August 21, 2013.
In a small house in Damascus, a woman was preparing lunch for her children and husband before leaving for school and work.
Their family and the surrounding district despised al-Assad's familial dictatorship and the continued oppression the citizens experienced every day.
The Free Syrian Army fought winning battles against the Assad regime in 2011. Still, the group slowly decayed as more and more extremists poured into the region, diluting their noble cause with Islamists who hated the Jewish neighbors.
The remaining courageous freedom fighters continued harassing Bashar al-Assad's military with the few resources it could deploy and even blockaded an area of Damascus to defend citizens sympathetic to the cause from retribution.
As she packed her family's lunch, she immediately held on to the table as the ground began shaking, but only for a brief moment.
Her husband in the living room ran outside the house to check what was going on and found a residential apartment complex hit by two missiles.
Their family was lucky because if they lived any closer, they would have also died of the odorless and transparent Sarin gas, gradually killing the apartment residents.
The Free Syrian Army soldiers immediately evacuated the area but unknowingly exposed themselves to the nerve agent.
Local news reporters arrived at the scene fifteen minutes later and documented the crime committed against humanity on national TV and online platforms like Instagram.
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Director Price and President Karzai discussed their continued partnership in reinvigorating the local economy and society until an office secretary entered the room and said, "Rais, the guests have arrived from the Kabul International Airport."
A well-dressed Chinese man in his late 50s and two aides entered the Presidential office and were welcomed by Hamid Karzai.
He equipped a pair of real-time audio translation earbuds and sincerely said, "Thank you for traveling all the way from Beijing to negotiate our new deal with your nation. So, please, take a seat, and we'll have refreshments brought in."
Li Fanrong was an experienced petroleum engineer during his younger years. Still, it ultimately landed him the China National Petroleum Corporation CEO position, who initially signed an oil-extraction deal with Afghanistan in 2011.
Fanrong humbly replied, "It's our pleasure, Mr. President. Your administration had done well with the $700 million bid we placed two years ago by securing the borders and allowing our oil pumps to operate peacefully. Director Price should be fully aware of how valuable our initial deal had grown the past year."
The Chinese government risked its liquid capital and invested in the very hazardous nation of Afghanistan, but the gamble paid off when Future Tech set up shop in Kandahar.
The CNPC had been raking enormous profits by directly selling oil to Black Gold processing facilities within the country instead of wasting money on transportation costs and heavy tariffs to use pipelines in neighboring Pakistan and Iran.
Fanrong and his team recently received great praise from the politicians in Beijing because the CNPC income was up by 35% the last two quarters due to their biggest customer in the region, Future Tech.
Director Price acknowledged Fanrong's remark and stated, "The corporation and I are satisfied with our partnership's success. Therefore, I want to share Future Tech's proposal for an updated deal regarding oil extraction."
Fanrong expressed a curious look but remained silent and listened to the business pitch.
Price confidently explained, "Though Kandahar is primarily powered by renewable energy like solar arrays and CNT batteries, most of our newest heavy vehicles rely on Black Gold to operate. In addition, the demand from our civilian and military customers is rising rapidly, so we'll need to purchase more than twice as many barrels of oil from CNPC than our previous agreement."
After General Douglas' visit to Austin, the Department of Defense had ordered more Super Galaxies, FAV-1s, Stingrays, and other AV engine-powered vehicles, aside from the civilian market after a positive annual performance review.
Fanrong paused for a moment before saying, "It seems like a good opportunity for our local pumping facilities to expand operations, but why would you continue buying oil from us if Future Tech could open their own facilities or contract an American company instead?"
Price honestly answered, "We've already struck a deal with the CNPC earlier this year, so it would be disrespectful to introduce a competing company herein Afghanistan without negotiating with you first. And besides, ExxonMobil and Chevron are not Future Tech's biggest fans because we're selling a completely new type of fuel to Americans, an offense to their bottom lines. My contacts in the US government support our cooperation as a sign of friendship between our nations."
The US had plenty of more convenient places to pump oil like South America and Canada, so Obama preferred the diplomacy points.
President Karzai honestly added, "The Afghan people appreciate foreign business investments from different sources, or else, they'd feel like western imperialism was taking over the country."
