceuticals included, the stock exchanges, banks, ... all were transplanted bit by bit to the southwest states.
As the polar regions, Iceland, Greenland, and the glaciers of the world melted, the amount of incarcerated water in ice was again seen to be finite. At some point, the sea levels stopped rising. Not much of Manhattan was usable. The subway tunnels were totally flooded and there were no dry basements unless you counted the Schuyler Museum, which was dry right down to bedrock due to previous careful long-range planning and massive expense.
The ranch in Colorado was designed to house a very large number of people. Eric had planned for Blossom and John, Carol, his husband and kids, Loren and Selene and kids, Barbara, Jack and kids, Secret Service staff and personnel, household and security staff, ADRA headquarters for Aunt Donna and staff, an in-house physician and nurse, an in-house dental clinic with dentist and dental hygienist, the Schuyler trust staff, Schuyler Financial trust bank staff, Schuyler Accounting company staff, IT tech staff and maintenance and ranch staff.
That housing left about one-third of the suite capacity of the museum empty.
The ranch had world-class communications. Satellite phones, dedicated satellite time, microwave towers, and underground optical high-density cables to major cities with nodes on the Internet backbone allowed the museum to talk to people and exchange data.
The move into the museum was a slow and steady process.
First to be moved in after construction were initial security staff with supply delivery vans, trucks, and tanker trucks carrying initial supplies of water, fuel, food (both fresh and frozen), and long-term stored food supplies. Eric hired survivalists from Utah and Idaho to help design the large long-term food storage facility.
Eric had visions of crackpots with long white beards or something and were relieved to discover normal people who wanted to be prepared as possible for periods of time when food supplies might be scarce.
Furniture trucks by the dozens filled with antique carpets, furniture, light fixtures and paper towels, et cetera arrived. Maintenance moved in to turn on the utilities from the reactor and triple test the pumps and piping for the hydroponic system. Gardeners for the hydroponic buildings were seen moving around. Nearly a million dollars was spent moving in.
Residents came second. Blossom, Carol, Eric, Loren and their families moved in first with the household staff, more security, and more maintenance then the others.
The art to be stored in the museum came in last by the guarded truckloads. A few of the art convoys from New York had trucks with ex-SEALS protecting them and a museum curator with the more important cases. Many items were shipped by private air cargo, again, with a curator along for the ride and security as well.
No one foresaw the coming winter, although the Dell supercomputers gave the first warning to Eric and Loren. Loren was modeling one of his funds in his office. He received a call from one of the IT staff responsible for the Dell supercomputer at Ross Pharmaceuticals.
"Hey, boss." Drew Gilman was on the line and clearly disturbed by something. "This Dell either isn't working right, which I doubt because it has been fine for years and came up with other correct results on self-check this week or, those weather models you submitted are showing something we didn't expect."
"How so, Drew?"
"It looks like all of the models skew way out to the long winter side. Real long."
"And isn't that actually normal for one year's modeling to show a mixture of results or all long or all short a small amount of the time? Like a Bell curve, almost?"
"Don't think so," said Drew, "because all of the models say this winter will last for at least two years. No summer in sight for the continental US. That's a lot of data crunched from many more sensors and files and historical records and ozone level measurements than we used to enter into a modeling session. I don't like this."
"Drew, are you married?" Loren asked for a reason.
"Uh, no. I'm still single here in Phoenix with Ross Pharma."
"Drew, you have just been promoted to Schuyler fund IT chief. You may have saved lives with this telephone call. How long will it take you and the Dell people to package up that supercomputer and install it in basement level one here in Colorado? "
"We can do that in six weeks. I'm not going to commute from Phoenix though."
"Would you be willing to move you and your staff here to the museum? You would all have suites, really nice ones, of your own and ride things out up here.
Guaranteed food, electricity for the Dell, warmth, no commute, great salary and genuine, hard work for our country during the next two years."
"You're on, boss. Can I bring my partner?"
"Of course. Can I tell the housekeeper to reserve one suite for the both of you?"
"Yes, please."
