The Xtra- Volume One

by Oliver Willis

  Blanc didn't understand that sort of irrationality. For him, all actions are financial. So, take the best deal.

  They didn't. Now they're dead. So be it.

  He picks up a phone sitting on his desk and without a ring the man on the other end responds.

  "Mr. Blanc?"

  The trading floor over in Chicago always has someone sitting next to the phone to pick up if Blanc calls. Not a second goes by during work hours without someone staring at the device, waiting for the light to come on indicating it's in use.

  The man answering knows not to say anything out of turn. A few years ago a new hire tried to small talk Blanc. The delay caused by his politeness was calculated to have cost $14 million. Blanc had him removed and his life ruined for the flub. There was zero tolerance. The final result was a suicide and Blanc liked to hold the episode up as a cautionary tale about not following his orders.

  Blanc rattles off a series of financial positions that need to be taken. The man at the other end hurriedly scribbles them down on a piece of paper, writing in large letters to make sure there isn't any question about what was ordered.

  Blanc hangs up and the line immediately goes dead. The man immediately leaps into action, executing Blanc's will. Not only is this his job but he stands to profit handsomely from his actions as well. Being downstream from a man like Blanc isn't just prestige and proximity to power, it is a pipeline to extraordinary wealth. The vast array of people and sub-businesses beneath him is extremely aware of this phenomenon. Blanc knows it too, and it is one of the few things in life that he truly enjoys.

  They are beholden to him. He holds their lives and livelihood in his hands.

  Blanc turns his eyes to his screens, watching a series of windows tracking the markets and his vast array of personal holdings.

  Within seconds things begin to move. Arrows move upward, values increase exponentially. His phone call is the first domino in a succession of dominoes falling.

  It helps to have an inside track, to know what his company is going to do and when they are going to do it. Soon, Blanc Industries will announce that it will complete a major pipeline.

  "Circumstances" led to the removal of the village that stood in the way. Hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude will flow from one point on the map to the next. That fuel will be refined in facilities owned by Madden Blanc. It will be sold to consumers and other businesses from stations owned by Madden Blanc. Car companies will sell vehicles that buy that fuel. Many of those companies have enormous amounts of shares held by Madden Blanc.

  The ripple effect goes even further down. Blanc has his fingers everywhere. His enormous wealth will grow.

  He just had to be willing to slaughter a few hundred people to move the needle. He was very willing. Others are not. Blanc was once this weak.

  It wasn't until he encountered the Overseers, got access to their insights, was given a glimpse of their power and technology, that he learned to cast aside his fragile morality.

  He isn't stupid. He knows that they have an ulterior motive. They do not care about advancing his personal fortunes, about expanding his empire. They just knew that he was a superior intellect and through him they could expand their search.

  He doesn't know what they are looking for. But it's important enough to them that they have given him tools – technology – decades ahead of anybody else. He's happy to be used.

  The life he has would have been impossible otherwise.

  But as he watches his net worth continue to skyrocket, as he contemplates the sprawling addition to his mansion that is under construction, he feels a slight resentment.

  Madden Blanc is not in control. There are puppet masters above him. He should be happy with what he has, with the unimaginable powers and influence at his fingertips.

  But they have more. He has to acknowledge this.

  A video stream begins on his desktop. The anchor is discussing how Wall Street was "rocked" by the series of trades Madden Blanc initiated. A panel of "experts" exchanges their hot take on his wealth and where it stands in history (almost at the top).

  But it is old news to him. The Overseers are still above him. He feels empty.

  Chapter 22

  Our meeting room is a glorified kitchen. Upstairs in the Herald-Examiner building there are legitimate conference rooms, with long wooden desks, advanced telephones, and even a painting or two on the wall.

  Down here one wall has a large industrial sink complete with a dishwasher that rarely functions and an over-filled drying rack with an assortment of cups and plates inside it. The other wall is cupboards filled with a haphazard collection of plastic containers, accumulated from years and years of employees leaving their stuff behind on their last day.

  In the middle, where everyone is assembled, people are sitting on a collection of metal and plastic folding chairs. They are arranged in clumps of likeminded styles. Something from the eighties. The nineties. The early aughts. There is little rhyme or reason except – like everything else down here – it looks like it was left over from the "real" newspaper.

  Taylor and I try to slip into the back of the room quietly. The door is mercifully silent as we walk in and I hold onto it to slow it down as it swings back into place. Success.

  We walk to a pair of empty seats at the back. Taylor plops herself down. I notice the other seat is too close to the one in front of it. Not enough space for me and my legs. I gently pull back on it to make enough room.

  Then it happens.

  One of the legs catches on something on the floor. God knows what it is, but it's emblematic of the kind of luck I've always had. Instead of a short, quick smooth move, the entire thing makes what feels for the moment like the loudest sound in all of recorded history.

  I could have screamed out a racial slur and I think it would have made less noise.

  Immediately every head that had been looking toward the front of the room immediately swivels back.

