by Beck Rowland
“Almost certainly. Right now it’s early Saturday morning,” Ortega said. She checked her watch and yawned. “If I had to guess, we’ve got until Monday morning to figure something out.”
“What happens on Monday?” Zenaida asked.
“Court will be in session, Peeper will win an appeal, and the subpoena will be withdrawn. At that point, Jack Tucksworth can simply waltz into Peeper Headquarters with DataVortex around his neck,” Ortega said.
Zenaida decided this was a good point to stop for the night. Nobody was going to produce any actionable solutions in their current sleep-deprived state, and the situation was unlikely to change over the next few hours.
Everybody trickled out of the office, and Zenaida staggered downstairs and into a waiting Uber. Perhaps after a few hours of sleep, she’d be able to think clearly. By the time she reached her apartment, she was exhausted beyond comprehension. Zenaida showered quickly and then collapsed into bed.
There was a text message from Davey waiting when she woke up.
“I saw the news: Tucksworth is missing. I have an idea how to find him. Meet me at the Sunset Lounge, exactly 3 PM,” it read.
Zenaida forced her eyes all the way open, then kicked her legs out of bed and sat up. She rubbed her eyes and checked the time. It was already past lunch. She had slept most of the day away. Zenaida sent a thumbs-up emoji in response to Davey, then scheduled an Uber pickup. The Sunset Lounge was a rooftop bar and grill located on the top of the highest building in the city. Apart from an amazing view, the place was also supposed to have great drinks.
When Zenaida pulled up to the building, Davey was waiting on the curb in front of the entrance. He wore a stern, serious expression that felt out of place on him. Zenaida gave her friend a hug. No matter what had happened between them, she was happy to see him.
“What’re we doing here, Davey? I thought Sunset Lounge only opened in the evening. You know, around sunset,” she said.
“I told you I wouldn’t help you fighting billionaires any more,” Davey said. “But despite my best efforts, I couldn’t just stand by while my best friend fights these battles on her own. And whether you want to admit it or not, you need help. You can’t do this all on your own.”
Zenaida sighed. “I know that Davey. That doesn’t answer my question, though. What are we doing here?”
Davey handed her a dark piece of cloth. Zenaida held it up and examined it. It was a blindfold. “Put this on,” Davey said.
“What for? Please tell me you haven’t fallen in love with me. Because you know damn well we don’t have that kind of--” Zenaida began. Davey wrinkled his nose.
“Give me a break, Zeny,” he scoffed. “Do you want help with taking down Tucksworth or not?”
Davey held out the blindfold and waited. He appeared content to wait all afternoon if that was what it took. With a heavy, theatrical sigh, Zenaida put on the blindfold and let Davey take her by the arm.
She had never been to the Sunset Lounge, but she could tell by the swish of automatic doors when they entered the ground floor lobby. Their heels reverberated loudly on the marble floor, and the air-conditioning kept the lobby a few degrees cooler than outside. It didn’t sound like anybody else was in the building. After several minutes of walking, Davey pulled Zenaida to a gentle stop.
“We’re here,” Davey said. Zenaida turned blindly in his general direction.
“I swear to God if you propose to me, I’m throwing you off this building,” she warned.
“Oh God, get over yourself,” Davey laughed. Zenaida heard a soft chime, then the quiet brush of more automatic doors. “We’re at the elevator. Go ahead, step inside. You’ll be glad you did.”
Zenaida stepped forward, then heard the doors close behind her. There was another chime, then the elevator began to ascend in silence. Zenaida scratched her nose through the blindfold, wondering what Davey was playing at. What could this have to do with finding Tucksworth? She tried to guess how many floors they had passed. They had just passed the sixteenth floor, by her best guess, when the elevator came to a sudden jolt.
Zenaida stumbled, then caught herself. They couldn’t be more than halfway up the building, and the elevator door hadn’t opened. Was it a malfunction, or some kind of practical joke? Zenaida stood in silence for a moment, waiting for Davey to explain. She could hear quiet breathing just to her left.
“What’s going on, Davey? Are we almost there? This blindfold is kind of itchy,” Zenaida said.
