The Unincorporated Man (31 page)

“Hektor, be real,” answered Accounting. “It’s the logical thing to do. From Mr. Cord’s point of view, he’ll have won.”

“Hektor,” added the DepDir, “we’re going to let him ‘force’ us down to 10 percent. That means he’ll own more of himself than almost any other person alive. It will be the greatest victory in the history of personal incorporation. How could he
not
settle?”

It was at that moment that Hektor realized the extent of the problem. Logical reasoning, something he was good at, would not work in this room, because no one in this room except for himself understood Justin. Further, no one in the room could fathom the idea that a person might not want to be incorporated. As the board members chatted among themselves, Hektor began to realize the vast implications a Cord victory would have—not only to all those people present, but also, he suspected, to society as a whole. A man who could defeat the incorporation system, or worse, paint it in a negative light, was a man to be feared. Hektor Sambianco was afraid—not of losing his career (the odds were always against him), but of what could happen if the board went after Justin and failed. He had to warn them.

“Wait a minute,” he blurted out, “you’re forgetting something vital here. Justin…” Before he could finish his sentence, a red light flashed on the table. All attention was riveted on it.

The flashing red light indicated only one thing—an imminent visit by The Chairman. From the center of the table an empty circle formed, and from that circle a clear holo-image of The Chairman appeared. For Hektor, who’d only ever seen pictures of the man, even the presence of his holo-image was unnerving. Of course, Hektor was only viewing him from the back, but still, it was as close to “live” as he figured he’d ever get. What he did see was the broad stiff shoulders of a man who appeared to be in his early forties and the back of a head full of thick salt-and-pepper hair. What he also saw was the fixed, almost fearful eyes of Kirk Olmstead, acting deputy director of GCI. The Chairman, Hektor realized, was looking directly at the DepDir, though as far as each board member was concerned, The Chairman might as well have been looking directly at them.

The voice speaking was that of a man who knew he would not be interrupted. It was deeply resonant, yet mellifluous. It carried such confidence and authority that to ignore it or disregard it would be unthinkable. It was a voice that could terrify if angry and mollify if pleased. Today the voice sounded pleased.

“Mr. Olmstead,” said The Chairman, “I have been listening in, and I approve of your plan. Not only that, but I think you have demonstrated the ability to assume full responsibility of your position. I call a vote of the board to promote Kirk Olmstead from acting to V.P. of Special Operations. All in favor?”

The vote was unanimous.

Hektor watched the proceeding with a bit of regret, as he had sold all of his shares in Kirk to buy his own. But mostly it meant the crushing end of his career. All his cards had been played, all his smokescreens dissolved. After the vote The Chairman offered his congratulations to Kirk and faded from view. The board looked at Kirk with new respect and, in some justified cases, fear. But one thing was certain—the debate concerning the lawsuit against Justin Cord was officially over, and Kirk’s victory was overwhelming.

The DepDir stood up and, as was befitting his newfound authority, all in the room followed suit.

“I think,” he said, “we can adjourn the meeting. Hektor, could you see me in my office?” It was not a question. Hektor had the grace to simply nod and head out. He also had enough poise not to be upset when forced to wait for three hours in the DepDir’s antechamber. He knew what had to be done. Kirk Olmstead had just become one of the most important men in the entire solar system, and was therefore making and receiving a lot of very important calls. In all likelihood he was also preparing to move into his new office. According to protocol it would be one level just below The Chairman’s penthouse suite.

In a weird way, thought Hektor, it was kind of flattering that Kirk would take the time to dress him down and boot him out. Kirk could easily have given that dubious task over to his pretty secretary, which Hektor would not have minded. But his fight with Kirk was personal, after all, and as such it needed Kirk’s personal touch. Hektor knew he would have done the same.

“DepDir will see you now,” came a voice from nowhere.

Hektor got up and waited for the doors in front of him to open. He stood facing them for fifteen minutes before they finally dissipated; revealing the new vice president of Special Operations sitting behind what Hektor figured was probably a bigger desk than he’d had an hour before.

Kirk scowled.

“I told you not to lose, Hektor.”

“I know. Let’s get it over with.”

