He picked up the phone to call Zane, so that his young friend could pass the plans along to Ariel. Anything helpful that she could add or learn at work would be welcome.
******
Nobody in the office was in a very good mood after the trip to the perfectly wonderful Blue Lagoon Spa. Eoin came back irritable and refused to discuss exactly what about the weekend had left him so unhappy.
Fergus and Ronan were already annoyed that they hadn’t been asked to go, even though as programmers for Mikkel the only way they would have been included was if Mikkel had insisted. Not bloody likely, Ronan pointed out loudly several times both before and after the trip. It was surprising enough that the man had even gone himself.
Their already low morale dropped even further when Eoin curtly told them that all of their duplication of work being done for Baldur was to cease immediately. They were to stay away from Jake completely.
“But, doing whatever Jake does is our main assignment,” Fergus complained. “That’s really all that our guy wants. What do you expect us to do?”
“I don’t really care,” Eoin said. “I expect you to stop inconveniencing d4 in any way, and at the same time manage to keep Mikkel happy. If you can’t do that, or if you can do that best by doing absolutely nothing, then I suggest you both start polishing your CVs. Understood?”
Jake wasn’t any more pleased with the turn of events.
“You understand that I gain something too by bouncing ideas off of these guys? Even if Baldur doesn’t get it, d4 does benefit from our collaboration.”
“Baldur does not agree,” Eoin said. “I’ve been specifically told that enough is enough. Baldur wants one-hundred percent confidentiality point forward. So find a way to collaborate with yourself.”
A few days later Eoin had another, more disturbing directive for Jake.
“Some group of economic professors has gotten a wild hair up their arse and found major funding for a study of high frequency trading. They want to look at how successful it really is and what its ultimate ramifications are. It’s pretty damn important to d4 that they not look too successful, if you know what I mean?”
“I’m not willing to lie,” Jake said.
“Oh for god sake, grow up,” Eoin replied. “I’ll repeat. This is a stupid study, not a government investigation. We can give these people the kind of information that will make them lose interest, or we can slant it so that they get really wrought up over how much money some of our clients are managing to make. Wrought up is not good. Handle it any way that your scruples dictate, as long as you make these yo-yos go away quietly and quickly. Understand?”
Jake sighed. He understood.
Later Jake invited Ariel to join him for one of the cigarettes she didn’t smoke.
“I overheard your conversation with Eoin,” she said sympathetically.
“You spying on me?” he joked.
“Hardly. I was getting some stuff I’d sent to the printer. You hear everything that goes on in Eoin’s office from the print machine.”
Jake nodded. Everyone in the office knew that was true and occasionally used the fact to learn more about what was going on.
“I need to tell you. You’re one of the reasons this whole study is being done.”
“What?” Jake asked. “How could I be?”
“Remember when you said I could have the data you compiled on Baldur to pass along to my brother’s friend who kind of runs this economics think tank thing?” Ariel asked.
“Yeah. You told me that the man would find it fascinating and nothing would ever come of it.”
“Well,” Ariel said, “he did find it fascinating. He’d been doing some work of his own on d4 and he already had the same suspicions that you did. My brother’s friend, his name is Toby, he figured no one would believe him or his think tank, and I’d already told him not to involve you in any way.”
“Toby of y1?” Jake asked.
“You’ve heard of the guy?” Ariel was surprised.
“I’ve more than heard of him. I’m a huge fan. He runs this fascinating website and the man is kind of a legend, you know. There is a whole crazy backstory about who he really is and why he does what he does. So you’re telling me that you actually gave my research to y1?” Jake looked proud.
“I did,” Ariel said. “And they were very impressed with it. So impressed that several of them stepped up to fast-track this study just so they could uncover what you and Toby already know, and to draw their conclusions publically without involving either of you.”
“That is too funny. My work set in motion a study that I’ve now been ordered by my own boss to deceive so that the study doesn’t reach the same conclusions that I reached.”
“Yeah,” Ariel said. “It’s a bizarre universe. What are you gonna do now?”
“Well, I’m sure as hell not going to disprove my own work, now, am I?”
Ariel felt bad for Jake and for the pickle she had put him in. “I hope you know that I’d have spoken up sooner if I’d had any idea that Toby was going to act on what I sent him, or even that you’d heard of the guy.”
“I know,” Jake reassured her as his shoulders gave a large shrug. “Don’t worry about it. I’m just glad you told me now.”
“How are you going to handle Eoin?” Ariel persisted.
“Screw Eoin. I can get another job. Lucky for us, Baldur doesn’t run the world.”
******
Baldur had every intention of running the world well. He wasn’t stupid and he certainly knew better than to kill off the industries that fed him. He would need to allow a small upper class to provide people to keep alive the restaurants, arts and entertainment that would make his wealth more enjoyable. It would be important that no one in this shrinking upper class had the means to challenge him, of course, but other than that they could keep their money and run corners of the world that Baldur had no interest in messing with.