  I look down and start lowering myself into the seat. Wishing the stares away. But I can feel them. I can feel every eye looking at me. It is as if every single pupil of theirs is a pinprick on my skin.

  Against my better judgement I sneak a quick glance up and this confirms my suspicion. They are looking.

  They are the same age as me, come from similar backgrounds to me, but they're almost all men. They outnumber us down here nearly twenty to one. And almost all of them are white guys too. There are two black guys, a Latino guy, and that's it.

  Several of their expressions are clear: You don't belong. You aren't one of us. You snuck in with this group somehow and someone is going to find you out. You don't even know how to sit right.

  "Impostor," they seem to scream with their expressions.

  I think they're right. Sometimes I try to tell myself that I'm imagining this inferiority, that it's all in my head and I'm making up a sentiment that doesn't exist.

  But right now, I feel like I can't breathe. Because I don't belong.

  The only thing that breaks their disdainful gaze is the sound at the front of the room.

  "Great, you're all here now," the woman announces.

  Chapter 23

  Edie Schonberg knows how to command the attention of the room. Everyone in here knows who she is, without exception. Her silver hair is her signature, and a fixture of the paper's numerous marketing campaigns. She has been with the Herald-Examiner for twenty-five years and is responsible for several of their Pulitzers.

  This room is filled with her biggest fans and some of the people in the world most envious of her career. They either want to be Edie Schonberg or they want to be the next Edie Schonberg.

  I love her work.

  What's she doing here?

  "Gentlemen. Ladies."

  I think about my blundering entrance and make a quick silent prayer that she didn't see what happened. I replay the moment in my head and it becomes a thousand times worse. In that version I have stumbled over my feet, fallen flat on the floor and brok
en my nose at the end of the collision. My imagination is far too vivid sometimes.

  I slink down in my chair so I won't stick out. Just in case.

  "You're doing great work here. You don't hear that enough," she says.

  There's a slight murmur in response to the praise. We all think it. We even say it when the upstairs people aren't around. Everyone knows the research we pull together can put a story in proper context. A fact here, a fact there, and it can transform a story from "here's what happened" to "this is why it matters."

  A reporter will tell us thanks. Sometimes they even name us at the end of a report. But most of the time we get bupkiss. The story is done, and the paper moves on to the next topic. Research just did its job, and there's no reason to stop the world for that.

  I can identify with the sentiment.

  "As many of you know, in concert with next year's mayoral election in D.C., the paper is in the middle of some major investigative work on the current administration," she says.

  We know. Some of us – me – have processed records requests related to those stories.

  She continues. "We're looking at projects they've greenlit, how those are connected to some – senior congressional leaders. This doesn't leave this room but we're finding troubling things."

  Schonberg pauses to let the innuendo sink in. It does. It isn't just that there are powerful people involved, but Edie Schonberg firing a signal flare on a big story is the newspaper equivalent of a thousand fire alarms going off at once.

  A lot of these boys and girls have dreamt their whole life about being part of the next Watergate, of being on the front lines of revealing something huge to the world.

  It excites me, for sure. I steal a glance at Taylor and of course, she is barely paying attention.

  She's here for a paycheck and to get her dad off her back for lying around their (gigantic) house. She has no delusions like the rest us of an "epic takedown" or some other earth-shattering development.

  But she's an exception to the group rule. The rest of the room is nearly salivating already.

  "That's where you guys come in," Schonberg continues. "We're going to need a lot of heavy lifting on this one. We'll need eyes going through our own archives, court records, congressional logs, web data, employee records. Even some private stuff."

  I hear some notes being scribbled down. No doubt people have their ideas about what can be investigated, which databases can be used. This is a room of eager overachievers being presented with a shot at a brass ring.

  "I'm going to be working on this project myself."

  More excitement. You can smell the Pulitzer dreams bouncing around.

  "We're going to need two or three of you on this full time. You'll ditch everything else and this will be what you spend every moment on the clock working on. I'll need your best stuff. I don't have time to babysit you. I'm not your mom. I need people who can hack it. Who can really get this done so we can kick ass."

  She crosses her arms and stares at the room, moving her head to the left and right. She appears to stare into the eyes of each person individually. I feel a chill when she looks my way.

  "Any takers?" She asks.

  Hands shoot up all around me.

  Immediately I look down. I stare at my sneakers like I could burn a hole in them.

  A sharp pain jabs me from the side.

  "What?" I quietly murmur, then I turn and look. "Oh, you."

  "Yeah, me," Taylor replies, still leaning in with her index finger an inch from my rib cage. "Do it, you big dummy." Her expression is more determined than during our misadventure in the lobby.

  I shake my head "no."

  Is she nuts? I couldn't possibly be involved in something like this. I don't belong in this crowd. I just snuck in, barely. Everyone knows that. Even Taylor.

  I push her hand away to emphasize my point. Don't be silly.

  She looks at me with genuine shock. It isn't her usual cynicism or determined anger, but shock at what she is hearing.