“What the--” exclaimed a female voice. Zenaida turned blindly in the direction of the voice.
“Davey?” Zenaida asked. When he didn’t reply, Zenaida lifted the blindfold and looked around. “Lara?”
Lara pulled her own blindfold down. She looked just as confused as Zenaida felt. She stared at Zenaida in shock, her eyes wide behind her thick glasses.
“What are you doing here?” Lara asked, her voice thick with suspicion.
“Me?! What are you doing here?” Zenaida replied.
Instead of answering, Lara pulled out her phone and called Davey. “What in the hell is going on?”
Zenaida was close enough to overhear Davey’s response. “I went to school with the Sunset Lounge building manager. I ran into him a few days ago and made him a deal: he can use my Lamborghini to impress his date tonight, and in return, I get to borrow his operator keys for the elevator.”
“Son of a bitch,” Zenaida muttered.
“Let me out of here, Davey,” Lara demanded. “You can’t keep us locked in here forever.”
“You and Zeny can come down after you’ve talked things through,” Davey said. “Zeny needs your help, and you need her. I’m done with sitting on the sidelines while you both let this friendship burn to the ground.”
“Davey, I swear to God if you don’t bring down this elevator—,” Zenaida shouted.
“Lara, tell Zeny to send me a message when you guys are friends again. I’ll be waiting on the first floor,” Davey said. Then he hung up.
Lara stared at her phone, then cursed. She jabbed at the elevator control panel, but none of the buttons did anything. Finally, Lara gave a deep sigh and slid down into the corner of the elevator. She sat as far from Zenaida as possible.
“He can’t keep us up here forever. I can wait,” Lara said. “No point talking to someone who won’t tell me the truth anyways.”
“What is that supposed to mean?” Zenaida demanded. “I’ve never lied to you.”
“Oh, that’s right. The last time we spoke, you just conveniently neglected to mention that you had become an overnight multi-millionaire,” Lara shot back.
“I wanted to tell you without your horrible, lawsuit loving mother around. Looks like I was right to try to hide it from her,” Zenaida said. “It never even occurred to me to hide the news from my best friend.”
“Some best friend. You gave Davey a Lamborghini. You gave me a penny,” Lara shot back.
“You let your mother use our friendship as a weapon against me,” Zenaida said.
Zenaida and Lara glared at each other, neither willing to make the first concession. Zenaida knew she hadn’t done anything wrong, but Lara had apparently been manipulated more thoroughly than she thought. There was none of the old kindness in Lara’s gaze. Instead, her old friend glared at her with a cold, bitter stare.
“I have nothing to say to you,” Lara said. “You might as well get comfortable. Davey can keep us here all night for all I care.”
Zenaida had just taken a breath to respond when there was a sudden jolt that threatened to knock her off balance. With another quiet chime, the elevator began to descend. “Looks like we’ll be free of each other sooner than expected. Davey is bringing us down early,” Zenaida said.
“That’s… not like Davey,” Lara mused.
Both girls knew Davey. He could be downright pig-headed when the mood suited him. If he thought he was doing something for the right reasons, he wouldn’t budge u
nless it was an emergency. Either the building was burning down, or something else was wrong.
“Oh no...” Lara said. A look of abject horror crossed her face.
The elevator slid to a halt and the doors opened. Davey stood nearby at the control panel, an apologetic look on his face. Parked directly in front of the doors was Karen. She glowered at them both, red blotches of anger rising on her cheeks. She wore a yellow-green pair of slacks that Zenaida thought looked like baby shit.
“There you are!” Karen yelled. She gave Zenaida a caustic stare. “Get away from her, Lara. The lawyers say the jury is leaning towards us. She’s going to pay up big time.”
“What are you doing here Mom?” Lara asked, her face flushed.
“I followed behind when I saw you leaving the house with Davey. I told you to stay away from that boy,” Karen said. She shot Davey a look of contempt. “Come on Lara, we’re leaving. Zenaida lured you here to try to convince you to drop the case.”
“Zenaida didn’t trick me. She didn’t even know--” Lara began.
