New Title 32 (2 page)

I tucked the note in my pocket and we parted ways at the lobby. Nadia’s code was solid, and she was faster than a cartoon roadrunner on meth. I wish I had ten more programmers like her; I could fire the other thirty and we’d have a fighting chance to deliver a product.

I paused around the corner from the lobby and took a deep breath, focusing on feeling calm and outgoing. After four more deep breaths, I decided calm would have to do. I went around the corner and smiled. “Ms. Rolling Thunder, my apologies for keeping you waiting. I’m David Fraser.”

Geneva Rolling Thunder lived up to her last name. Native American, mid to late forties, hair shoulder-length and textbook professional. Custom-tailored designer pantsuit that had to cost a good five figures. Attractive, but eyes of iron and an it’s-just-business smile that never went beyond her lips. What I hadn’t expected was the vibe she gave off. The last person I’d met who felt the same way had been a Nine-Tailed
Kitsune
house assassin. It made me wonder what duties were listed in her job description.

She stood up and shook my hand. “Don’t worry about it. Thank you for meeting with me, and please call me Geneva.” Her grip was iron, too.

“My pleasure. This way, please.” I stepped back and gestured down the hall. When she reached for her purse, her jacket opened for a moment, giving me a glimpse of a black strap running over the top of her shoulder. I pulled our lockbox out from behind the front desk and opened it. “We keep this for our petty cash. Your firearm should be quite safe here.”

This time Geneva’s smile was genuine. She drew a Glock out of her shoulder holster and placed it in the lockbox with careful, deliberate movements. “Keen observation, Mister Fraser. Would you like to see if I’m carrying anything else?”

I shook my head. “That would be inhospitable of me. Would you like something to drink? We have some excellent coffee, water, soft drinks, fruit juices, and Southern-style sweet tea.”

“Coffee, please. Black, lots of sugar.”

April, our receptionist, tucked the lockbox away and headed to the break room while Geneva and I walked to my office. We settled at the side table, giving us a great view of the rest of Interlocken.

“Did you have any difficulty finding the office?” I figured that would be a relatively harmless opening line.

“Not at all,” she said. “You’re only a few miles from the airport, and my driver is familiar with the area. Why do you have a photo of a cat wearing a cowboy hat on your wall?”

“Because there was no room for a velvet unicorn poster.” I paused while April delivered our coffees. After she left the room, I added, “Thirteen was a houseguest of ours for a time. He was an interesting fellow, but he didn’t stay long. He moved on about two years ago.”

Geneva sipped her coffee. “He’s holding a television remote. Are you accustomed to cats with thumbs?”

“Most people miss that. He had a taste for documentaries and Japanese game shows.” I had another drink of coffee and set my cup down. “I think we’ve covered the pleasant social banter portion of today’s events. How can we help you?”

“It’s more that we’re well-positioned to assist each other, David.” She pulled a folder out of her satchel and opened it to an illustration I was all too familiar with. “My employer requested I come speak to you on behalf of Llewellyn Industries regarding two matters—the fusion battery design you patented, and a new game project.”

I sighed. “My apologies, but I’ve already discussed the battery with Josephine Llewellyn herself. I intend to retain control over the technology. The licensing profits over the long term will be far greater than any reasonable sum I could get by selling the plans.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” Geneva flipped to the next page and pointed out several enlarged lines of text from the patent diagram. “The lawyer who assisted you with the patent process did you no favors. None of these items are known to current technology. You need to invent them and create a manufacturing process for each. You should have schematics and production information for each of them, and they all need to be patented. LI can help you with that process.”

“How so?”

“Sell the patent and all of the actual tech materials in your possession. They’ll do the research, develop the prototypes, and cut you in on a portion of the net profits. I can also guarantee an ethics clause stipulating LI will never develop this technology into a weapon.” Geneva took another drink of her coffee. “Not many companies will be so generous with you, and even fewer will do it without demanding to know how you travelled to the time and-or alternate dimension these plans came from.”