“Your position with the board,” said Kirk, “is terminated. You’re being assigned as a corporate representative to the Oort observatory. We have a contract to supply key components to the government project and need to have a man on the scene to make sure nothing goes wrong. If all goes well the project should be done in, oh, say, twenty years.”

“Ow.”

Hektor was impressed. He’d be out of the way for over two decades in a place that could be described as about as far out as one could go. It would take months just to get there. He also knew that Kirk would arrange it so that he’d get no vacations or transfers. Hektor realized that he was going to be Kirk’s opening warning shot to everyone else at GCI—don’t mess with Olmstead or you’ll end up like Sambianco.

“Of course,” continued Kirk, “you’ll only be earning about a third of what you’re making now. Good Lord,” he said, peering into his holo-screen, “I see you recently put a large amount of money on your credit account. I’d imagine, when the companies begin to realize you won’t be able to pay it back, they’ll demand a stock sale. It’s a shame that your stock will sell for so little. Still, with luck, I’m sure you’ll manage to hold on to 1 or 2 percent more than the 25 percent minimum. You’ll be happy to know I’ve had my secretary contact the markets about your new position, so they’ll be able to adjust to the new reality. Now, get out.”

Hektor was unmoved. “Let me just say one thing, Olmstead.”

“Why should I?” groused the new boss. “You lost.”

“I worked for you for a long time, Kirk. I was there for the Titan project when we were hip-deep in getting the government contracts for the Oort observatory.”

“You want to call all that in just so you can say
one
thing?”

“Yeah.”

Kirk considered it. “I’ll tell you what, Sambianco. Don’t burden me with your crap and I’ll change your orders to one of our stations around Neptune. You’ll still be in the boonies, but at least you’ll have a bar to drink in and a whorehouse to visit.”

Kirk peered again into his holodisplay. “And according to the latest census, about thirty million people or thereabouts in the Neptune area to listen to your bullshit.”

Hektor was stuck. His first instinct was to take the deal by turning around and walking out. There was a huge difference between being with millions of people for twenty years and being trapped with a couple thousand. But Olmstead was making a huge mistake concerning Justin, and Hektor knew it. If only to be able to say “I told you so” later, Hektor canned the deal.

“Fine, Olmstead, if it’s gonna cost me twenty years of misery, then listen up.”

Kirk shook his head in disbelief, and motioned for Hektor to continue. His funeral.

“Don’t be fooled, Kirk. Justin Cord is the devil incarnate. And I’m not talking about the kind with horns and a pointy tail. He’s far more insidious. I’ll admit he’s a likable, charismatic bastard, but don’t make the mistake of thinking of him as one of us. He isn’t. Mark my words, Kirk. All the problems and the faults that brought about the Grand Collapse are made manifest in Justin Cord. He’ll bring all of that crap back if we don’t stop him. In fact, I wish that maniac at the ESC had killed him.”

“Don’t be a bigger fool than you already are,” answered Kirk, angry at himself for allowing the pitiful conversation to drag on. “Cord’s of no value to us dead. How would we settle with a dead man?”

“
Justin Cord will not settle!
” exclaimed Hektor, shaking his head. “He can’t. He’ll fight, scream, and yell. What you consider a great deal and a huge victory Justin Cord will consider defeat and surrender. Worse, if you go to court with that loco parentis thing, you’ll lose, and you’ll lose big. And when you do, it will make Justin the David who successfully stood up to the biggest corporation in human history and won. He will be victorious
and
unincorporated. What will nuts like the Majority Party do with that, I wonder? Then we’ll
all
have a problem. And when I say ‘all,’ I don’t mean just GCI; I’m talking all of us incorporated folk. Look it over and see it from Justin’s point of view. Please, for all our sakes. Justin’s a fluke now, but if this gets screwed up he could become an incredibly dangerous fluke.”

“Done?” Kirk asked.

Hektor knew it had been pointless. “Done.”

Though it was an expression whose mechanics no longer existed, Kirk used the phrase he felt most warranted Hektor’s exit.

“Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.”

It’s official. Justin Cord and company have moved into the oh-so-famous, luxurious, and private 71+ in Old Town New York. Only the most of the most can even apply to live there, but Justin was invited, and someone who knows culture and style wisely told this blast from the past to accept the invitation.