True to his word, the Dell was installed and running after days of self-checks by the manufacturer in six weeks on basement level one. Loren had clean power for it from the nuclear reactor with a backup of diesel power.
The news about a long hard winter didn't get out to the public through media outlets until late in the fall. It was as if the state and federal officials had decided not to release the information and cause panic with runs on food stocks. If so, it didn't work, and the United States imported even more food than usual.
The hydroponic system was working well above ground still when temperatures fell into the minus thirty Fahrenheit range, stayed there for a while, then dropped some more.
At that point, the underground hydroponic chamber was brought online and used extensively. Excess fruits and vegetables were taken by truck to Denver and distributed first to the poor, then to supermarkets in the cities.
Arctic air covered most of Canada and the US. Glaciers in Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, the Ohio River Valley, New York, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine began to form and extend at an alarming rate.
A national emergency was called early in the period and tough civilian and military decisions had to be made. Many important bases were moved to the Deep South, an area that was colder, but not frozen.
Millions of people moved to Florida, already overwhelmed with water. Georgia, Texas, Arkansas, Louisiana, New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, southern Colorado, California and curiously, Oregon and Washington, the latter two states slightly warmed by the Pacific Ocean currents...also saw swollen populations.
Many elderly people moved to countries south of the border to escape the cold. Many did not have the resources to move and froze to death. The distribution of food, medical supplies, water was surprisingly difficult.
Ross Pharma had anticipated the long winter.
Eric and Ross Pharma Executives stockpiled generic medications in southern states and the Western states at breakneck speed soon after Loren and Eric talked about the Dell move and the anticipated hard weather.
The warehouses in Phoenix, Denver, Cheyenne and Salt Lake City were jam-packed with generic medications, both those made by Ross and a billion dollars-worth of donated medications, IV's and other medical supplies in hundreds of safe and warmer locations.
The other pharmaceutical industries had opened their warehouses for the Schuyler and Ross semi-trucks and most had raced to produce two years of medications when possible.
The upper half of the United States east of Wenatchee in Washington, east of Bend in Oregon was closed to business, all significant travel of any kind.
The only sign of danger to the ranch was a small glacier coming down just west of Cheyenne slowly but directly toward the ranch which missed the museum eventually.
The nuclear reactor was sending plenty of heat to melt snow for water for the ranch, which all ran down east if not needed and the temperature of that water was warm enough to provide some water for towns near Fort Collins, Boulder and Denver and parts between.
Denver was not threatened by glacier ice during the two years. The repository there continued to house some of Eric's art and gems through the period.
The miniature Ice Age passed after two winters. The spring that followed that second winter came a little early for Colorado in late March.
Mateo and Paulo loved to run with their cousins. Running outside in fresh air in their bare feet on grass in sunshine was high on their list of favorite things to do. When they were seven years old, they asked for ponies. Again. This request was an annual thing and had been for a few years. The last two years had been automatic, but Eric and Brent had no real excuse this year.
Barns were built, and a few horses purchased, most were sturdy little Arabians. A couple of cowboys with security experience were hired to teach them to ride and protect them as well. They all rode daily until one Thursday morning.
The morning ride for Mateo and Paulo was uneventful on Wednesday. On Thursday, they rode out and did not return by noon. Security called Eric at twelve fifteen and reported that their ankle bracelets were not transmitting and that they were not back yet. They hadn't seen the cowboys and the barn was quiet.
Eric summoned the rest of the security team. There was a protocol for this. A computer for traffic analyzed the cameras monitoring the exit tunnels. Any traffic, even a tortoise, was photographed if it wasn't on the schedule. No unusual tunnel traffic was found.
An email arrived on Eric's phone asking for a billion dollars to be deposited in an account in the Cayman Islands. The account number was listed. "Don't trace or follow this lead. We will know if that happens."
A single call to aunt Barbara got the FBI involved. They staked out the entrance to the warehouse in Denver.
The Schuyler trust was alerted to prepare a wire."
On a hunch, Eric and Brent thought to have security check for the guests and family members who were in residence. All were accounted for.
