The call came at ten-thirty.
“Miss Zhao? Yes, would you be available to meet with our team later this afternoon at two o’clock to discuss your… proposal?”
Yes. Yes, I would.
I used the time to drive over to their office and to get myself cleaned up. My hair was a bit of a mess, but it was nothing a holo-brush couldn’t sort out, and there was nothing I could do about my clothes, so I didn’t worry about it.
At four minutes after two, I sat down in a large conference room with two men and two women in extremely gray suits. One of them was the chief technology officer, and the others were her minions. I didn’t bother to remember their names.
The pitch was easy. The gloves make physical objects out of light, and here’s the proof. Hairbrush, spatula, hammer, walking stick for the blind, reaching arm for the handicapped, scooter for the girl on the go, and the big finale, the sword and shield for the lady who wants to feel a little more secure on her walk home from work.
It went well, to put it mildly. They were stunned. They clapped. They asked a million questions, and I gave coy answers to make it clear that I wanted a deal before they got anything from me. So the CTO told me to wait while she went to get some other important folks.
She came back with a small crowd of people in suits, including Dr. John Reitner, the CEO. So I did the pitch all over again for him. His team made all the same happy sounds as the first group, but Reitner didn’t say a word. Not at first anyway.
“Miss Zhao, it’s our understanding that Cygnus Systems owns this technology,” he said. “Is that true?”
I nodded. “They have a legal claim, yes. But I developed all of this independently, and my thought was that, with the right legal resources, with your legal resources, we could make that Cygnus claim go away.”
“I see.” He didn’t look very happy with my answer. “You understand, of course, that Susquehanna Power isn’t currently in the home appliance market. We don’t design or license products like this.”
I smiled. “Well, no one makes products like this. It’s new.”
“It’s also a legal minefield. It could destroy Cygnus’s monopoly, and Cygnus isn’t going to sit idly by and let us do that. We’d be looking at months, maybe years of corporate espionage, smear campaigns, personal detentions. An escalating corporate war. And that can be very expensive, Miss Zhao.”
“Yes, I know.” I wasn’t smiling now. “They detained my parents last night.”
“Then you can appreciate our concerns.”
“But I think there’s a middle ground,” I said. “The holo-gloves can’t make everything. They can’t make clothes, or electronics, or anything you plan to give away to another person. Plus, they need electricity. So if you run out of power, your hammer disappears. Obviously, that’s not going to appeal to everyone.”
“So, you’re suggesting that there is a market niche for this holo-technology that allows us to compete amicably with Cygnus.”
“I guess so, yeah.”
Dr. Reitner sighed thoughtfully. No one else spoke, no one else even moved. They were all watching their boss, and so was I. He said, “Here’s the problem with that business model. It doesn’t take a large dip in profits to collapse a company these days. So even if we only take ten percent of Cygnus’s business, that could be enough to destroy their profit margins and ignite a corporate war. It’s not like the old days when little Davids were always popping up to slay the Goliaths. These days, David gets assassinated before he gets out of bed in the morning.”
I frowned. I didn’t know what to say to that.
“What if we only sold it overseas?” The question came from the CTO, who kept casting hopeful looks at me and then back at her boss. “What if we established a sales treaty with Cygnus that kept holo-technology out of the States? I mean, the overseas market could be huge. Lots of people out there need tools, and they have all the sunlight they need to power the gloves. It might not be a hugely profitable project, and who knows how long it will last before the black market specs knock out our designs, but for a while, it will be a money-maker. But that’s nothing compared to the PR.”
“Oh?” Reitner looked slightly interested.
“Just imagine,” the CTO continued. “All the farmers and laborers and impoverished villagers in China and India and Africa—”
I rolled my eyes. Africa is not a country, people.
“—all using Susquehanna holo-tools to run their farms and maintain their homes. No more high license fees or feedstock bills, just buy the gloves and you’re set for life. We’d be pulling millions out of poverty in the first five years.” The CTO was looking pretty excited about this idea, and frankly, just listening to it, so was I. I was just looking for a little money and security, but she was talking about saving the world. I liked that.
If Dr. Reitner was getting excited about it, he was doing an excellent job of keeping his excitement to himself. After another long, quiet moment of him looking sternly at me and at the CTO, he said, “All right, I think it’s worth pursuing.”
I nearly shouted for joy, and it was all I could do to just stand still and try to look professional.
“But there are questions, there are a lot of issues still.” He wasn’t looking at me, he was looking at his suits. “I want Jane to start researching the legal grounds for acquiring products and licenses under these conditions, I want detailed viability studies and projections for the overseas sales, and Karen, you’ll need to assess the prototype.”
Apparently, the CTO’s name was Karen, and it took me a moment to remember that the prototype in question was on my hands. I cleared my throat. “Assess?”
Reitner nodded. “I need a full rundown on the product for design considerations, patenting, liability insurance, and so on. Independent review board, and all that. You can leave the prototype with Ms. Lincoln, and we’ll keep you apprised of our progress.”
Leave the prototype?
