“Whatever. It helps me focus,” he said, crossing his arms. The room was finally beginning to feel steady again.
“I swear, Grant, you are the most boyish thirty-something I know,” she said.
“Um…I’ll take that as a compliment?” Grant replied.
Julia grunted, and shook her head slightly. Grant wasn’t sure if she was amused or annoyed.
“Jim’s secretary just called me,” Julia said. “Jim wants you in Conference Room 1A for an emergency meeting.”
Grant sat up straighter. “Jim? Emergency meeting?”
“That’s all I know,” Julia said. “I suggest you get yourself up there a.s.a.p.”
Grant nodded and started reaching for his briefcase. “On my way,” he said, throwing his tablet and phone into the briefcase.
Jim was the managing partner of the law firm’s Chicago office. Grant had only worked with him once before, and almost never spoke directly to the man. Jim was something of a legend, one of those people you admired and feared from afar.
A minute later, Grant stepped into the elevator and started the ride up to the conference room, which was five floors above him. Despite the mixture of nerves and excitement at being called in to an important meeting with the most important attorney in the Chicago office, Grant still couldn’t get Storm out of his head. As he stepped off the elevator, he made a split-second decision to send her a text. He had to see her again, or he was going to drive himself crazy.
Dinner tonight?
He didn’t say anything else, figuring it was best to keep things simple. If he started trying to say more, or come up with some sort of excuse for why they should hang out, he was only going to end up sounding ridiculous and tripping over his words. He slipped his phone into his pocket as he entered the conference room, and forced himself to turn his mind back to work.
To Grant’s surprise, Jim wasn’t the only high level partner there. One of the firm’s New York partners was in the room as well, and several senior attorneys who were nearly at the partner level were sitting around the conference table. There were also several men in expensive suits whom Grant didn’t recognize. The only person in the room that was at Grant’s lower level was a mousey girl who had just started working at the firm this year. The girl usually hid in her office, and Grant wasn’t even sure what kind of law she practiced. All he remembered from the official email welcoming her to the firm was that she had moved here from San Francisco.
“Grant, glad you could make it,” Jim said, standing to shake Grant’s hand, and then turning back to the unfamiliar men in suits. “Gentleman, this is Grant, one of the best and brightest young associates at the firm. We’re lucky to have this guy.”
The men shook Grant’s hand and introduced themselves with wide smiles, but Grant had an uneasy feeling in his stomach. Jim had never openly praised him before. It almost seemed like Jim was trying too hard to impress these men. They must be pretty high level clients for Jim to be falling all over himself like that. Grant did his best to look confident and calm, and took his seat at the conference table without saying much more.
Moments after Grant sat down, Jim launched into his presentation.
“Thank you everyone for taking time out of your busy schedules to meet with us today,” Jim said. “This project has been held with the highest level of confidentiality in our firm, so I know that most of you in the room are wondering what this meeting is even about. You’ll be getting a detailed memo about it later today, but I’m going to give you a quick overview now. These men are high-level executives from Hook Labs. Some of you may be aware of this company. It’s a large conglomerate of research facilities at the cutting edge of many scientific breakthroughs. Many of the newest technological advances society enjoys were originally developed by Hook Labs. Their biggest recent breakthrough has been eye scanners. These scanners read the irises of a person’s eye, and use the unique DNA signature in that iris to identify that person. As you know, eye scanners have become the gold standard in security systems, since the irises of an eye are virtually impossible to duplicate or fake, unlike fingerprints. In fact, our firm is in the process of implementing eye scanners into our offices. Hook Labs estimates that within the next five years, fingerprint scanners will become a thing of the past.”
Jim paused for dramatic effect, and Grant felt the uneasy feeling in his stomach growing. Grant knew, from the information he had decoded, that the old scientist trying to wipe out shifters was currently employed by Hook Labs. Somehow, this was all going to tie in to the scanners being developed to detect shifter DNA.
“The reason Hook Labs has come to us as a client is they need our help getting information back from John Astor. I’m sure all of you in this room have heard of Mr. Astor. He is one of Chicago’s wealthiest, most prominent businessmen. Most recently, he was in the news because his condo was raided by some still-unidentified individuals. That raid resulted in the entire condo building going up in flames, and in some proprietary information from Hook Labs being lost. Mr. Astor claims there were no backups of the information, but Hook Labs believes he is lying. We are in the process of preparing legal documents to sue Mr. Astor and force him to turn over the information.”
Jim paused again, and Grant bit his lip to keep from letting out an astonished whistle. His friends and their clan members from back home in Alaska had been the ones to raid Mr. Astor’s condo. Grant was pretty sure that Mr. Astor had not, in fact, had any backups of the information he was safeguarding in his condo. The only backup seemed to be the stolen information Grant had decoded. Grant’s eyes widened as he realized that he was sitting in a room full of businessmen who would probably be willing to kill him for the information he had.
Jim must have caught Grant’s eyes widening and mistaken his surprise for interest in the current legal battle. “Pretty crazy, isn’t it, Grant? But it’s about to get crazier. This proprietary information had to do with one of Hook Labs’ most confidential projects ever. A project that could quite literally save humanity.”