Drones were launched high over the ranch and computerized searches of the disturbed brush and tracks showed a new tangle of weeds and apparently fresh shoveled dirt a half-mile away from the museum.
When security arrived at the tangle of weeds, the quickly found a pipe extending out of the ground and they were careful not to disturb it. They dug down around the pipe and found a cage with the boys in it, alive and very drowsy.
The good news was reported to Eric and Brent who had been frantic. The in-house doctor examined Mateo and Paulo carefully. They had been injected in one hip.
Brent arranged for blood samples to be flown to Denver for rapid analysis. The results showed high levels of barbiturates, a sedative agent that caused drowsiness.
The cowboys were missing. The computers searched over computerized photographs and videos of trucks and cars leaving the ranch. Nothing.
At the western border of the ranch, a computer noted a creek overhang, what seemed like a pile of brush in front of it and security drones were sent to look.
A smaller drone, launched from a larger drone, buzzed under the overhang and found two hobbled horses. The cowboys were gone.
Eric made a quick decision.
Eric, Brent and some security staff took Raspberry to the Caymans. On arrival, they called back to the ranch and asked for the latest flight information from Mexico City. One more flight from Mexico City was arriving in thirty minutes.
Eric found a policeman at the airport. After a brief conversation, an envelope was handed to the policeman consisting of a generous amount of cash in US dollars as a gift for his assistance in apprehending the men quietly without any official problems. The policeman was happy to help.
On arrival of the flight from Mexico City, Eric and Loren scanned the off-loading passengers. The two cowboys stepped off. Eric asked the policeman to bring the men to his private jet. The security team secured the cowboys and they flew back to Colorado.
The Denver police were called. They arrested the cowboys for kidnapping and extortion. The defense claimed that the child had asked to play a game of kidnapping. The judge instructed the jury to return a verdict of kidnapping and extortion.
Eric's attorneys asked the judge to apply the new statutes about location-tracking for kidnappers. GPS implants were placed deep in their bodies for that purpose. The security computers kept a log of their locations for years afterward.
The average temperatures at the North and South Poles were decreasing again. The long winter had shaken even the climate skeptics. That group still felt that the science somehow was wrong, but they too had just seen some pretty unusual weather for their lifetime and most now cooperated in decreasing emissions seriously and the nation's creative energy was poured into retrieving carbon and greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.
Most communities planted trees to capture carbon dioxide from the air and more devices to capture carbon and convert it to solid waste were installed. Arson was upgraded to a life sentence, and forest fires treated as a national emergency instead of `a natural happening'. Research into chemical processes to harness methane gas intensified.
Eric and Brent talked about lending some art objects again out to world museums for display and study. After two years of northern ice, lending trials began that summer in European and Asian capitals.
Joe, Jamie, Mateo and Paulo were tutored together at the museum. They became familiar with keyboard skills. They had classes that taught them how they learned and another that taught them basic skills of life such as cooking and survival skills.
As previously melted regions of the world froze again, sea levels began to lower. Eric was faced with a decision to make. Should the family assets remain in Colorado or was a return to New York possible or even a good idea?
As Eric analyzed it, the family had a duty to allow access to the art collection. The family had invested huge amounts of money to buy and develop the Schuyler Museum in Manhattan.
On the other hand, Manhattan was still somewhat of a wasteland. The subways were not functioning. Over half the population had moved to warmer places and many had not returned.
The airports at Teterboro, Newark, JFK and LaGuardia had been submerged. JFK was rescued by a system of gates and dikes similar to those around some parts of the Netherlands. The others were not functional. Money had been tight. Similar systems, partially funded by Congress, had rescued southern Florida, extending the dikes between the Everglades and Palm Beach counties down past Broward and Miami-Dade counties, then north of the peninsula on the west side of the state.
The United Nations building was deserted. Albuquerque had bid for a new United Nations building and won the competition. Tourist traffic to Manhattan would not resume to museums there for many years unless, perhaps, one museum took the lead to encourage others.
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim and many others had closed. Countless priceless objects of art had transferred to warmer, safer places.
Some hotels in Manhattan were still closed. About half of the hospitals in the boroughs were empty.
