Chapter 16
Always kick a foe when they are down
Nom took a seat by his grandfather and prepared the wine. Per normal custom, Chegaboud occupied most of the conversation—everything from politics to medicine. Today he seemed unnerved by a recent mass shooting at a school. His solution was interesting if barbaric. Without warning, he'd send the national guard from house to house across the US. If any gun was found in any house, that gun should be used to kill all adult occupants. Within a few hours every gun in the country would be surrendered by an eager populace. Never mind the far simpler and less lethal methods England and Australia had employed to prevent similar tragedies. Blood called for blood.
Nom let his uncle's insanity sink into the background of his mind. He breathed in the moment and tasted the perfect timing that it offered. Both his desired preys were here and available, all he had to do was act. It was while his uncle babbled on that Nom had an epiphany. He had noticed that Chegaboud had begun to show the signs of age. He was no longer in his middle years. As a man in his late fifties, he was by normal standards closer to retirement rather than the prime of life. His children were young, but that was only because he had only become rich enough to lure in a trophy wife when he had reached his mid-forties.
Chegaboud was an old man. That was the key, Nom simply had to make him what he really was.
For as long as he could remember that dining room table had been filled with medical talk. It was the family business after all. The family sported two local MDs, two Ivy League professor MDs, four PhDs specializing in medical research, one physician assistant, three RNs, two lab tecs, and four members were currently in medical school. Medicine was usually the faire du jour.
Nom recalled them once discussing progeria, a juvenile ailment that caused the bodies and cells of its victims to age at an accelerated rate. Kids of four or five, though physically the right size, looked as if they had aged to their nineties. Their organs and bodies simply wore out and they died. There was no treatment, no means of curing it.
Chegaboud suffered from a constant envy of his older brother. Hynrik had only ten and a half months on him, but he was still the eldest son. So why not give Chegaboud his wish and make him older? True, progeria was a childhood ailment, but why could it not be started in a man of Chegabod's age? He would finally get what he always wanted, and have his name in all the most prominent medical journals to boot. Albeit, it would be as a patient, and not as a doctor, but it would happen nonetheless.
What really was aging? To the best of Nom's knowledge, it was one simple thing: lost time. At the start of every cell's life he knew that the cells internal chronometer called a telomere was wound up almost completely. They unwound over time, and, when they finished, the cell knew it was time to die or split into new cells. The older the person, the less wound the telomeres were at the start. When this was combined with the genes the body turned on and off throughout life, the person's real age could be seen.
Nom cleared his mind a bit and felt around for Chegabod's life fire. The man was a bit less healthy than he looked. His arteries were a bit more hardened than they should be thanks to his fondness for bacon and cigars. Otherwise, for a man of fifty-nine, he was the picture of health.
Nom decided to reach into his life fire and remove that flicker of youthful flame and vigor. He could not see the intricacy of the impact. In Chegabod, it was as if the clocks counting away the seconds of his life in every cell had jumped from late afternoon to eleven PM.
Chegaboud did not know it, but his clock had gone from ticking away the seconds to clicking away the minutes. He would be dead within a year at the most, aging before everyone. He would not show it for a few days, but he was a dead man walking.
Still this was not enough punishment. The man wanted to think of himself as the true heir to the family line. Nom needed to eliminate his progeny. It wasn't personal, he actually liked two of them, but they would serve a purpose: making their father suffer.
Nom decided that this was a time to be creative. He wished for a virus. A special virus that could infect only Chegabod's kids. He did not want to risk infecting the other people in the room or area with an incurable disease, not until it really was time for them to die. No, this virus would infect its host and invade a cell. Once inside, it would only be able to replicate if a gene mutation specific to the kids was present.
Nom decided to wish that Chegabod's wife had given them a new gene in their mitochondrial DNA that caused it to make extra ATP. Not very much, but just enough so that these mitochondria were a hair more efficient than everyone else's. On a genetic scan, it would look like an advantage. If the virus found it, it would activate its reproductive cycle.
Unlike most viruses, this one would go through a mitoses-like reproduction. The first cell would make more viruses, fill up and explode releasing them into the body. Only a small fraction of the cells in their bodies would be needed. After five or six cycles a few trillion viruses would be around. It was all he needed. Those viruses would infect most of the cells in their bodies.
The mitochondria would be attacked by the virus again and again. In the end, reprogramed to make viruses instead of ATP, the children would die. ATP, the fuel all cells run on, would be denied. On a cellular level they would starve. It would be fast. It would probably be painful. And Chegaboud would be left knowing that he had left no one to control the family after he left his mortal coil.
