d4

by Sherrie Cronin

  In two days it would be Friday, October 19, and Baldur’s options would for all intents and purposes expire at the end of the trading day. Some were purchased on the London Stock Exchange, a few from Asian markets, and most were out of New York, which of course closed five hours later than London. Many had turned out to be the good investments that Baldur would have expected and might have made himself with no help from Ariel. Others had appeared to be poor choices initially, and yet the tide had turned his way gradually over the last few weeks. These gave him hope that Ariel brought something of use to the party. However, quite a few more investments, and some of the highest dollar ones, still looked like poor choices as of this morning. He had to consider that Ariel’s prescience regarding the Weatherford stock price recovery had been a lucky fluke after all.

  The next morning when Baldur arrived at the office, he asked Hulda to see to it that he had food but otherwise remained undisturbed for the entire day and evening, and for all of Friday as well.

  “Doing some serious trading today and tomorrow?” she asked politely.

  “No, just some very important data-gathering. No one—I mean no one—is to walk through this door before Monday. Do you understand?”

  “Of course. You have my word of honor that you will not be disturbed.”

  Baldur snorted. “Hulda. I mean no offense here, but it is my observation that in general women do not have a sense of honor.”

  Hulda decided that she was offended, whether Baldur had intended her to be or not.

  “What I meant to say,” he corrected himself, “is that a woman’s honor generally consists of her willingness to keep men’s paws off of her. It’s not the same thing as a man’s sense of honor, which by its very nature involves more lofty concepts.”

  “What you describe,” Hulda replied “is a man’s definition of a woman’s honor.”

  “Really?” Baldur seemed surprised.

  “Really. Women know much better. Honor has nothing to do with who you do or don’t sleep with, and I’ve hardly ever met a woman silly enough to think that it did. It also has damn little to do with who or how you fight or how often you win, and I’ve met far too many men too silly to realize that.”

  Baldur considered for a minute. “Cleopatra. Helen of Troy. Salome. Guinevere. I think a simple study of history proves that women have no sense of honor.”

  “A study of history suggest that a few women do not. It also suggests that quite a few men don’t either.”

  “Yes, but history is also full of honorable men. Where are the comparable women?” he asked.

  “Not mentioned in history at all,” Hulda answered. “There is cliff in Bulgaria where forty women braided their hair together and jumped into the ocean to keep the Ottomans from invading their village. If forty men had done something like that that they’d still be making movies about it.”

  “Maybe,” Baldur conceded “but that’s a single story.”

  “Did you know that back on September 11 it was a U.S. female fighter pilot who took to the air to ram her plane into a hijacked one just keep more people from getting killed? Do you have any idea how many more stories like this I could tell you?”

  “No, no I don’t. However, I don’t have time today to find out,” Baldur said.

  “So how about you agree that women are at least as prone as men to sacrifice their own well-being and even their lives for the safety of others? That, by the way, is what honor is all about for both genders. Not screwing or fighting.”

  Baldur looked at Hulda like he had just met her. Then he shook his head in disbelief as he closed his office door.

  He settled in with his coffee, put his newly argumentative receptionist out of his mind and watched with fascination as the market began to respond to world news. Yesterday, a Mexico City-based telecommunications company had announced that it would begin to offer high-speed internet service without binding it with a phone line package. Ariel had called that response perfectly. The decision increased the company’s Chairman and Chief Executive’s net worth from a healthy $77.6 billion to an even healthier $79.4 billion. While Baldur didn’t net anywhere near as much as $1.8 billion himself off of the decision, the profit that Ariel’s precognition about this event did yield his various shell companies was in the tens of millions, and that would do.

  Next, General Electric, McDonald’s and Microsoft stock all dropped when they reported perfectly fine profits that were less than Wall Street expected, and Baldur smiled as Ariel’s bets against the three successful companies brought him more money.

  The real clincher didn’t happen until late in the day, however, when Google stock nose-dived eleven percent when its third-quarter results were accidently released ahead of schedule due to a human blunder. Sadly for the well known company, it had only reported a revenue of $11.3 billion for the quarter, and not the $11.8 billion that analysts had been expecting. The two founders of Google saw their personal fortunes drop a combined $3.2 billion because of that little shortfall. Baldur however, with his hand on the trigger, managed to make over $100 million in aggregate before trading of Google stock was halted on NASDAQ.

  He slept in his office that night, waking a few times to follow the investments on the Tokyo and Hong Kong exchanges, and then rose early to check in on the other European stock markets. By the end of the day almost every option that Ariel had guided him to buy had moved in his favor. In fact, a quick calculation gave her an incredible success rate of over ninety-five percent.

  He noted from the Bloomberg report that the 100 richest people on the planet had managed to add $12.7 billion to their collective net worth during the past five days, even while those corporate earnings that were below expectations in the U.S. wiped out most of the gains for average investors everywhere. It was so good to have the means and the knowledge to play the game well.