Even if the other ten psychics he had trained did not fully grasp it, Baldur understood that this was about more than amassing a ridiculous amount of money. People had done that before, and then sooner or later they went ahead and frittered the bulk of it away. Besides possessing all of the usual vices, the very rich were prone to attempts to shape the world to their liking. None of them ever seemed to have the quite the same vision, so they squandered their power like the gods of old, throwing lightning bolts at each other until none of them won. Why didn’t they understand that it should be all about keeping the money? Hold on to it and use it strategically and eventually one could control all those other things any way that he wished.
Baldur knew that sooner or later he’d need politicians on his side, and as his power grew and became known, he might even need the armies behind the politicians. Money could buy both and it always had. He’d need public opinion on his side, too, or at least enough of it that any detractors would be silenced by others, leaving him above reproach. Recent years had shown that in a media-saturated world, buying journalists who would twist the truth for him was as easy as buying politicians. Maybe easier.
He needed the poor. Only a fool thought otherwise. There were massive amounts of work to be done and a never ending need for consumers. They needed to be fed well enough to be docile, and to be just solvent enough that his advertisers could coax their limited discretionary income from them for whatever frivolities of entertainment and fashion that were popular. There were over 7 billion people in the world, and it was important that at least 6.9 billion of them could just get by. Actually, it was okay if the most remote of those didn’t even manage to do that.
The remaining hundred million of them were the real difficulty.
What to do about the middle class? Hadn’t they always been the problem? These were the people who had enough time and resources to grow restless, and enough education to make them more inclined to think for themselves, and yet they lacked the truly rich’s attachment to the status quo. They were always grabbing for more and trying to change things
so that their lives were better.
Yet trying to completely eliminate a middle class had never been efficient. Society required middle-level managers and local politicians and a class of physicians and educators, so they needed to be kept fearful. Luckily, humans gravitated to superiors who kept them scared and then promised them safety in return for obedience.
Pitting people against each other had also done wonders over the centuries. It was a damn shame, but the truth was that the world needed an ongoing war or two to make it work. Whether people advocated or opposed the conflict mattered not at all—in fact, one had to hope for some of both. The resulting debate kept everyone occupied while someone like Baldur quietly made more money, and arguments about the merits of this war or that had the added benefit of draining the energy away from those hell-bent on achieving other reforms.
Baldur liked the idea of occasionally finding a way to elevate the status of a random hopeful. Experience had shown that the well publicized success of a rare entertainer or entrepreneur could lead millions of others to think that they might be next, and they would then oppose any changes to the system with the zealousness usually reserved for the very wealthy. I want laws that favor the very rich so that when I’m one of them I can benefit too. He laughed to himself.
He had expected to need at least ten more years for his slow but steady draining of wealth out of the system, if he did it without causing any unnecessary scrutiny. He had been prepared for the wait. However, scrutiny had come to him in spite of his caution. Perhaps he was making too much of a small thing, but Baldur knew well how little nuisances that spiraled out of control had brought down others. Ask the former American president Richard Nixon about a minor break-in and his successor Bill Clinton about getting a simple blowjob from an intern.
Baldur’s potential nemesis was a study that had been commissioned to look into specifics of companies that specialized in high frequency trading. Studies got done all the time and Baldur could have cared less. But this one was truly independent, with no ties to any institution with an agenda to protect people such as Baldur. It was well funded, fast-tracked, and had come out of nowhere for no reason. Like a storm brewing on the horizon, it carried potential for destruction.
Luckily, circumstances had brought him a second unexpected change that might well counteract the first. He knew he had been a little heavy-handed last week with the redheaded black swan that could elevate his precognition into the weeks and months ahead. Well, if she’d been more cooperative to begin with he wouldn’t have had to resort to such drama.
He and two of his most capable fellow investors had used the best that they had been able to get from Ariel, and had put numerous small, difficult-to-detect, complex trading strategies in place. Most wouldn’t mature until late September and October, but after a week it was already looking good in terms of the accuracy of the future that Ariel had allowed the three men to see.
With the much wider array of possibilities open to an investor that could see further ahead, Baldur knew that he could accelerate his plans significantly. It was even possible that he would no longer need the other members of d4 as partners. That would streamline the process, although getting the rest of d4 back out of the picture could present certain challenges as well. In the best case, it might only take months for him to be in the financial position he had hoped to achieve a decade hence—if, of course, the young lady in question was willing to assist him.
Did she have to be willing? That was the latest twist to the opportunity that she presented. Apparently she didn’t have to be willing to be present, as the incident at the spa had proved. But she had been curious about the investing in spite of herself, paying attention while the men had worked, and Baldur had been surprised to discover that her attention to what was going on had proved to be important. When her mind had appeared to wander, so did the information that the men had gotten.