Not unexpected, but still surprising. I hadn’t expected anyone to give the time-slash-plane travel scenario any serious consideration; in fact, most companies I’d spoken with thought the fusion battery was a marketing gimmick of some kind. I decided to stick with that story. For now, anyway.

I said, “I’m afraid you’ve been responding to a marketing ploy started for a game we had to abandon…”

“Don’t bullshit me. I am not a fool. The device is real. You’ve encountered it before, most likely powering a large directed-energy weapon. You’re not the kind of person who would ever want to manufacture weapons, but you could see an infinite number of peaceful applications for the amount of power these things can produce. You might even attempt to develop full-scale reactors running on this principle.”

Geneva flipped to the next page in her folder. It had a familiar set of numbers on it. She pushed it toward me and said, “We’ve been monitoring your financial filings. Miss Drake has done wonders since she took over as CFO, but Curious Diversions is bleeding cash and has no product. You have ninety days until the opening of BuzzCon, where you are expected to premier a playable demo of
Living Land
. You have around one hundred and twenty days of operating capital left at current staffing levels. You desperately need an infusion of cash and enough time to replace most of your current staff. No, I haven’t stolen your bank statements or hacked your network. It’s just basic business management and a calendar.”

I sat back. She was right, and she knew it. I took a calming breath and said, “This is the part where I find out what your terms are. But first, I have to ask—what’s the salary range for a house assassin, and how does one get a job like that?”

“A doctorate from Harvard law is a good foundation. However, I don’t often get my hands dirty anymore. My employer prefers to do her own wetwork when it’s needed. I don’t know about salary, but I’m quite comfortable.” Geneva set another folder on the table. “You will find our terms quite generous. Thirty million to yourself, twenty million to fund the project I mentioned. You will be able to hire from a pool of available and interested Llewellyn employees, allowing you to clear the deadwood out of your staff.”

“You have some delightful bait,” I said. “What’s the hook?”

“Llewellyn will not fund or support development of
Living Land
, and Llewellyn personnel will not work on it. Any additional development would have to be funded and staffed out of your pocket, preferably at a separate site.”

That was not what I’d expected. I got up and paced the office half a dozen times. Geneva said nothing. It wasn’t that I objected to the idea; in fact, it had a measure of appeal. Still…I sat back down and asked, “What project do you want me to work on?”

Geneva grimaced. “I’m not allowed to get into the details unless you sign around a dozen proprietary information forms. I can tell you it’s a resource management game on a scale never before attempted by the entertainment industry. I have no other information to impart, so I believe my business here is finished.” She stood up, leaving the paperwork on the table.

I said, “I’ll look it over, but I have to say I’m not convinced. I did a lot of research on Llewellyn Industries after speaking with Josephine. The organization has an almost cult-like reputation. A family-only city called Gilead outside Vancouver, mandatory homeschool education, and seeming lifetime employment for family members. A private medical facility just for family members. A code of silence that would do organized crime proud. I’m sorry, but it all seems a little too Jonestown for my taste.”

Geneva gave me a genuine smile. “Do you want to know why we chose you for this offer?”

“Yes.”

“Because you will be able to handle the truth. That truth is nothing illegal, improper, unethical, or repugnant to the morals of an average person, but revealing it to the public would endanger the family. The company’s assessment concluded you would be able to keep that secret even if you decline this offer. In short, Josephine believes she can trust you.” She picked up her bags and added, “You have time to make your decision. I urge you to consider the offer. Josephine will be available to answer any other questions you might have.”

“I’ll consider it.” I walked her back to the lobby and returned her Glock. A black Escalade limousine with the Llewellyn Industries logo was waiting for her at the curb. I watched her drive off and went back to my office.

Family Planning

I didn’t even get back to my office before the next calamity whacked me on the head and dragged me into a dark alley.

Syndee—yes, her parents named her that—our system admin, caught up with me and said, “No one can access the development environment. Someone changed the password on the admin account, deleted all the back doors, and locked out all the other accounts, including mine. It had to be someone in the information security group. Nobody else would have that level of permissions.”