  Baldur studied his chart of the 100 wealthiest humans on Earth. He wasn’t listed of course, and he was doing his very best to keep it that way. Let the press focus on those who headed large well-known conglomerates or had come into this world far wealthier than most. Baldur had no desire to explain his success to anyone. So some of his worth was hidden here, some was hidden there, and it would stay that way until he could be very sure that he was too big to be critically scrutinized.

  The next item was making sure that his income continued. He no longer needed to worry that Ariel’s successes were flukes, which meant that he needed to be putting something in place that would ensure her cooperation. He was confident that if he could only force her to go along with him for a little while, she could be won over.

  It was fun to be wealthy, after all, and given a little time, growing those bank account numbers became something of a game. Ariel had a competitive streak. Once she saw how easy it was, how much fun it was, and how nice life could be, she wasn’t going to walk away from it. Not easily.

  The trick was that initial cooperation. Was her affection for Mikkel strong enough for Baldur to play that card? He still thought it was his best bet. Time to contact her, and reassure her that he was merely a reasonable man proposing a sensible arrangement.

  ******

  Friday after work, Ariel greeted Mikkel with a business-like demeanor and no touch, as separate cabs let each of them off outside of the trendy Dublin restaurant she had picked for their performance.

  “Not very convincing,” he muttered as they moved to the sidewalk together. “This would be better.”

  He placed his hand firmly behind her head to hold her still and then gave her a deep kiss that spoke of longing and days of separation. She tried to back away at first, and then realized that of course the man was right. She kissed back with equal ardor.

  “Much better,” he smiled. “Now, we look like two lovers about to have dinner.”

  Something else bothered her, along with the odd unwanted emotions stirred up by the kiss itself. “I didn’t see any thing when we kissed,” she said, surprised.

  “Maybe you were too distr
acted,” he suggested as they made their way through the Friday night crowd to the hostess stand.

  “Don’t flatter yourself,” she whispered back, and he grinned.

  By the time they were seated they had both relaxed a little, and Ariel realized that she was enjoying herself. They kept the conversation light and vague, and they held hands as they lingered over liquor and dessert. Ariel suspected that Mikkel hated to see their outward show of affection end and she had to agree that it was pleasant pretending to be falling in love.

  “Ready to go check out late-night television at the hotel?” she asked finally, because it looked like he was never going to sign the credit card receipt that the waiter was hovering nearby hoping to collect.

  “Sure.” He put on his best business face. “Of course.”

  The nice room had two double beds, and Ariel placed her little travel bag on one, then joined him, sitting cross-legged on his bed. She picked up the remote.

  He scooted next to her to offer her one of the two little chocolates the turndown crew had placed on his pillow. Well, there was no need to be rude to the man. She smiled and took the chocolate, and as she touched his hand for just a second she was back on the beach in a hammock with him naked, and oh my god how had that premory got there, because in it she was truly having the time of her life.

  The Mikkel on the hotel bed was looking at her puzzled as she crawled onto his lap, and the kiss they had started on the sidewalk hours ago continued as though three hours of dinner had never gotten in the way. Soon the hammock memory vanished as the real Ariel enjoyed the real now. Mikkel not only did not offer a single objection, but one would have to agree that before very long at all he was an active participant as well.

  They lay together in silence afterwards for a long while, neither wanting to break the spell. Ariel could only guess at what Mikkel was thinking, but she suspected it had something to do with how great this was and how they shouldn’t let this wonderful moment happen again. For her part, she was baffled but impressed at the wide variety of quick premories floating through her head. Every one of them seemed to involve superb to incredible sex over the next several months. She giggled inside. This was a new use of her abilities and one that she wished she’d found a lot earlier. Then she stopped. Every occurrence, every single one, was with Mikkel. Wasn’t that odd? Then, she knew.

  “Damn you.”

  She stood up, and the second time that she said it she yelled it at him. “Damn you!”

  “Hey, you started it, not me.” He was instantly defensive.

  “Of course I did. I don’t mean that,” she corrected him quickly. “I mean damn you because I am not going to Mars.”

  “Of course you’re not,” he barked back. “It will be a small, carefully selected group. The standards will have to be incredibly high. I doubt you would even qualify. Besides, you have no interest in going.” And then he got it too.

  “Oh this is so wrong. No Ariel, I am not trying to rope you into my dream. You have free will. I want you to have free will. I’m not asking you to go to Mars. I’m not ever going to ask you to go to Mars.”

  He was genuinely upset and Ariel appreciated it.

  “I know you’re not. But it makes sense, doesn’t it? I come to Dublin and Cillian starts getting far-off vibes of a better future. What can I do that matters? I thought I was going to make a difference by bringing down Baldur. That made sense, but I’m not sure that is the whole story. You and I had a fun weekend together and our favorite prophet saw humanity’s chances of survival go up. We laughed it off then, but Mikkel, part of this is about us. We roll around together, things look better. I bet you can call Cillian now and he can’t explain why but his giant crystal ball in the sky suddenly shows that everything has improved again.”

  Mikkel reached for his phone.

  “Don’t you dare,” Ariel said.

  “Why would you matter so much?” Mikkel was thinking aloud, she realized, and she forced herself to take no offense at the question.