The room was completely silent as the other attorneys focused their complete attention on Jim, waiting for him to explain what this epic-scale project could possibly be. Meanwhile, Grant groaned internally. He already knew, and he couldn’t believe that, out of all the law firms and lawyers in this city, he had somehow been called on to work on this assignment.
Instead of continuing his speech, however, Jim reached down to pull up the computer screen on the conference table’s surface. Immediately, the conference table started displaying the same document in front of every seat. Grant started scanning, and saw that it was some sort of non-disclosure agreement.
“As you know,” Jim said. “We always hold our clients’ information with the highest level of confidentiality. But this project is intense, and might be upsetting for some. The client is asking for an additional non-disclosure agreement, which you should now see displayed in front of you. Before we go any further, you’ll need to read and sign this. If, after this meeting, you don’t feel comfortable on this project, you may choose to step down from it with no hard feelings. Truly. I know many of you want to impress the firm and always do whatever is asked of you. But this project is not for everyone and we understand that. However, by signing this non-disclosure agreement, you are agreeing that you will not share anything you learn in this room today outside of the room. You will face severe legal penalties if you do so. Please take a moment to review the document and sign.”
Grant looked around the room, and saw all of the attorneys eagerly skimming the document. He knew no one would turn down the project. It was clear that Jim considered this important, and any attorney at the firm who wanted to be promoted would kill for an opportunity to impress Jim. Grant scanned the agreement and used his finger to sign on the screen. It didn’t matter that much what the document said. Grant was already in over his head, and he knew it.
Once everyone had signed, Jim started in on the really juicy stuff.
“Okay, eve
ryone. Here is the deal. Hook Labs discovered the existence of shifters a year ago. Some of you are probably now thinking to yourself, ‘What the heck are shifters?’ Allow me to explain. Shifters are basically half-human, half-animal. It’s a genetic mutation that allows a human to shift back and forth between human and animal form. Hence the name ‘shifter.’ For example, a bear shifter can shift back and forth between a human body and a bear body at will. I know some of you are probably thinking that I’ve lost my mind right now, and I don’t blame you. When Hook Labs first explained this to me, I thought I had become the victim of some sort of corporate prank. But shifters are real, I can assure you. Hook Labs is trying to develop an eye scanner that can detect whether a human is hiding a shifter side. Essentially, the scanner would detect shifter DNA in the iris of the individual. Sounds simple enough, right? Just scan for animal DNA. But it’s not that simple, because shifter DNA isn’t straight animal DNA. It’s different, and difficult to detect via the current scanning methods. I’m going to show you a video now of actual, documented shifter appearances. Watch your screens carefully. None of this is edited or has any special effects added. It’s all real.”
Grant glanced down at the tabletop screen in front of him again. In place of the non-disclosure document, the screen was now showing a video. The short clip was a compilation of shifters turning into bears and back to humans. There were a few wolves in there, too, and even a panther. The videos were mostly things that security surveillance cameras had captured, so the video quality wasn’t always the best. But it was clear from the compilation that shifters existed.
As the video finished, Jim paused again and looked around. He seemed to be gauging the room’s reaction , and trying to make sure that everyone in the room was still with him. On the outside, the attorneys all looked reasonably calm. No one wanted to admit to Jim that they were shocked or frightened by the information they had just heard. But Grant’s bear nose could smell the fear in the room. He let out an imperceptible sigh. He had spent his whole life watching full humans react in fear when they discovered that shifters existed. It didn’t matter that shifters were pretty much all just trying to live their lives in peace. Full humans reacted in fear, thinking that shifters were violent or had some sort of supernatural powers. But neither of those things were true. Shifters didn’t have any more violent tendencies than the human population at large, and they certainly didn’t have any supernatural powers. It was all genetics, plain and simple.
After a few moments for everything to sink in, one of the men from Hook Labs spoke up. “I know this video is upsetting. But think about how much more upsetting it is to know that these creatures are roaming freely in society. One could be sitting next to you on the subway, and you wouldn’t even know it.”
Or sitting next to you in a conference room, Grant thought bitterly. But again, he did his best to keep his expression neutral.
“We have been working closely with several high-level people in Chicago, including the mayor and wealthy businessmen like Mr. Astor, to try to get these eye scanners developed so that shifters cannot continue to roam among us undetected. We had some old but valuable information on shifter DNA from one of our older scientists, but unfortunately, due to failures in both our computer systems and redundancy systems, we lost the information. We think the system failures were due to malicious attacks from within our company, and we are tracking down and dealing with those involved. Luckily for us, Mr. Astor had an offsite copy of the information we need. He was trying to bribe us into giving him a lot of money for it at the time his condo burned down. We were trying to work with his demands, even though they were blackmail, because we didn’t want to rock the boat too much and have the information end up in the wrong hands. After his condo burned, though, he started telling us the information was lost and that he doesn’t have any backups. We don’t believe him, and we want to sue to force him to turn it over.”