Nom took a moment to consider Thodigs. Thodigs that vacuous, sallow, cretin who had framed his own brother for multiple felonies. To top it he expected the family to come bail him out multiple times. No matter how much of the family wealth he was given, he swallowed it up and acted as if he had been given nothing. Soon he was crying out for more. He was nothing more than an infant crying on a teat. Sucking for all he was worth, living as a parasite, and leaving a giant mess for others to clean up.
The just thing for him would be for him to eat until he exploded Nom thought. No, that wasn't anywhere near the poetic level of justice that Nom craved. The man rampaged through the good will and nature of the family like a bull in a china shop. His rants and plots had all the logic and sense of Lewis Carrol's prose. Wait a moment. Lewis Carrol. Alice in Wonderland. That was an amusing line of thought. Most of the characters were abysmal splutterings of drug induced hallucinations, but there was one that wasn't that far from reality, the Mad Hatter.
Old-fashioned hat makers and cleaners had needed to clean their hats without water, since it marked and stained the material. Before the invention of dry-cleaning, the only readily available option for them was liquid mercury. It could be rubbed into material and extracted taking dirt with it without staining. It did take a bit of time, and a lot of mercury, to do the poisoning deed though. Sadly, it was easily detected once the earliest symptoms showed. With modern medicine, it could be treated. Hardly an act of justice, if all he inflicted on Thodigs was a mild, treatable poisoning.
But there was another option. One of his favorite YouTube shows had done an episode on the most deadly poisons. One of the topics was dimethylmercury. At the time Nom had actually considered it as a potential solution to his problems with Thodigs and Chegaboud.
The compound was essentially perfect. An amount smaller than the size of a pin prick was lethal. It easily passed through common protective barriers like rubber. All he would have needed to do was procure some, and then wait for the next time the cousins were over at the Manor. Nerf gun fights and rubber band wars were a common occurrence. Nom's revolver nerf gun could have the last two rounds laced with the mercury compound. Then stray fire could have hit either or both of the swine.
The mercury would easily be absorbed through clothing and skin even in such small amounts. Then it was just a matter of waiting. If the amounts were small enough, there would not be a rapid onset of symptoms, unlike normal mercury poisoning. It would take months. Then the swine would develop headaches, end of the world headaches. They would lose their ability to suppress their rage. They would have seizures, blackouts, lose control of their voluntary muscles, and finally they would go into comas and die.
The best part was, that unlike the treatment available for most mercury poisons, there was nothing to do once symptoms set in from dimethylmercury. No known effort of science could stop the inevitable. It was a long and cruel death.
Unfortunately for Nom, it also proved to be an impossible feat. The chemical was so dangerous that it was impossible to buy it, not even through the university. Research on it had been banned for decades due to safety concerns. Making it was equally impossible. Dimethylmercury liked to vaporize, as did the precursors. To make it, he needed lab equipment that he could neither afford nor explain to Homeland Security.
Nom had put his wish for dimethylmercury on a back burner until this moment. Now that he had god-like powers, what in the world was stopping him? Everything he required was present in the Manor.
Nom looked up at the dining room ceiling. For ages the chandelier had been filled with small frosted bulbs designed to look like candle flames. It seemed that they had been replaced with more energy efficient CFL Bulbs. CFL Bulbs that contained mercury. Nom searched his mind and landed on the chemical formula for dimethylmercury. He could see the diagram as clear as day. To the left was a carbon atom, with two hydrogen atoms affixed in upper bonds, and one in the lower. In the middle, a mercury atom, bonded to the first carbon, and again to a mirror image carbon tri-hydrogen on the right.
With that image, Nom cast the first bit of his wish. The bulb above Thodigs began to twinkle and then after a few moments it went out. What the others around the table did not see, was the microscopic crack in the glass created by Nom's wish.
That crack had dropped a tiny speck a mercury oxide onto Thodigs' food. With his next spoonful it entered his body. Normally, such an insignificant amount of mercury would not be a cause for alarm. But Nom's wish was for the fine chemical factory that was Thodigs' liver to seal his doom.
After the heavy metal had passed through his gut and into his blood stream, its first stop would be the liver. There it would be assembled into the desired poison, bypassing the need for a chemistry lab. Why bother when the human liver could outclass any of his amateur efforts without even trying? The carbon and hydrogen, would easily be stripped from any of a myriad of fats. A custom set of enzymes would unpack the fats, grab the mercury, and assemble them as desired. Then the poison would be released into his blood stream. There it would journey to his brain to begin the months of damage. Damage that would inevitably lead to his grave.