“Not another word! We’ve got three days before the jury awards a verdict and I am not losing a multi-million dollar payout because of your soft spot for her. I put up with it for far too long. Get in the car!” Karen said. A large vein had started to throb in her neck.
Lara hung her head and sighed. Zenaida felt a heart-wrenching pang of pity. Lara had been brow-beaten, manipulated and controlled by Karen for her entire life. Any attempt at rebellion or independence had been quashed long ago. Suddenly, Zenaida didn’t feel angry about Lara’s lawsuit. She just felt a tired, dull sense of loss.
As Lara turned towards the door, she raised her eyes to meet Zenaida’s one last time. The moment stretched, and Zenaida suddenly remembered Lara bringing home fast food dinners on her way back from work. She remembered Lara waking her up when she slept through her morning alarms. She remembered crying in shame and relief after several uncomfortable, fearful nights spent sleeping in her car; Lara had stayed up late rubbing her back and giving her a shoulder to cry on. Lara had been such a good friend.
Now, Zenaida saw Lara struggling to stand up to her mother and understood that Lara would never be able to do it. Lara wanted to, she tried to, but she simply couldn’t. That angry feeling of helpless impotence was a constant source of pain for Lara, and now it was painful for Zenaida to watch.
“It’s alright, forget it. I’m leaving anyways,” Zenaida said. It wasn’t much, as far as olive branches went, but it would at least relieve Lara of the pressure to challenge her mother.
Lara had been walking towards the exit, but now she hesitated, then stopped in her tracks. “I’m not leaving,” Lara said in a soft voice.
“It wasn’t a request, Lara. Get in the car. We’ll discuss--” Karen snapped.
“I. Am. NOT. Leaving!” Lara bellowed. Her voice echoed through the empty building lobby. Zenaida thought she saw Karen jump. Everybody turned to face Lara, stunned, as the floodgates burst open. “I never should have let you convince me to do this. What was I thinking? Zenaida has been my best friend for years, and the moment she finally catches a break, I let you convince me to sue her? You’re sick, and greedy, and I let you sink your craziness into me. And Davey…I LOVED Davey, and I let you make me leave him too.”
“I helped you see the right--”
“Shut UP! I am so unbelievably tired of your bitter, baseless hatred, and your stupid, greedy lawsuits. I’m done!” Lara shouted. She was panting slightly, her face red, fists clenched at her sides.
The building lobby was silent. Karen stared aghast at her daughter, her jaw hanging slightly open. For a long time, she didn’t say anything. Then her face slowly crumpled and she began to bawl. Fat tears rolled down her cheeks, leaving dark blotches on Karen’s silk blouse. Her lip quivered and her chest rose and hitched.
“My daughter, my only daughter, you’re all I have left. Please don’t do this to me,” Karen whimpered. “I need you so much, please come home with me.”
“No,” Lara said flatly. “No more manipulation Mom. It won’t work any more. Go home.”
Karen stared at her daughter, as if seeing her for the first time. Then, as suddenly as they had started, the tears were gone. The miserable expression vanished with unnerving quickness, as if it had never been there at all. Self-righteous fury flooded back into her face.
“Fine. You’re with her then. I see how it is. Drop the lawsuit, suit yourself,” Karen said. Her voice dripped with venom. “But don’t ask for anything from me again. Maybe your rich friend can pay your rent. We are done!” With that, Karen Franklin stormed unceremoniously away, her baby-shit colored slacks swishing about her ankles.
“Wow, that was intense,” Davey breathed. He looked at Zenaida and Lara. “I suppose that settles everything between you two... Hey, no hard feelings about the elevator thing, right?”
“You asshole. You tricked me, then locked me in a tiny coffin sixteen stories in the air!” Zenaida seethed.
“And I’m very sorry. Tell you what: I’ll forgive you for getting my certificate yanked if you forgive me for this,” Davey offered. He held up his hands in mock surrender.
“Fine,” Zenaida said. She crossed her arms and glared at Davey.
“Zeny may have forgiven you, but I sure don’t,” Lara said.
Lara grabbed Davey by the arm and dragged him into the elevator, then shoved him roughly inside. Then she marched over to the control panel and closed the elevator doors. Davey tried to clamber to his feet but was too slow. The doors drew closed, cutting off his protests with a soft chime. Lara let the elevator climb halfway up the building before she hit the emergency stop button.