  "No, Carla, you stop." She's whispering but the tone is unmistakable. It is angry and emotion-heavy. "This is your wheelhouse. You know how to find this stuff, this boring-ass stuff, better than anyone in here. You give a damn about it and these white boys just want to climb up the ladder."

  "No," I reply, looking around to see if anyone has picked up on this conversation. But they're too enamored with Schonberg and the conversations that are starting with the people who have shown an interest.

  Why can't Taylor understand that I can't do this? I can't get involved way over my head, then screw it up like I inevitably will. I don't have the kind of cushy safety net to fall back on like she has. My dad doesn't have a massive bank account that lets me just screw around.

  Schonberg is looking around for more takers.

  For a second, I let myself believe. Just for a nanosecond. A brief moment, shorter than the blink of an eye. What if…

  No, that's stupid.

  I tell myself to throw the stupid idea out of my mind, right away.

  To emphasize which direction I've chosen, I ease my leg up and sit on my hand. I won't be calling for Schonberg's attention.

  Taylor sighs, loudly. She isn't making a single attempt to be silent or to exhibit restraint.

  "Jesus Christ," she says at full volume that everyone can hear.

  I feel like somebody has punched me in the stomach. I feel sick. I want to close my eyes and disappear.

  Chapter 24

  The man nervously wipes his fat rubbery face. It is covered in a thick layer of sweat, even though it is a cool day in Washington, D.C.

  His hands are calloused, and he can feel the bumps of his dry skin as his hand slides down the length of his nose and across his lips.

  He is so nervous. Scott Corchoran has never done anything in his life like this before.

  He feels like he is somebody else, watching Scott Corchoran go through his motions.

  Corchoran slides his sweaty hand against the worn-down jean jacket he received as a present a long time ago. He can feel the portions of the jacket that are thinner than the rest, suffering the ravages of time. It is one of his favorite things to wear and it shows. He has been offered a new one to replace it, but he has always refused.

  He can also feel the outline of the handgun he is wearing in the holster strapped around his chest.

  Over the last few minutes he has checked and re-checked the position of the weapon over and over. Just to make sure it's still there. Just to make sure it didn't magically disappear, somehow.

  It's still there.

  It's there like it was when he stepped out of his wheezing sedan. It was there as he crossed in front of the sub shop. It was there when the crossing sign said it was safe to make his way across the street.

  A car backfires. It is very loud and the noise is followed by the rattling of an engine on its last legs. Corchoran checks the gun again, half-expecting to feel blood because somehow – he doesn't know how – the gun must have just gone off.

  But it is intact.

  Stop being so nervous, he told himself. But he didn't listen.

  Just think about the plan, he thought. Think about why you're here.

  He was there to settle a score, to set things right again. The world is off-kilter and through his actions, Corchoran can make life right.

  This wasn't the way he wanted to do things. He was paid to work in a coal mine. That's what he had done for the last twenty years and that was what he had planned to do until he couldn't work anymore.

  The biggest downside was the black soot that covered his hair, face, and clothes all day long. His wife would repeatedly complain about the mess he tracked into the house every night, requiring her to scrub and scrub to clean it up.

  "It's coal, Maria," he would explain. "It's never clean," he'd tell her with a tone equal parts amused and exasperated.

  But that was in the past.

  Now, the mine was closed. He had no soot on his face or clothes. The
tunnel he worked in, along with the others, had been closed and sealed off.

  It is dead.

  Because of the Washington Herald-Examiner.

  Corchoran cannot understand the people at the newspaper. As he walks down the road he sees a lot of people like them.

  Young. Arrogant. Cocky. Self-righteous.

  They don't try to understand him and people like him. They just have their brains washed clean of any independent thought.

  They sit there like empty vessels, ripe for lies pushed by their parents, television shows, actors, and college professors.

  No doubt this is where the writers at the Herald-Examiner get their bizarre outlook on the world. That's the only way they could have been so cruel.

  They closed the mine. Their stories made the mine and its owners and operators into bad guys. Mustache-twirling villains.

  Reading the series in the Herald-Examiner gave off the appearance that the mine owners cared only about profit. That they didn't give a second thought to keeping things safe or preventing environmental damage.

  Corchoran thought to himself as he walked, sure, the mine owners could have done things better. They could have done a better job in cleaning up after themselves. They could have done things to prevent all that sludge from going into the river.

  Everyone can do better.

  Surely, he thought, the company should have done a better job of keeping things safe. When they hid those safety violations, they probably just panicked. Corchoran had seen some of those himself. Some of them were legitimate but some of them were really ticky-tack violations that didn't endanger anyone.

  If only the stories in the paper had been a little more balanced. Just told the other side.

  But there was such maliciousness, he thinks. Just malicious and relentless. Like they had an agenda.

  Like they wanted the mine to go under and take his livelihood with it.

  Corchoran has two daughters. He didn't like the story about all the women who were assaulted and had the stories covered up by the mine. He would concede that the money paid out to keep the story under the rug was suspicious.