It was done, Nom cast his wish. With Chegaboud and his kids, Nom was willing to wait and see the results, but he wanted Thodigs to suffer almost right away. Chegaboud had hurt Nom and his clan, Thodigs had disgraced and made war on the family as a whole, he needed to suffer the most.
Nom's musings were cut short by the snapping of Thodings' fingers. "Hey! Dip shit!" He cried trying to capture Nom's attention.
"Thodigs!" Grandfather interrupted. "Your mother would never have tolerated such language at her table, and I won't either!"
Nom held up a calming hand in his grandfather's direction. "It's quite alright Grandpa, I'm sure my uncle has a good reason for his colorful language." Nom knew that the last card of the evening would be his to play no matter what transpired. Playing out this interaction might let him put a cherry on top. Seeing that order had been restored grandfather settled into a nap, in his throne like chair at the head of the table.
Thodigs pointed a finger at Nom. "I said that its time to begin activating the family trusts. The tax rates this year are too good an opportunity to pass up. Since there are three voting members of the five plus the old man here, there is no reason why we can't all move this business into a resolved state right now."
Nom nodded. "I'm sorry I missed the details, but I'll take your summary as a good starting point. Chegaboud," Nom said changing his focus to the other. "What do you think?"
Chegaboud cleared his throat. "I think the old man would be wise to move while he can. The estate tax rate goes up eight points next year. He could preserve millions of dollars that way."
Nom nodded. "I seem to recall you saying the same thing when you tried to revoke Eriena's trust last year."
There was an audible gasp from the non-voting family members at the table.
"Watch your tongue, boy!" Chegaboud said. "That meeting was privileged to the five."
"I don't recall ever agreeing to any gag order." Nom said.
Nom's grandfather, as per normal, had drifted into a deep slumber after the meal, and likely would not wake shy of armed combat in the room. Given the tenor of the evening that eventuality was not a forgone conclusion.
"All meetings are privileged!" Thodigs said slamming the table with his fist.
"Strange…" Nom replied. "We seem to be having a meeting of the five right now. You did say that a quorum of the five is present. So if all meetings are privileged…" Nom gestured at the kids and Eriena. "Why is it that you never asked them to leave? Meetings are privileged if they cover shit you would rather be swept under the rug, but open when they serve your agenda?"
"Enough." Chegaboud muttered. "Look, Thodigs and I are in agreement. Taking the old man's assets, and transferring them into the various family trusts now will save millions on the tax bill. Are you in favor? Or no?"
"As soon as you clarify a few points for me, I'll give my vote." Nom replied.
"And those points are?" Thodigs hissed.
"Well, let's see." Nom said pulling his phone from its holster. "Back when I was still living here, Grandpa had me go over his finances with him." Nom opened the appropriate file. "Now, I have here a spread sheet our patriarch himself built. I'll email it to both of you."
He took a moment and sent the file. "Now, if you would observe from the title, it's named after dear old uncle Thodigs over here. Note the dates. It shows every time Thodigs was bailed out using family money. It shows the amount, and the reason. On the next page of the spread sheet is a payment calendar. It details every penny Thodigs ever paid back. On the third page is a master formula summing the two. At last tally it sits at eight point six million dollars unpaid."
"Just who the hell do you think you are?" Thodigs hissed.
Nom shrugged. "I'm a voting member of the five, and, in the event the trusts are activated, I will sit on the board of trustees overseeing each, just like the two of you. So, I'm doing my due diligence."
Nom put his phone back into its holster, and returned to his supper. "Now it seems," He said between bites. "That as a future trustee, I have a duty to the trusts to insure that the funds are managed to the best interests of the beneficiaries.
"Take Eriena over here. Just last year you two proposed that her trust be revoked before it is ever funded. Now our beloved snoozing patriarch set that trust up to see that my aunt is cared for into perpetuity. Only after she died, were any of those funds to go to the rest of the family.
"The terms of your proposal as I recall were for the funds to go to the family now. Eriena thus being penniless, would be eligible for full disability aid from the state. As an ex-case worker for the state, I must admit it was well thought out plan and might have worked. If it wasn't for the fact that she would have to be living in poverty level conditions in order to maintain her eligibility. But that money would be saved for those who would 'use it best'? If I recall correctly." He said chuckling at Chegaboud.
"So you are opposed to funding the trusts now?" Chegaboud said.
"I haven't decided yet. I dislike holding a meeting without the others, but I might be willing to play along for a price." Nom replied.
"And what is your price?" Chegaboud snorted. "Cash up front?"