Eric felt some duty to lead out in the migration back to New York. On the other hand, the family had also invested staggering amounts of their treasure in the Colorado ranch, which had proved to be a safe place during a climate emergency.
He didn't continue to depend on the help of the Dell supercomputer, since the models now disagreed as usual about the coming few years.
His decision was to hedge his bets. The family would keep both properties, maintain the Colorado museum since tourists never saw that and move half of the normally displayed museum objects back to Manhattan for display only, not for storage in the basement. Their bank, their accounting company and ADRA were to move to Charlotte, North Carolina at an elevation of about seven hundred fifty feet above sea level.
Loren and Eric flew Raspberry to JFK and a Schuyler helicopter took them to the roof of the servant's quarters, then over the sky bridge to the museum. They took security and maintenance personnel with them. The park and the museum were bone dry. The transparent ceramic wall around the entire block extending down to bedrock had protected the block and its contents.
The titanium fence had not corroded with exposure to seawater since the temperatures had been way below the one hundred ten-degree Fahrenheit temperature required for titanium corrosion over time. The ceramic wall was intact. It needed cleaning and polishing only.
The museum had been carefully prepared for long, cold weather. The system logs showed that there had been power outages on occasion, but the average building temperature above ground had been forty degrees and a little above that in the basement.
The `castle' was dry inside and intact.
Arrangements were made to bring in a power generation unit to heat the entire building during power outages in the future.
The older backup power units were removed and discarded. They had failed with extreme cold to maintain acceptable temperatures.
Careful assessment of the smaller buildings, electrical, plumbing, computers, security sensors, gates, playground equipment, elevators, heating and cooling systems, and air filtration systems along with kitchen appliances, laundry equipment, storage areas, linen closets, and bathrooms followed.
No major damage was found. A few minor cracks and blemishes were repaired. The basements were inspected, and no problems were found there.
Eric gave the order to plan the process of moving the normally displayed art objects back to Manhattan, including diverting available household and security staff back to Manhattan.
Some challenges presented themselves. Landscaping services had been outsourced in the city. That contract needed to be bid out again.
Reopening proved to be relatively easy. The city was eager to see that happen and shared the goal of reopening all of the museums, so the licenses and utilities were restored promptly. There was no need to advertise.
The trust didn't charge admission, didn't need to make money and they were the only museum open for a few months in Manhattan. Their displayed European objects were world-class examples, immaculately restored and maintained, elegantly displayed and a joy for art lovers to view.
The ranch in Colorado had not been built for visitors, but for the preservation of art objects and family survival. It was a safe place, a great place to raise kids in some ways, but a long way from the city mindset and contacts needed to grow the Schuyler fortune for generations to come.
Daniel had turned twenty that summer. Brent and Eric had decided before his college choice was finalized to talk to him again about his plans. As they had guessed, the main barrier to attending his choice of colleges was money. Daniel shared his plans to take a pre-medical track somewhere. Eric had spoken with Robert and offered to pay the entire expenses for Daniel and Frank at the college of their choosing and/or the college they managed to enter. Robert, initially reluctant, had listened to Brent and Eric, who had flown over to make the offer.
They convinced him that the money didn't have to flow to Daniel if he felt better about that, but to the college directly or through a trust. They thought Robert might be reluctant to cede the task of providing a first-class pre-medical education. It turned out differently. Robert's chief concern was that Daniel, who by this time had indicated his gender preference to his dad, be educated as close to his family as possible for any needed emotional support he might need. Linda Smythe felt the same way.
Brent and Eric, back at home, called Daniel again with an idea. "Hey brother of mine, we need to know if you've chosen a college yet. There are some minor strings to pull. Do you have a preference?" Daniel didn't yet.
"I'll call you back with some choices."
"Make sure your cell is charged on Thursday in the afternoon your time before 8 pm, OK?"
"Sure, Brent." Daniel thanked his brother for the help.
Eric knew that a certain Ivy League college in the Northeast, like other Ivy League schools, had admission programs for 'foreign' students and programs for relatives of large donors. These weren't advertised but most of the top one per cent, the very wealthy, and their families knew. Eric called up a Grinnell classmate, now working in the admissions office and asked for an appointment.