Grant frowned as he listened. He knew from Silver, who had dated Mr. Astor’s son previously, that Mr. Astor’s story was likely correct. Mr. Astor was a bit of an eccentric character, and had not backed up any of his files because he thought his condo was invincible. Grant found it hard to believe that his own now decoded copy of the information was the only copy in existence, but it sounded like that might actually be the case.
Jim looked around at the faces in the room, and then spoke again. “As you can imagine, this case is an extremely sensitive one for our client. Not only do they need to get the information back for the good of humanity so that shifters can be dealt with, but they need to do it without this story being leaked to the press. We are formatting the legal documents so that as much as possible is kept under seal and protected as proprietary business information. Additionally, we don’t want the press to find out that Hook’s backup systems themselves failed. News like that would be a major blow to the public’s confidence in Hook Labs, which would be devastating for their business. I’m sure it goes without saying, and you’ve already signed the non-disclosure agreements covering this, but I just want to remind you: do not discuss this case with anyone. Not even other attorneys in the firm who are not on the case. I can assure you that anyone who leaks information will see their employment by our firm come to an abrupt halt. So don’t risk it.”
Jim looked around the room to make sure everyone understood how serious he was. Grant almost wanted to laugh. The tablet sitting in his briefcase on the floor next to him held all of the information the men from Hook Labs were desperate to recover. What a strange twist of irony.
“In a few minutes, we are going to send out several memos and reports with information about the case. When you get back to your offices, please review these in detail. I don’t care what other projects you have going on right now. This case takes top priority. Review everything and be prepared for a follow-up meeting tomorrow afternoon. We want to get moving on drafting the legal documents as soon as possible. If there are no further questions, you are all dismissed.”
Jim’s tone made it clear that he didn’t actually want to field any questions, so the attorneys all stood and bid farewell to the Hook Labs executives, then quickly shuffled out. On the elevator ride back to his floor, Grant stood in silence among the other attorneys who had just left the meeting. They all had somber expressions on their faces, and Grant figured they were probably feeling a little shell-shocked at the realization that shifters existed. Grant resisted the urge to make a snarky comment about how Jim was judging a whole group of people without knowing them. His coworkers wouldn’t understand why he was defending shifters, and he couldn’t really explain it without revealing who he truly was.
So Grant silently went back to his office and shut the door, turning to his computer to check his email without even bothering to take his phone or tablet out of his briefcase. The email from Jim had already arrived, with fifty different files attached. Grant sat for a moment starting at the attachments in disbelief. He had essentially just been handed an inside peek at the enemies’ operations. This was pretty unbelievable.
But he didn’t sit there staring for long. You never knew as a shifter when you might be discovered somehow. If you had an opportunity to get a sneak peak at the way someone who hates shifters works, then you better take it while you can. Grant opened the first document and started reading. For the next three hours, he sat in front of his computer screen transfixed. He learned about the history of the eye scanner project, the details of failed attempts, lots of information on shifter species different from him, including wolves, big cats, and even elephants. Grant hadn’t even realized elephant shifters existed. It was only when his secretary knocked on the door to tell him she was going home that he realized how long he had been sitting there. He quickly minimized his computer screen as she cracked the door open.
“Grant?” Julia asked. “You okay in there? I haven’t heard a peep from you all afternoon.”
Grant was well known for roaming the halls in the afternoons. He often had a hard time foc
using after lunch, and would jump up every ten minutes or so to grab something new from the vending machine. But today, he’d been holed up in his office the entire afternoon.
Grant nodded and tried to give Julia a convincing smile. “Yeah, I’m good. Just busy. Have a good night.”
Julia looked at him with pity. “I guess being on a project with Jim is a blessing and a curse, huh?”
Grant shrugged, and waved goodbye to Julia, grateful to let her think that his sudden disappearance was all due to an overbearing partner. But the truth was, he was feeling pretty shell-shocked right now. He needed to talk to someone. Storm’s face immediately jumped into his mind, causing him to suddenly remember that he had invited her to dinner tonight.
“Oh, shit,” he said, reaching down for his briefcase to pull his phone out. He had several missed texts from her, saying she was available, then asking him when and where, then asking him if he had fallen into a pit somewhere because it was almost dinnertime and she hadn’t heard back from him.
“Call Storm,” Grant said to his phone. Moments later, the phone had dialed and Storm’s line was ringing.
“Well, well, well,” Storm said as she answered. “I was starting to wonder if I should send out a search party for you. Let me guess. Some big important client suddenly needed some big important something from you and you’re totally swamped at work.”
“Ouch. I’ve used that excuse a few too many times, huh?” Grant said, smiling at the teasing tone of Storm’s voice.
“Yeah, well, it’s okay. If you need to cancel dinner it’s alright. I know you’re Mr. Important over there at the firm.”
Grant rolled his eyes. “I would actually still love to meet up for dinner if you’re available. I did get a new big important case today. Something I think you’re going to be very interested in hearing about.”
“Sure, I’m available. I was just leaving the office. Want to meet downtown somewhere?”
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