Instant sinking feeling in my gut. I mean, it wasn’t all alarms and panics like at Cygnus, on the contrary, I was still feeling really good about this. Reitner seemed serious. The whole deal seemed like it had a good shot at happening. But I only had the one pair of gloves, and the idea of giving them up to anyone left me cold.
“Uhm, do you think you could make some arrangements for me in the mean time?” I asked.
“Such as?”
I shrugged. It was awkward to ask for anything, especially with twenty strangers standing right there, watching me. “Well, maybe a hotel nearby. Some sort of per diem for food. And maybe, I don’t know, some personal security?”
“Unfortunately, Miss Zhao, until we’ve made a firm decision about whether to invest our resources in this new product market, we cannot have any formal relationship with you, which would include extending financial gifts or considerations to you. You understand.”
I did, and I didn’t. Everyone was covering their ass, just like me.
“Okay. Well, I need to keep these with me, so then I’ll just need to use one of your printers to make you another pair of gloves,” I offered.
Reitner shook his head a bit more firmly. “No, we can’t have that in our logs, it might look suspicious to our auditors. Go home, make the extra gloves, and bring them back tomorrow, and we can get started.”
“Okay.” I smiled. It was the strongest fake smile I’ve ever used. “I’ll do that and see you tomorrow. Thank you so much for this opportunity…”
There were a few more minutes of pleasantries, and then I was back outside, alone with my gloves, wondering why nothing was ever simple.
Of course I couldn’t go home. Frost would have it bugged, he might even have somebody hanging around, just waiting for me to be stupid enough to go back. But I couldn’t use just any old printer. I needed one loaded with rubidium feedstock.
Stupid rubidium.
“Lux, scooter.”
I started riding slowly back across the city in the general direction of my apartment. I tried to
think of some other way to get the rubidium, but there just wasn’t any. It had taken six days on special order just to get my little bar of the stuff. No one else would have it lying around. So I had no choice.
I had to go home.
I rode straight back to my place, right through the middle of town just as rush hour was starting, so there were a lot of bikes and more than a handful of cars clogging up the roads. I tried to ignore the funny looks that my black, glowing scooter was getting, and hurried around the pedal-pushers to get off the main streets and into my neighborhood. And then there I was, staring up at my building, wondering just how stupid I really was.
Let’s find out.
I walked in the front door and headed up the stairs. The walls were still all torn up from my escape yesterday, but it was mostly just broken plaster and drywall, and a few broken boards, and I got up to the fourth floor with no trouble.
The hallway looked clear. No men in suits. No deadlock on my door. I swiped my key and went inside.
Everything looked fine. No mess, nothing broken, no homeless people squatting, no secret agents with guns drawn. Nothing. I went around and looked in the kitchen and bedroom. Still nothing.
I grabbed my old backpack and started throwing things into it. Clothes, toothbrush, noodles, a tablet, and a bottle of water. When I figured I had everything I needed, I went back to the living room, and that’s when I saw it. The camera. It was small, really small, just a little off-white bump on the wall, jammed right into the corner. And if it wasn’t for the fact that I had spent countless hours staring at these walls, waiting for a certain feedstock delivery, I probably never would have noticed the new bump there.
I waved and smiled. Who cared if they saw me? We both knew it was my apartment.
And that’s what I looked down and saw the real problem.
My printer was gone.
I don’t know how I missed that when I came in. It had been sitting in the corner of the living room, a big white box with a checkered tablecloth and a lamp on top of it so it wouldn’t look so boring. The cloth and lamp were now on the floor.
I looked around the room, as if I had just accidentally misplaced the largest appliance I owned.
Nope, definitely gone.
And the feedstock with it.
Cygnus. They stole my printer. They stole my stock.
I just stood there like an idiot. No printer meant no rubidium. No rubidium meant no new gloves. No gloves meant no deal with Susquehanna.
If only I had grabbed the rubidium rod out of the machine when I grabbed the gloves. If only, if only…
So that’s it. I’m screwed. It’s all over, just like that. Come on, think…
I kept standing there, waiting for an idea, waiting for a solution. I looked up at the ceiling, stretching my back, closing my eyes, holding my breath.
I heard a hiss.
It was so faint I almost missed it, but no, it was definitely a long steady hiss coming very softly from the heat vent at the edge of the ceiling.
Gas!
I ran out into the hallway, already feeling a bit dizzy and tired, a bit unfocused, so I covered my mouth and nose with my hand as I ran and tried not to breathe. By the time I reached the back alley of the building, I was definitely feeling ready to take a nap. I could barely keep my eyes open. But I forced myself to keep walking, one foot in front of the other, breathing in the warm, dirty air of the city, keeping my heart pounding away.
I stumbled along for four blocks before I gave up and sat down on an overturned recycling bin. I was so close to going to sleep. So close. I blinked hard and almost didn’t open my eyes at all.
I swallowed. Part of my brain was still working fine, still thinking clearly, but it was trapped inside a body that was hell-bent on passing out.
Those bastards, they booby-trapped my home! They tried to gas me!
I swallowed again.
Need to think. Need to stay awake.
My hand slowly pulled out my phone and I struggled to focus on the screen.