He’d kept the observation to himself, but he had left the session certain that Ariel had to be not only conscious, but also at least somewhat engaged, in order to be of use. He suspected that Ariel would find a way to stop being one or the other if he merely kept her in a cage. Mind tricks, meditation, sleepiness, depression or even a self-induced coma or suicide were all possible to a human determined enough to thwart another, and Ariel appeared to be more determined than most. She needed to be persuaded not forced.
Baldur shook his head at his own bad luck. Surely ninety-nine percent of the people in the world would have happily cooperated with him for the money alone. Yet he was pretty sure Ariel fell into the other one percent. Unfortunately he had approached this all wrong in terms of gaining her affection, for the time being at least. So how about capitalizing on her affection for another? Would she cooperate for the sake of someone she cared about? Who did she care about? What did she care about? Baldur decided that he needed to know much more about Ariel.
17. In the Heart of Summer
Ariel was sure that she was being followed often, and whether it was by friend or foe she was getting tired of it. Her first guess was that Baldur was responsible, making sure she didn’t bolt for Tierra del Fuego while he waited to see how useful her investment guidance was. Her second guess was that Cillian was trying to look out for her. That was only slightly less annoying. She could look out for herself.
She supposed that other reasonable options included Toby filled with the same protective urge, or Mikkel having second thoughts about confiding in her and making sure she didn’t betray his confidences. What a mess. No, what a clusterfuck. She needed to get herself some normal friends.
Luckily her family seemed to be all out of trouble at the moment, no small thing given their variety of talents and penchant for taking on causes. She probably needed to call home and check in. Maybe even alert her mom to the depths Baldur had sunk to last month at the Blue Lagoon. She knew her mom would be livid that she hadn’t told her right away, and would be worried sick point forward, which were of course the two reasons why Ariel hadn’t made the phone call already.
Logically, though, it made sense for her family to be helping each other. Mom had telepath friends in Europe, and maybe they could learn more about Baldur and his plans for her. Teddie had confessed to Ariel that if she never had another out-of-body experience it would be too soon, but hadn’t Teddie stayed in touch with those who did that kind of thing regularly? Were these people able to help strangers? Ariel didn’t think so, but figured she ought to at least find out what the rules were in case she found herself in a particularly nasty predicament.
Dad didn’t have anything odd about him as far as Ariel could tell, and Zane’s talents were only helpful if Zane was right there with you. He—
Ariel turned around quickly as an elderly Hindu woman who had done a surprising job of keeping up with Ariel’s fast pace ducked back out of a doorway and continued to follow her.
Oh hell, enough was enough. She turned around and stormed back to the tiny woman, glaring down into her eyes. She swore she could see Nell somewhere inside.
“Nell?”
As soon as Ariel said it the woman’s wrinkled features began to relax and her body filled out and she stood taller.
“Hey, just a little practice to keep the old acting skills sharp,” a woman, who was looking more like Nell every second, said with a nervous giggle.
“No, that is more than acting. Stop pretending, Nell. I know, because my brother can do what you do.”
“No way.” Nell didn’t even argue the original point. “I spent my whole life teaching myself to do this. You have no idea how many great roles it got me. Need someone older, younger, larger, smaller, whiter, browner, thinner, fatter. I go way past acting—I become. No way has another actor taught themselves to do this like I can.”
“None has,” Ariel agreed. “My brother Zane has never acted in his life, at least not in a theatrical production. Come on. Let’s go get a beer. We need to compare notes.”
By the time the first Guinness was downed, Ariel h
ad learned that Nell used her extreme acting talents regularly on behalf of her old friend and current employer Cillian. Her role as his girlfriend was one of the many she had adopted, and in fact she and Cillian had never been lovers.
“Not my type,” Nell shrugged, and Ariel got it.
“Zane’s gay too,” Ariel said. “I don’t think it’s really related in either case to what you guys can do, but it is kind of interesting. You’re like mirror opposite twins.”
“Well, he and I have both had to work harder at blending in than you have, so maybe it is a little part of it. Not that you don’t have your own issues,” Nell added. “Speaking of which, why are so many different people following you these days?”
“It hasn’t all been just you”?” Ariel asked.
“It’s hardly been me. Cillian asked me to check in every so often after the whole thing in Iceland, so I started out making sure that you were okay once a day. Once I noticed I wasn’t the only one with an interest in you, I decided to up the frequency. You’re pretty much a full-time job now, lady.”
“My first guess is that my other big fan is Baldur.”
Nell agreed. Nell didn’t know about Toby, of course, so Nell’s other guess was Mikkel.
“I couldn’t help but notice that the two of you kind of had your own private dinner that night at the lagoon. Not a lot of conversation with anyone else.” Nell had just a bit of teasing in her voice.
“We had a nice time,” Ariel agreed. “He’s a much more interesting man than I realized, at least when he doesn’t have a chip on his shoulder about me butting into his business. He even talked to me a little about it.” Ariel had no intention of telling Mikkel’s secrets to Nell or to anyone else, but Nell didn’t push the point.
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