“How long are you going to leave him up there?” Zenaida asked.
“The rest of the weekend sounds good. The cleaning staff can let him out on Monday morning,” Lara smirked.
There was a long, heavy pause while Zenaida and Lara looked at each other. Lara spoke first. “I’m so sorry, Zeny. After I heard your big news, I felt just a tiny sliver of doubt. My mom saw it and leapt on it. She poked it, prodded it, fed it and nurtured it, until my doubts spiraled out of control and I didn’t know what to believe any more. But I have to take responsibility for letting her do it. I’m so sorry. I’ll end the lawsuit right away,” she said.
“I heard that an anonymous benefactor was funding an entire top-tier legal team. Your case could actually win. There’s a good chance that walking away means missing out on a multi-million dollar payday. Are you sure our friendship is worth that?” Zenaida said.
“I don’t want your money, Zeny. I just want things to be normal again,” Lara said.
Zenaida was silent for a moment. “I suppose you threw away the penny I gave you...?” she asked.
“You mean when you repaid me ‘down to the last penny’? That made my mom so angry, and at one point I actually started to believe her craziness. I… I really did consider tossing it out,” Lara said. Then she reached in her shirt and pulled out a necklace. Lara had attached a tiny clasp to the penny, then hung it around her neck on a thin gossamer chain. “But I suppose deep down, I never stopped thinking of you as my best friend. I welded it onto the necklace myself .”
“Thank goodness, because I put a lot of thought into your gift,” Zenaida smiled warmly. She pulled Lara into a hug, then gestured at the coin. “That’s not your normal Abe Lincoln copper penny, Lara. It’s an ERMA.”
“It’s a what?’ Lara asked. She squinted at the penny, tilting it to the light.
“An Extremely Rare Metal Alloy. I had your penny molded from a super-ultra-rare metal valued at over $64,000 per grain. Your penny is two entire grams. At current market value, that little coin is worth just over two million dollars,” Zenaida said.
When Lara’s ecstatic celebrations had calmed and Davey had been released from his elevator prison, the trio returned to the ZenCorp office. Zenaida finally told Lara the entire story of her rise to riches, then expl
ained ZenCorp’s mission of penalizing egregious corporate excesses. She explained how Tucksworth was laying low somewhere out there, waiting for Peeper’s lawyers to appeal the court order. They were only days away from Peeper being able to unleash DataVortex on the world.
“That... that is the craziest story I’ve ever heard,” Lara said. She sat at the ZenCorp conference table, eyes wide behind her thick glasses.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Zenaida said. “Because this is it. On Monday, either ZenCorp penalizes Jack Tucksworth and shows the world’s billionaires that they’d better play fair... or he sucks up even more of our data and becomes richer than ever before.”
“This is why I pulled you two back together,” Davey said. “Zenaida is the strategic genius, and I’m the loyal hype man, but your ideas are always better when you bounce them off Lara first.”
“Sure. Just maybe next time, do it without tricking us into a damn elevator,” Zenaida said.
“Sorry, sorry. I just didn’t know how else to keep you guys from running instead of talking,” Davey said.
“I hope I can be helpful, but this is a doozy of a problem. We need to track down a notorious bully of a billionaire, convince him to do what we want, and make it so he doesn’t destroy us afterwards,” Lara said.
“It’s no wonder nobody’s ever tried challenging him before,” Davey agreed.
“He’s got to have some weakness, though. What does Tucksworth value most?” Lara asked.
Zenaida leaned back in her chair, thinking of what she knew about Tucksworth. Her first inclination was to list his company, or his immense fortune. After a quiet moment’s reflection, she realized those weren’t the right answer.
“Ortega said his greatest asset is his fearsome reputation. Tucksworth thrives on being seen as tough and powerful. His macho tough guy image is the secret behind a lot of Peeper’s success,” Zenaida said.
“Wait a minute... Perhaps Davey is the strategic genius here after all,” Lara said slowly. Zenaida and Davey turned to stare at her.
“I am?” Davey asked, puzzled.