"The evil overseers at PASSpace have seized control of the entire solar system. They have ships that should be under my control, in service to the Atlantis, so that you, my followers, could reap the riches of the entire galaxy. The corporation must be overthrown! They're stealing the heritage that should be shared among the citizens of the world! My followers, do not let them continue to despoil your birthright! I want that company in flames before the month is out!"

Pepper and Vanessa stared in horror at the screen after the video was done playing. It had been uploaded a day after the otherworld exploration survey had been sent around the world, and contained almost thirty minutes of that same drivel, but they had no doubt that the call for action would be taken up by their followers.

"Which of the fake prophets was that?" Pepper asked in a shaky voice. "Was it one of the big ones?" She hoped not, but assumed so since the editing was done so well.

"That was the American," Jason replied. "The biggest. But it doesn't matter, since the call was echoed with similar messages from the other two large ones less than an hour later. It looks like they're cooperating to paint us all as the greedy corporation who is withholding information and technology."

"Well, we are withholding some," pointed out Vanessa. "But it would only make things worse if we told the people what else we knew. Are you taking steps to protect the company?"

"Yeah, we're doing the best we can. We've already sold a lot of our assets off to raise funds for the equipment you need. A lot of that is already at the space station and being loaded into containers for transport. Beyond that, anyone still essential is working from home so there are no offices anymore, and the only other people still on Earth are at the shuttle port in Costa Rica." Jason sighed deeply. "The situation in America is getting worse, so we're buying a lot of gear from other places. The solar panels came from Australia, the medical supplies from Canada, and so on. The hardest part is getting the gear from wherever it is to the shuttle port, but there isn't much we can do about that."

"We could help with that," Pepper suggested.

"We can?" Vanessa asked, with surprise on her face.

"We have the other four ships on the Atlantis. If we can borrow two of the Mars shuttle pilots, they could take the two larger ones like ours, and they could go pick up the equipment where it is, rather than waiting for it to get to the landing field. Once Emily and Xavier are available, then we could use the two smaller ones too, or use theirs. If you lend us the team that you have on the space station, they can help get equipment onto our Uranus space station from the two relics, and we can all be more productive. I don't think you need to have them study anything more there before we leave, we can be more productive with this new system."

Vanessa opened her mouth to complain, but then realized that Pepper was right. With all the bunk rooms on their ship, and the beds folded away, they could store a lot of gear on each trip, and they could skip the middleman, so to speak, by going to where the equipment was, rather than waiting on ships. "I like that plan. Is there anything you're still waiting on?"

"We have a lot of things on cargo ships that are in transit to Costa Rica, but we're still low by about 100 mattresses, Lena's porn stash, and the sperm bank and IVR stuff." They heard Jason shuffling some papers around as if he were going over a list. "We have the mattresses bought, but they haven't been put on a ship yet. However, they should be at a shipping terminal in New Jersey within a few days, so there is progress. We also have a line on a fertility clinic in Los Angeles. There is a married couple, both doctors, who are willing to sell us their entire inventory. I also may have prompted them to take the survey, and they both scored quite well, so you may just want to take them and their entire outfit and we'd be all set. But we still need to get everyone else once you select them."

"That sounds great!" Vanessa said happily. "How are the rest of the surveys going? Do we have any other candidates?"

They heard Jason snort from the other end of the line. "It was sent worldwide, well, to everyone where the internet wasn't blocked, and so far, things are going well. We have over 12 million responses, and about 36k of those who took it look like viable candidates. Just doing a cross section of skills, I think you already have everything covered, so I think we're in good shape already."

"Right," agreed Pepper. "Until we tell them that we really want to take them to another planet. Then their fictional answers become a cold, hard reality. I'd bet we'd lose a lot at that point."

Vanessa reached over, placing her hand on her wife's leg, and rubbed gently. "It won't be that bad honey. The survey wouldn't have picked them if they weren't ready to go. We might be in better shape than you think."

"I know, I know." Pepper shook her head dejectedly. "I just didn't like that video, and it makes me think we don't have as much time as we thought."

"That worries me too." Vanessa had been chilled by the video, and just hoped they could avoid any repercussions. "Has anyone mentioned the videos to you from any of the governments?"

"Not yet. I'm sure there will be some people wanting to turn more things over to them, if not all of them. Luckily, they're all government bureaucracies and will take time to say anything other than some initial talking heads," Jason assured them. "If they reach out to us, I'll let you know. Honestly, having no United Nations actually makes it easier, because I can play the governments against each other."

Both women chuckled at his idea, but it really was perfect. If there was no unified government body, he could hardly say yes to one, without doing so to all, and there just wasn't enough to go around for everyone that wanted something.

"That is a perfect plan, Jason. Thanks for holding down the fort."

"Well, I do have one more thing to discuss." He sounded wary, so they were immediately on edge. "I know it is our only real money maker at the moment, but I'm going to suggest we stop providing the Mars colony resupplies. There are other companies that would jump at the chance to take it over, and it would allow us to put the craft to better use."

It made sense. Within a few months, PASSpace would, for all intents and purposes, cease to exist. If this made things work easier, then so be it.

"Go ahead and do it. Sell whatever you can, and then before we leave donate all the remaining corporate proceeds to some good charities except for the hidden emergency reserves. I think they're going to need them before too long." Vanessa was sure that with the Earth spiraling downward, charities that supported people would be needed more than ever. The company already donated to such charities, so it would be easy to just increase what they were giving away. "Sell all the leftover transport engines too, we won't need them."

"I can do that, but I'll wait till we're closer to the time to leave. If we give up too much, people will start to suspect we're not sticking around."

Nobody could find fault with that plan. The company was already under siege in the media from journalists that followed the various prophets and lambasted by politicians around the world for the same reason. Of course, nobody asked any of the prophets why they'd never spoken up before the original flight, or even when the fact that there were two spaceships out there came up. No, nothing was said by them until word of the name Atlantis being found, and the possibility that an escape pod was jettisoned. If they had known they were descendants, why not speak up before the mission ever reached Uranus?

But that wouldn't make for good stories. They needed people to read their stories for the ad revenue to stream in, and so they went for the headline that would feed the rabid crowd, just like it's been for thousands of years.

"And in the meantime, send us the information on the mattresses and the IVF clinic. We'll start getting all of that settled," Vanessa told him.

"Where do we want all of the people that we select to go? Is Costa Rica going to be safe?" Pepper suddenly asked. "Based on that video, I'm thinking that perhaps we need to start gathering people now, have them pack what they need in a few bags, and then meet somewhere remote. We can't be flying all over the world to pick them up, that would draw too much attention."

"I had originally planned on Costa Rica, yes," Jason confirmed. "But you might be right. Do you have another plan?"

"Vegas!" Vanessa yelled out. "It's still crazy there, and you could hold a mock convention at any hotel there with almost no notice. Rent it out and then have buses bring the people outside the city where we can pick them up."

"But we're not picking up anyone in an Elvis costume!" joked Pepper. "That really is a good idea though. A bunch of people going on a vacation to Vegas makes sense, even if they're coming in from out of the country."

"I'll get a hotel set up for three weeks from now. You should have heard from Lena by then, right?"

"Yep," Pepper replied. "They've been checking in daily to see if the communications still work, and they do, but they should be there before then. They won't be back in time to pick people up, but we can ferry a bunch to the space station, and then get a second group, then bring everyone out to Uranus. There will be some people who have to deal with zero gravity for a bit, but it is better to get them off the planet as soon as we can for safety reasons."

"And we know how fun zero gravity can be," Vanessa added in a husky voice.

"Yes, we do baby."