Alpha One - Chris Burton [113]
The Real Winterburn
Fifty two years ago, Winterburn arrived on Titan.
His task was simple. He was engaged to bring about the opening of the blue wormhole to allow his people to enter this new galaxy and feed. He travelled through a fissure between the two wormholes in the Tri-Star system. The fissure was big enough for a small ship to pass through, but inadequate for the deployment of a mass Kryl invasion. The fissure had always been there, but was undetected because of its size.
Winterburn‘s appearance was his first problem. The Kryl were human-like in stature, but there complexion was a pallid grey. The only characteristic features in his hairless face were his deep, penetrating eyes, which were deep scarlet. He quickly moved to disguise his lack of facial distinction by injecting pigment cells into his face and body. He used steroids and human DNA enhancers to replicate a human’s more distinct facial features.
The only aspect of his origins he couldn’t disguise were his eyes. He tried various lenses but found them ineffective. He injected pigmentation directly into his cornea but this was only partially successful. His eyes then would be his calling card. Since he could not disguise them, he would use them to help his cause.
Winterburn quickly established himself on Titan, first as a Cargo Pilot and then, as he made money, as an entrepreneur. He soon amassed a considerable amount of capital through the deployment of a fleet of his own ships, dealing in mining transportation. He developed his persona around a charismatic philanthropist who quickly became popular and engrossed in the more elitist sections of Titan society. He manufactured a ‘conscience’ encompassing many of the larger ecological issues, and then began to speak publicly on various related concerns before involving himself with the Betanica Sect and their beliefs.
This was all part of the plan. He established himself as a leader with a conscience. Despite his strange looks and the color of his eyes, he was accepted and on course to deliver his objective.
After ten years on Titan, Winterburn opened a division of one of his companies on Earth. The company quickly established itself as a leading deep space transportation company. It was then Winterburn established Nexus. He funded and incorporated the company with a board of directors, with his holding company—rather than himself—as the controlling interest. Within two months of its incorporation, the holding company sold its equity in the business and Winterburn acquired a fifty-one percent stake in the company via a separate holding company not legally required to divulge its investors. Over the next ten years, with little intervention from Winterburn, Nexus grew into its niche area of deep space exploration.
Around the same time, Winterburn became a priest of the Betanica Sect, and taught the beliefs of the Sect to like-minded Titans. He allowed himself to deviate from the standard teachings of the Sect and to preach the words of his own church, the Collective. Quickly he began recruiting his disciples.
Over the following years, Nexus moved towards the exploration and development of wormholes and other deep space transportation links. The Collective grew to protect the things Nexus supported. Winterburn established two organizations which ‘poles’ apart. No one made the connection between the two and only Winterburn knew the true reason for their joint establishment.
It was, perhaps, the man’s flamboyance which allowed him to develop such an elaborate and complicated deception. He wasn’t compelled to achieve his aims in any specific way; it was sheer confidence which allowed him to achieve these objectives in the manner he chose. This way, he covered all the bases. He could represent himself as being a man of conscience who could and should have the right to be there to help prevent the wormholes opening, and on the other hand, through Nexus, had no constraints of conscience. It was a commercial organization, governed by profit. Winterburn had created the conflict to bring about Alpha and ECG’s