I rubbed my eyes. “Someone owes me a head. Let’s go see what we can do.”

Not much, as it turned out. I could restart the system, but would still need the new password to log on. Since we couldn’t get in, Syndee and I worked on figuring out who was responsible. I planned to use the imperative form to get the password, followed by some recreational waterboarding.

Twenty minutes later, one of the contractors on our desktop team knocked on the door. When Syndee answered, he said, “I can get you in, but I want immunity from reprisal. In writing.”

I said, “Fix this and you have a job, unless we find out you’re the one who caused it in the first place. What’s your plan?”

“Reset the local admin account password. Once you’re in, you can find out who stayed active after everyone got booted.”

I looked at Syndee and asked, “Do you know how to do that?”

“I know how it’s done, but I don’t have the tools to do it.” I must have grimaced or something; she rolled her eyes and said, “Damn it, David, I’m a sysadmin, not a hacker.”

“We need a hacker, then.” I nodded to the contractor. “You’re on. What’s your name?”

“Most people call me Oaken. Can I get that immunity note?” He didn’t look shifty, but I got a definite feeling that he was hiding something.

I pulled out a business card, wrote “Oaken has immunity from reprisal for the next fifteen minutes,” signed and dated it. I showed it to Syndee and said, “You’re a witness to all this. Feel free to testify against me if I renege.” I handed Oaken the card.

He tucked it away and took a CD out of his tool kit. He rebooted the system from it, entered a few commands, and said, “There you go. Reboot and use ‘password’, no spaces, all lower case.” He popped the CD out and stepped back to make room for Syndee. She restarted the server and logged on without issue. A few minutes later, she looked up and said, “Larry Hooper was the only user to stay logged in this whole time, and he’s set as a domain administrator.”

“Document what you find and we’ll deal with him once the paperwork is done.” I turned to Oaken and met his eyes. “Tell me the truth. Is this a scam intended to hurt myself, this company, or anyone we’re associated with?”

“I was going to steal and sell your models, but I like working here too much. I like the money and the people I work with. I don’t want to lose either.” His eyes widened and he took a step back. “I don’t know why I said that.”

“You said it because I asked you for the truth,” I said. “Is Oaken your real name?” Given his reason for coming to work here, the odds of him having given us his real name seemed a bit remote.

“No.” He grimaced and toed the floor. “I don’t like my given name. My folks are…kind of random. They picked ‘Sherwood Birch’ by pulling a name out of a hat during a convention after-party. I think they were tripping on acid at the time. I went with ‘Oaken’ after the Sherwood Oak in Nottingham Forest.”

“No problem. Fill out a new application and put down name and nickname. Welcome aboard.”

Syndee locked the server and stood up. “I have an open spot on my team. I’ll get the onboarding started.” She led Oaken out of the server room and off to her office. I went to have a talk with Larry Hooper.

He provided the password just as I expected, and I unlocked the security team. While they were sorting things out, I asked Larry what he’d been thinking.

He scowled at me. “My work is critical to the success of this project, and having it delayed to accommodate code that’s of no consequence is not acceptable. I have repeatedly asked you to give me dedicated use of the environment from noon to five. I got tired of waiting. Now, thanks to you, I have to start this run from the beginning. Are you happy now?”

“Getting there.” I met his eyes, and poured all the rage and frustration I’d been suppressing into powering up the imperative form. I wanted to hurt him. I wanted to see him beaten, broken, humiliated, ready to die of self-loathing, and I had the power to do it.

Yes, but you won’t be you anymore if you do it.

“Larry, I want you to write out a confession and an explanation of how you did this. After you turn that in to me, start documenting the status of everything you’re working on and what remains to be done with it. When you’re finished, turn in your notice. If I have any more instructions, you’ll obey them as well.”

Larry nodded several times. “I will.” He pulled up a new email and started typing his confession.

I left him to it and went back to my office. The first thing I saw when I logged in was a reminder I had a meeting scheduled with Nadia Llewellyn.