Though Karzai's statement was true in some sense, companies like Carrier and Siemens were selling plenty of natural gas air-conditioning units now that utility infrastructure was available in major cities, so Afghanistan still relied upon western imports for daily necessities.
Fanrong was content with the answers and asked, "Alright, so what's the nature of our new agreement, then?"
Price retrieved an Infinity Tablet from one of his operators and seriously explained, "The national resource prospecting initiative led by our material science division here in Afghanistan, using specialized drones and the necessary manual labor had so far discovered reserves of 18 billion barrels of oil and 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas underneath the Afghan-Tajik. It's only been two weeks since we began prospecting operations."
Li Fanrong and his aides were stunned in disbelief but felt a sense of joy about their decision to invest in Afghanistan during an active conflict.
President Karzai had been confident borrowing liquid capital from Future Tech, and Vince Dalton allowed it because of the potentially crazy amount of profit the corporation could earn by supporting a friendly new Petrostate. However, it would only be possible if the country could extract the reserves.
Consider the fact that before the utility upgrades, 44% of Afghan citizens used wood as their primary source of energy. The burgeoning Afghan Petrostate required the expertise of the largest petroleum corporation worldwide, the CNPC, to further its domestic production.
Li Fanrong was shaken but curiously inquired, "Are these proven or unproven petroleum reserves? And if it is proven, does anybody else know?"
Russia owned the largest natural gas reserves at 18 trillion cubic feet and wouldn't take too kindly with a new competitor in its cornered market.
Director Price honestly replied, "All proven and ready to be extracted. I've discussed the proposal with President Karzai for hours and drafted a three-way partnership between Future Tech, Afghanistan, and the CNPC. My corporation will assist CNPC in constructing more efficient extraction facilities and a gas pipeline to China in exchange for discounted oil and gas."
Karzai confidently added, "My government will slightly tax both your transactions to repay our loans and improve local commerce. As a result, our natural gas will be cheaper for your nation in the long run."
China relied heavily on importing liquified natural gas from Australia, but utilizing a dedicated pipeline would be much more economical.
Li Fanrong could already imagine the praises and honors he'd receive if this deal with Future Tech and President Karzai was a success and said, "The terms you're offering are quite complex. It may take some time before we can reach an agreement, but I can understand why the President is so assured. I've heard amazing things about Future Tech's construction capabilities, like the Transatlantic Fiber optic connection and the underground utility upgrades in the US and Afghanistan. So how many years would it take to build a gas pipeline from Kabul to Beijing?"
Price was very familiar with the Hive Mind construction suites and proudly said, "Years? It won't even take six months. Future Tech's largest business is physical networking, so laying utility facilities is our forte."
The meeting continued for two more hours until Li Fanrong and his aides retired for the night to resume negotiations the following day.
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Director Price was about to bid his farewells to Karzai until a secretary entered the office abruptly and solemnly stated, "Rais, I think you should watch what's going on in the news."
The secretary turned on the flatscreen display to show live news coverage of emergency personnel wearing hazmat suits helping civilians escape the destroyed apartment buildings.
The correspondent said, "No information about the attack is confirmed, but local authorities believe the assailants used Sarin Gas warheads. President Bashar al-Assad denied any involvement of the tragedy when we reached out for any comments earlier."
Karzai was aghast watching men, women, and children who've succumbed to the nerve agent's effects live on television and angrily said, "That's unforgivable. The innocent should never be involved in any conflict and don't deserve to die in such a horrible way. The militant al-Assad did this; I'm sure of it. The Syrian people hate his authoritarian family."
Director Price was appalled seeing civilian casualties and stated, "General Dolan contracted Future Security to monitor Syria after the warhead incident. We'll perform our own investigations to find out who truly perpetrated this crime."
The US military purchased 35 ASR-1 (Advanced Stratospheric Recon) drones to replace the old RQ-4 Global Hawks. But Future Tech built a few for corporate use and assigned two units to rotate between shifts and monitor Syrian air space.
A few weeks prior, investigations from the warhead debacle prompted Future Security to closely examine the alleged buyer, President al-Assad.
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