When she did, Barb frowned and shook her head, no, but Karla kept insisting.“But there’s one thing I don’t quite understand,” Klink continued.... “You say the Sloans are, to say the very least, stupid. And your assessment is duplicated by the minister and his people, except in even stronger language. However, I have looked over the agreement and it seems that Kendy is getting the entire Skoda Works for essentially nothing. How can that be?”“I’m sure it was dumb luck, Minister Klink,” Karla. "All eyes turned to Shannon, and despite her resolve to fight past these insecurities, she could feel the blood rushing to her cheeks."I mean, it's well known that the pork industry was highly government subsidized at the time, and still is. These weren't legitimate hog producers who just happened to have millions of dollars lying around to hire geneticists. The pork business was consolidating down to a handful of companies, each well connected to back-room Washington politics. They scored some. Bill was the one to fix the drinks this time, much stronger with little mix added. He sat once again with Julia on the love seat and explained it all from the beginning. She indeed believed him and she knew they had lost their son. Nothing could be worse than the death of her children and she knew she could never run away with them. There was nowhere they could run to or ever even expect to hide from the corporation. It just was not possible. They held each other close, both crying onto each. "You don't want to do this any more?" "Well, I mean, Amanda was right, I mean, this IS pretty strange,you know?" She just looked ahead for a while, for which I was grateful. "Yeah, I guess," she finally said. "But then, you couldn't spendthe night any more. With me or with the rest of us." I sighed, and stared out the window. "Yeah, and that's the partthat sucks. I really like hanging with you guys." "And you REALLY like spending the night over at my house," sheadded,.