"Oh nothing so crass as that. Though I will insist on my 'payment' up front. Especially since I know that, regardless of how the vote goes, the old man will most likely do whatever you tell him to. I wouldn't be able to cut off your power monopoly in full until those trusts are open. So, as you can see, I have an incentive to work with you a bit." Nom leaned back in his seat, his plate clean.
"So what is your price?" Thodigs asked.
"Simple." Nom said. "You are out."
"What?"
Nom pulled back out his phone and pulled up another file. "This is a proposal I have been working on for some time." He took a moment and emailed each of them a copy. "It calls for a restructure of the trusts. I was going to run it by Grandpa later tonight, but I might as well do it now that you two have made a quorum call.
"The trust for Eriena will become the sole beneficiary of the current living trust's liquid assets. It will pay a monthly indemnity to the living trust, so long as Grandpa is alive. The trustees of Eriena's trust, will no longer be members of this family. Rather the old man's excellent attorney and his financial adviser will serve as joint trustees. There is nothing more trustworthy than the loyalty of well-paid men. Grandpa will still be in control of his own income, not a trustee board of untrustworthy uncles.
"The money meant to ensure the lifelong comfort of Eriena will be secure. The Manor will be the property of her trust. After all she has lived here her whole life, she should be allowed to do so for the rest of it. The property assets not relating to The Manor, will as before, go to the family compound trust. That trust will not change, it will still be run by the same people, the group of five.
"There are a few catches. The family compound will only get cash if Eriena's trust makes a profit in any given year. The amount given, will be at the joint discretion of Eriena's trustees. They will not be obligated to give a single cent. They will have the right to sell off any property held under the compound trust to replenish Eriena's trust should they deem it necessary.
"The family college fund will continue being funded since the old man is so strongly in favor of it. New monies will only be added as Eriena's trustees see fit.
"Lastly all debts owed to the old man will be held by Eriena's trust. After all, the money that would fund that trust has been raided for years on behalf of Thodigs over there. As a cherry on top, if a person wants to use the family vacation compound and they are in debt to Eriena, they will have to enter into a negotiated payment plan with Eriena's trust.
"Failure to make full and timely payments will result that person being barred from the compound until they are current. Plus, anyone in debt to Eriena's trust, regardless of the standing of their payments, cannot actively serve on the trustee board for the compound. They can only resume their seat when all debts have been paid off. They cannot transfer their seat to a proxy until they are in good standing. In the event of their death the debts will be voided, and their heirs free to resume their privileges."
"Who the fuck do you think we are?" Thodigs erupted once Nom finished. "I, for one, will never agree to this!"
"You don't have to." Nom said. "Under the current terms of the trusts, since the motion specifically calls for you to be suspended as a trustee, you can't cast a vote."
"I'll kill— "
Chegaboud slammed Thodigs back into his seat when he started to lunge for Nom. "Never in the Manor Thodigs! You should know better. Nom, that crap will never fly with me, or the old man!"
"I thought you might say that." Nom said. "So I did a bit of work in advance." Nom pulled out a folded hard copy of the proposal from his pocket. "You'll see that its already signed by aunt Tiesa and uncle Nomi. With my vote, there is a majority in favor." He tapped the next page. "You'll also see that the old man's lawyer and financial adviser have endorsed it as well. The lawyer was rather surprised to learn just how much money Thodigs has taken the old man for. He said he had no choice but to make a request that the sheriff's office open an elder abuse investigation.
"Once he does that? Well, Chegaboud, you are a person of interest, due to your constant siding with Thodigs. He said that the powers of attorney you hold would be suspended, and your second would take over. That would, strangely enough, be the lawyer. If I were you I'd sign on, and let these chips fall where they may." Nom grinned in victory.
Thodigs, enraged, stormed from the house. With a thunderclap, the door slammed behind him, as he stomped up the side walk to his pick-up. Even if Nom hadn't cursed him, he had done something worse. In effect, Thodigs had been kicked out of the family. He would never be able to pay back the money he owed. Interest would build on it, and he would be unable to get money from the family again once the lawyer took over. He was finished.
The rest of the dinner faded, as Nom watched The Agony and the Ecstasy in his mind while waiting for the evening to be over. Unlike his first victims, Nom was convinced that slow deaths were likely to yield better results in this case. They would give him a chance to slowly toy with his food and achieve the optimum result. It was like the concierge back in Dallas. He did not need to kill her entire body, just her free will. The wonderful thing about humans being multicellular organisms was that he could invoke the power of death to kill parts of them, preserving the rest, and still manage to achieve the goal.
Thank the nonexistent deity that Nom had actually paid attention for all those years to the conversations around this very table. He would put that knowledge to work in the years to come.