He took Sweet Pea up the next morning and bounced into Mickey Graham's office. "Hey, Mickey, it's been a long time." They talked for a half hour or so, then Mickey's secretary knocked on the door and told him that the President of the University and the CFO and the Dean of Admissions were in the anteroom and wondering if he had a few minutes to speak with them. Mickey did.
Eric and Mickey stood while they entered. Smiles broke out all around. Eric had given a great deal of money, wired, to the Foundation within the last month and the CFO knew exactly who he was. From that contact, the President of the University, having received a cordial note from a Prince of the United Kingdom recommending Daniel, knew who Daniel was and from both of them the Dean of admissions and now Mickey were in the know. Eric was assured that the University would be delighted to accept Daniel Smythe the next year. Eric in turn, handed the CFO a check for the entire cost of that education. "His admittance, you understand, is predicated on Daniel's maintaining his present grade point average." Eric understood that sentence had to issue from the President's mouth to keep up appearances.
It is safe to say that on Thursday, Brent and Eric had a great deal of fun informing Brent's not-so-little brother (anymore) of his impending admit to an Ivy League school in the Northeast. His living expenses were covered, and the tuition and board expenses were already paid. Brent invited him to stay in a suite at the museum whenever he could.
The following fall, Daniel arrived in New York, thrilled to be in the United States again and getting ready for college. He settled into the aforementioned suite for a week or two and slept for twenty-four hours or so. He woke one morning to shower and eat breakfast. Stepping nude from the shower to grab a towel, he found it draped over the arm of the footman, Andrew, who politely offered it to Daniel. "Now or never," Daniel thought to himself. Daniel declined the towel, grabbed his cock and stretched it a little while flexing his pecs and twisting his torso a little. His wet skin, flawless and green eyes along with red hair pushed every button Andrew had. Andrew, ever accommodating, threw the towel to the floor, pulled his clothes off to match. Daniel thought the sight was pretty grand since his cock immediately assumed an erect position, began to throb and a warm feeling, really warm, suffused his balls. They moved toward each other slowly. Andrew stopped, and Daniel kept moving closer. Daniel reached out and took Andrew's hand in his. "I'm new to this, Andrew. Hold me." They kissed tentatively and Daniel's hand slipped around Andrew's butt to caress the tight bubbles of muscle there. His other hand reached down to grasp Andrew's cock, velvety-soft, hard inside, warm, a puddle of pre-cum already sitting on the tip. Andrew touched Daniel's lips, held him a bit, then leaned over to lick Daniel's nipples and nibble his way down to his cock. Kneeling, Andrew took Daniel's cock into his mouth, warm and wet, and power-sucked until his reward spurted into his mouth. Daniel wondered why he had waited so long to find out about all this. He decided that Brent was lucky to have been at it already. After breakfast, he put a thin robe on, hustled down the hall and knocked on Brent and Eric's door.
In a few minutes, Brent opened the door to see his brother, grinning at him in a way Brent hadn't quite seen before. As Daniel pushed his way into the room, Brent yelled, "Hey you can't barge...Daniel came to a full stop. He had interrupted something fun apparently. Eric was standing on the bed, cock upright, wet.
In for a penny, in for a pound, thought Daniel. He shucked his robe, went over to Brent and kissed him deeply, tugging on his brother's cock. "Can he come out to play?" Eric laughed and jumped off the bed, looked at his husband in the eye.
"I think Daniel wants to play, Brent. Whaddya say?" Brent tore off his own robe and led his husband and his brother to their bed. He lay down again, Eric began to fuck his husband's mouth while Daniel's first fuck began as he pushed his rock-hard dick into his brother's ass, sloppy wet and tight and warm...Daniel made himself right at home. Eric yelled out his orgasm. Brent a couple of minutes later felt his brother's cock rasping past his prostate and felt the closeness to his brother, realizing just who was inside his ass, gave his brother a strong hug and came just as his brother spurted for the second time that morning.