—NEWS CLIP FROM CELEBRITY UPDATE

“Omad, how on Earth could you have drunk my last beer?” Justin was looking in the refrigerator and finding everything a man could want, in fact finding many things that defied description—except a beer.

“Oh, that,” answered Omad, ambling into the kitchen area. “Well, it’s easy. You just wait until there’s only one left, and then…” He paused, taking a moment to belch loudly. “. . . drink it.”

Justin stopped looking through the fridge, which he was still amazed existed this far into the future. However, once he understood that a) the fridge wasn’t plugged into anything, and b) purists still loved prechilled as opposed to instantly chilled consumables, the cold box, which he insisted on calling a fridge, started to make sense. He went to the counter, which divided the rec room from the kitchen. Omad was sitting back on a sofa with an empty beer bottle on the coffee table in front of him. Behind the couch was a spiral staircase leading down to another floor, in which were situated the living quarters as well as the apartment’s main entrance. Floor-to-ceiling–length windows encircled the apartment, affording all who entered a spectacular 360-degree view of New York City.

“Let me get this straight,” continued Justin. “I live in an apartment that I can make into any floor plan and furniture configuration I desire. It also senses my body temperature and adjusts the rooms to be ‘me’-compatible. I have sourceless lighting in every nook and cranny, which, by the way, still freaks me out, plus the TV plays what I wish and the music on the radio is exactly what I want to hear.”

“Well,” answered Omad, “the TV and stereo are really neat retro ideas, but you don’t need them, the sound could…”

“I know, Omad. It will appear whenever I wish. My point is, in this perfect world, how is it possible that the house doesn’t reorder beer as soon as it’s out? Three hundred years ago we had refrigerators that could do that.”

“Oh, that.”

“ ‘Oh that’ what? Omad.”

“It was going to reorder, but I told it not to.”

“Why not? You don’t think I should be drinking beer?”

“You call that beer?” he said, pointing to Justin’s now empty bottle.

“Omad, it’s Hacker-Pschorr Munich, the finest lager on Earth. I was overjoyed when I found out it was still being made. Order more.”

“Order placed, Justin,” chimed sebastian.

“Thank you, sebastian.”

“Your funeral, man,” continued Omad, “but to me it’s like drinking mud… with the dirt left in.”

“Then what made you drink it?”

“Hey, man, you don’t turn down a free beer.” Omad said this as if trying to explain the fundamental rules of the universe to a four-year-old. Justin was about to argue, but started to laugh.

“No, I guess you don’t.”

Neela and Dr. Gillette walked up the staircase. They were engaged in an animated discussion.

“Yes, my dear,” the doctor could be heard saying, “in that thesis I was intending that a man could be frozen for a thousand years with no ill psychological effects.”

“But that doesn’t make sense,” answered Neela, now looking at Justin as she emerged into the rec room. “Justin would be the first to tell you that his reanimation has been fraught with ill psychological effects.”

“You might be overstating a bit,” answered Justin. “Everything’s great. I’m alive, the world is a much safer place than it used to be, and I’m making new friends.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the refrigerator chimed. Justin opened it and laughed again. He still wasn’t used to the fact that refrigerators were attached to back-channel conveyor systems that allowed for the removal and addition of ordered items. “And my beer’s just arrived. All in all I have nothing to complain about.”

“What about the trial?” asked Neela. Gillette paid rapt attention to Justin’s answer.

“Oh, that.”

“Oh, that?” asked Omad incredulously. “Just a couple of days ago you were ranting and raving about it. Practically threw furniture. And the language you used to describe GCI. Why, it was archaic, but man, I’ll definitely be using some of those words in the future.”

“That,” answered Justin, “was before.”

“Before what?” asked Neela.

“Before I knew I was going to win.”

“Really? And what made you realize that? Don’t tell me you’ve mastered the intricacies of twenty-fourth century law.”

“Of course not,” Justin shot back. “I hired a lawyer. And, apparently, a damned good one.”

“You should hire some more bodyguards, is what you should hire,” chided Omad. Then, seeing that Justin wasn’t biting, changed tack. “Fine. What’s the guy’s name?”