Game. Starflash, level 44.
I started to play. I’d been stuck on level 44 for three months and had pretty much given up trying to get any farther. It was a stupid game. Tap, tap, tap on those little stars, match the colors, line them up into constellations, get them to wink out.
I must have played for over an hour, because the next thing I knew, I had a crick in my neck and wasn’t feeling at all drowsy anymore. I was just feeling pissed off that I was still stuck on level 44.
Sighing, I put away my phone and thought about my missing printer, and my missing feedstock, and my deadline.
There was only one place in the city that I knew would have rubidium. Just one. I didn’t really decide to go there, but I was out of options. I made my little scooter appear in the alley and I sat on it for a minute, waiting for a better idea to come to mind.
It didn’t.
So I twisted the throttle and drove silently out into the street and headed toward the only place where I could get what I needed.
The Cygnus Central Warehouse.
Chapter 5
Acquisitions
The Cygnus Central Warehouse was technically outside the city near the airport, but with all the sprawl on the west side it could be hard to tell where the city actually ended and where the restricted areas in the county began. When the housing market collapsed, a handful of investors bought up all the abandoned neighborhoods between Baltimore and Washington, and basically fenced them off. That was about twelve years ago. They say the investors are just biding their time, waiting for the market to come back. From what I’ve seen, I think they’re going to be waiting for a long while.
It wasn’t a long drive out toward the airport, and traffic was light. The old highway was eight lanes wide, but half of them were closed off. The city couldn’t afford to maintain a road that big, and besides, there weren’t enough cars around to use them anyway. So I took my time on the road. All that driving with no helmet was making me nervous. And cold.
It was after seven when I finally rolled up at the fence around the Cygnus warehouse. To my right, I could see a small private jet landing at BWI just up the road. I’d never been on a plane, but it was one of those things I’d always wanted to do. I liked heights, looking down at the world like it was all one big model, or painting, or toy.
Some day.
I rode my scooter around the fence, trying to figure out exactly what I was doing there. It’s not like a store. You can’t just go in and ask for a pound of rubidium. For all of thirty seconds I flirted with the idea of bribing someone inside to bring me what I needed, but that was ridiculous. I didn’t know anyone there, and I didn’t have anything to bribe them with.
And that’s when I realized I was going to have to break in and steal what I needed. Now, maybe it’s obvious to you that I needed to steal it, but it wasn’t obvious to me until that moment. I just went to the one place that had what I needed, and up until then, I still thought I was the good guy, the victim, the all-American hero, pulling myself up by my bootstraps.
Whatever bootstraps are.
But as I stood there looking through that fence, I realized I was just like Cygnus, but on a really tiny scale. Stealing what I wanted, breaking the law, make deals, trying to cover my ass and make some money and help the handful of people I cared about at the expense of everyone else.
I knew it. I really did. I knew I was going down this really shitty path. But I just couldn’t see another way out.
What was I supposed to do? Put my parents on the back of my holo-scooter and drive us all up to Canada? I hear the Mounties shoot Yankees on sight now.
“Lux, off.”
I walked a little way from the fence and sat down behind a couple trees and waited for it to get dark. Around eight o’clock the trucks stopped leaving the warehouse, and the lights were shut off, and then a small shuttle bus full of workers rolled out the front gate and headed back toward the city.
All right then.
I walked up to the fence near the back side of the building, wondering what sorts of guards and cameras and drones they might have here. Security would be scary. After all, this is Cygnus. They kidnap people.
“Lux, sword and shield.”
It may have been a bit much, but I felt better with the huge black shield and the softly glowing sword in my hand. I held the shield up so that if there were any cameras, all they would see in the darkness was a black circle. I figured that the security program wouldn’t think that was a threat, so unless an actual person looked at the feed, I’d be okay. Then I sliced a hole in the fence and went inside.
I jogged across the parking lot, still hiding behind my shield, and then leaned up against the cold wall of the building. I definitely didn’t want to go near the front where all the trucks were parked and the security would be tightest, so I slid along the back wall, looking for another way in. There were three back doors, but I didn’t touch them. There was no way to know what sort of alarms they had.
After a few minutes I still hadn’t found anything except for a metal ladder up to the roof, so I decided to risk it. With my gloves turned off, I climbed the ladder and hopped out onto a huge gravel roof the size of a football field. I saw the fans for the air handlers, and I saw the door to what must have been the stairs.
This feels familiar.
But I didn’t touch the door handle. Instead, I used my sword to pry up one of the metal plates on the side of the stairwell, and I slipped inside through the gap in the wall. Inside I still couldn’t see any cameras, so I crept down the stairs into the warehouse.
I don’t know what I was expecting to see when I got there, but I was just stunned by the size of the place, a vast shadowy cavern of row upon row of towering shelves covered in boxes and crates and plastic-wrapped palettes of smaller boxes. I’d been inside a few big buildings like the power plant downtown, and the old Science Center, but nothing like this. And in the darkness, it was easy to imagine that I had slipped down too far, well below the surface of the earth into some ancient chamber of a lost civilization.
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