  “Maybe having someone along who sees ahead into the future has a positive effect on a small outpost’s chances of survival? Here on Earth there is so much input and so much junk I care about that I hardly ever get anything useful. I can see how that would be different there.”

  “I don’t know what to say,” Mikkel responded. “I don’t even know how I feel about this. I do know that I sure as hell don’t want to add to your issues, and frankly I don’t need you adding to mine.”

  “Okay then, short term problems first,” Ariel said. “Let’s put a stop to Baldur. He is more than capable of adding to the world’s misery in the present and of mucking up your and Cillian’s best plans. Do you think we can get through the next couple of months doing just that, and keeping our focus off the long range?”

  Mikkel nodded. “I could definitely support deferring this issue.” He gestured to the pillow next to him. “So… how do you want to leave things while we deal with the short term?”

  Ariel sighed and moved over to the other empty bed. “I’m not taking a vow of chastity here or anything, but for the rest of tonight I could do without all the sensual images I get every time I touch you. Okay?”

  “Sure.” He smiled. “Sensual images, huh? Don’t want those to keep you awake.”

  She smiled back at him from her own bed before she turned away and tried to fall asleep.

  Mikkel left on Saturday as planned, and Sunday morning there was a soft knock on Ariel’s door. She thought of Donald, her mother’s friend who had shown up months before to persuade her to make a trip to India. It wouldn’t be Donald, of course, but someone sent by Baldur. She’d seen this possible future emerge and become more likely, and was sad to know that it was one that would come to pass.

  But, the options had expired. Ariel had paid some attention to the flickering stock information running through her brain that day in Iceland, and remembered the two men muttering to each other about how betting against Google was a bad idea. Baldur had overridden them, insisting they invest heavily in this, perhaps her most controversial recommendation.

  Jake and the others had been following Google like hounds ever since, and when Google stock plummeted late Thursday there was a ring of familiarity to the story that she could not escape. So she had probably made Baldur a fortune, and now he didn’t want to wait any longer to make more.

  So be it. The plan was taking shape and she would play her part.

  She had a thought. “Just a minute,” she yelled to whomever was knocking, as she quickly opened the old email from her mother. Looked like mom knew a good dozen or so telepaths in Western Europe. Ariel pasted their names in the “To:” column and added Jake and Brendan to the “cc:” list. They’d be baffled, but they’d work with her and get word to the others.

  The knock came again, a little louder. She typed as fast as she could.

  “I will be in Reykjavik, my safety is in question. Check on me. My mom knows more.”

  Send, close browser, turn off laptop. This was going to scare her mom but it couldn’t be helped.

  “Coming,” she yelled.

  The very nice man at the door identified himself as a limo driver, there to take her to Baldur’s private jet, which was waiting.

  “Let me just grab a few things.”

  Once she boarded the plane, Ariel put her earbuds in and turned up her music. The last thing she wanted was to make polite conversation. She treated herself to every snack in the well stocked little jet, but forced herself to avoid the alcohol, tempting though it was. She needed to stay sharp.

  A courteous co-pilot checked on her twice, but otherwise left her alone. She laughed aloud when Metric’s song about insatiable greed, “Gold Guns Girls,” came on and wished she had a set of speakers with her so that she could blast the song out for the whole plane to hear.

  Another polite driver met her on the other end. She wondered if she was going to a hotel in Reykjavik or to Baldur’s house. The answer was neither.

  �
��Welcome.”

  Ulfur, Baldur’s lawyer and expert question deflector, greeted her as though she was an old friend come to visit, as the driver carried her bag through the front door. Ulfur’s wife was close behind him, ready to show Ariel to her room. So this was how it was going to be? She was the guest of a friendly middle-aged couple whose very presence made it clear that she need not fear unwanted physical advances. On a quiet residential street, she wouldn’t be able to come and go as though she were in a hotel. Ulfur’s wife had already assured her that the internet worked well, so she wasn’t being held in secret, although Ariel was willing to bet any message she sent would be monitored.

  “Baldur will see you tomorrow at the office. Your driver will be here at nine to take you over. Would you like a little something to eat before you go to bed?”

  They couldn’t have been more pleasant, but for once Ariel wasn’t hungry. Alone in her room, she pulled on the sweat clothes she had started sleeping in again as the nights got colder. She took a few minutes to run her hands over the bed, the dresser, and her own things hoping for a premory that might be of some use, but it was the usual nonsense of irrelevant events from weeks ahead. She was starting to think that the ability to precall the next few hours or days would have been so much more helpful. Maybe that was why no one seemed to have it.

  After she crawled under the covers, she sent quick bland emails about an unexpected trip to Iceland to her folks, to her boss Eoin, and to co-workers Jake and Brendan. They would all figure out what was happening. Then she shut her computer back off, put it under her pillow and tried to sleep.

  ******

  Hulda didn’t look Ariel in the eye the next morning, and Ariel wondered just how much the woman knew. Perhaps the role she played as frosty gatekeeper was getting harder to maintain under the circumstances? She showed Ariel into Baldur’s office and left.