by Mia Caldwell
“When I was still younger, my mother sat me down and told me a single, life-changing truth: I would have had an older sibling. Five or six years before I was born, she had become pregnant, during their senior year of high school. Unfortunately, the child was a miscarriage. Naturally, it was perhaps for the best, given where they were in life…but my mother would sometimes stare into space, and I wondered how often she thought of the child that would have been my older brother or sister.”
I shifted the topic back towards myself. “As a gifted child, I had a lot of pressure to perform well, although both my parents remained highly supportive of my academic endeavors. They were so pleased to see me happy, healthy, and rising to the challenge. But when it came time to transition to middle school, there was a restructuring of the divisions. You see, there were four middle schools in my town, and my home fell on the division between the best middle school in twenty miles, and what was arguably the worst.
“Unfortunately, I was forced to attend the worse one. Not only did they lack the superior educational resources for me, but the kids here were rough – extremely rough. I remember that there were these thick fences around, and bars on the windows of the labs with the expensive equipment…but anyway. I had to learn to stop raising my hand in class. I had to learn that my friends here weren’t really friends – they were always looking for bully me into doing their homework, or blackmail me, or enough of them would gang up on me…
“Learning introversion was a survival tactic. It drew less attention to me, and I began to harden up from the experiences. But the problems continued, because there were also multiple high schools…and the same division lines. So, I was sent to the wrong one, still trapped with these teenage thugs, surrounded by disaster at every turn.
“My parents didn’t know how to help. I reached out to the school board myself, but the impression I was given was that they wanted to keep me where I was – to help raise the test scores. So I went above them, writing to the superintendent. She took pity on me and made an exception in my case, and I was placed back in a high school with accelerated programs. With dedication, I was able to gradually claw my way back up, to compensate for the weak schooling I had received for five years…but the tradeoff was that I didn’t have time for friends or a social life.
“So, I passed my SATs with flying colors, I won a few essay contests, and I was given options. I had drawn the attention of several Ivy League schools. Every university in the closest three states was headhunting me. It was a good time for me.
“My parents were even prouder than before…but horrified. They could never afford to send me somewhere like Harvard or Brown…Yale eventually offered me tuition assistance and one of their heftier scholarships, and combined with my other grants and student aid opportunities, I was able to make it work – and the rest went onto what still wound up being a large student loan.
“Fast forward to my second year at the Business University of Yale. I made the only real friend I’d had since I was a child. His name was Hunter, and he was my assigned roommate in the dormitories. He was an eclectic character, highly insightful, very unhygienic, and his head was filled with all these ideas…he was fascinated with the opportunities inherent in the Internet.”
I smiled, remembering him as he had been, all that time ago.
“He was a computer whiz. Constantly seeing all these bugs and database errors in even the biggest e-commerce retailers… Somewhere along the line, he figured out some kind of pattern. An algorithm that could predict the success of entire companies Key. He could ‘see’ the future, and he could manipulate it. Small changes to marketing and corporate policy changed the math. The man reduced the rise and fall of empires to something you could solve as simply as one plus one equals two… And nobody believed him.”
I took a momentary pause, holding in the desire to cough once more. “He hoped to acquire a business degree from Yale to legitimize himself, finish his thesis, and revolutionize the world… But he failed to attract the kind of attention he wanted. He fell into a bitter depression, and sometimes he’d just shut himself away from the world for days at a time. I tried harder to pull him out of his shell, to convince him to see a therapist, but I was so wrapped up in my studies. Remember that I hadn’t been close to someone my age in a long time. I thought people just did that sometimes.”
Key gave me a sideways glance, and I continued.
“One day, I came back from a final exam to discover that he’d hung himself in our dorm room.”
Kiona stroked my arm as I paused, taking a deep sip of water. Her eyes were filled with pain for me, but I pressed on.
“I dropped out immediately, shouldering an immense amount of student debt with no plans, no money, and no way out. I only had one saving grace.”
“Hunter’s algorithm…” Kiona whispered.
“Hunter had left me all of his notes, and the basics for the database infrastructure he had built. A stack of hard drives, binders, and a laptop computer with a customized build of Linux that tied everything together. All I had to do was turn that computer on, connect it to the internet, and feed it the stock symbol of a company.”
“What did it tell you?” Kiona asked.
“It told me the future. Up, or down. Ninety-one percent accuracy. I started using it, Key. I used it to start my company. I used it to build and grow. I used the work of a dead man to try and give him a life after death. Through building Andrews Enterprises, I saw Hunter’s work come to fruition, his passions realized. We moved past his early algorithms and improved upon his foundation. I was significantly grateful to every last employee who joined my company and helped me drive it towards where it is today.”
I paused for a moment, giving my words a moment to sink in.
“That’s why I care so much about this company,” I told Kiona. “The money isn’t everything. I’ve barely done a thing with it, besides buying this penthouse that I barely see, donating sums to mental health charities, and traveling to speak with prospective partners. I have spent more money on us since meeting you than I have on myself in years. Everything I did was so focused on giving Hunter’s death meaning, that I failed to notice something was wrong with me…”
“Oh God,” Kiona said softly.
“I attributed it to the long hours overpowering my youthful vigor, but I was becoming weaker – succumbing to something inside. My breathing grew harder sometimes. My joints felt worse for wear. My sleep quality began to suffer. After it all grew too hard to ignore, I finally gave in and went to see a doctor.”
“Cancer?” Kiona asked.
“They hadn’t seen anything like it. They thought it was cystic fibrosis at first, isolated in my lungs. That’s how they began trying to treat it, but their efforts only aggravated the disease. All the times I’ve heard the name of this stupid affliction, and I can never remember all the syllables…” I smiled bitterly to myself. “But it doesn’t matter. My lungs are compromised beyond repair.”
Kiona was stunned, but I didn’t want to stop. She needed to know more – to understand more.
“I’ve had all sorts of tests done. If I’d caught it early enough, maybe there would have been some hope…but by the time they began the scans, it was too late. I was too stubborn about my health, too focused on building my empire.”
Kiona smiled weakly, clearly fighting back tears. “How long do you have?”
I sighed, averting my eyes. A particular swirl across the kitchen on the tile flooring caught my attention. Mentally, I focused my gaze onto it. “I saw my primary specialist this morning. I’m sorry I couldn’t bring myself to take you with me… After last night, I just…”
“It’s ok Cole,” Kiona said, trying her best to hold a resolute look upon her beautiful face.
“It’s not ok. He gave me three weeks.”
My eyes stayed on the floor. It was interesting to say it aloud to another person – it forced me to really deal with the expiration date that faced me.
Kiona was barely holding herself
together. I hadn’t really expected anything out of her – after all, we had only slept together the once. I knew that she had some developing feelings for me, feelings that New Orleans had introduced and then reinforced. But it was too much for me to give in to my own, even now.
“This is why you’re so distant to everyone,” she finally spoke. “It all makes sense.”
“What do you mean?”
“It was reinforced, ever since you were a child. Holding yourself back to stay safe. Keeping yourself detached from everyone else. You finally start to have a meaningful connection with someone else, and he dies…so, you dedicate your life to seeing his ideas come to fruition. By the time you realize you can slow down, you’re diagnosed, and you can’t bear to keep anyone close, because you’ll just hurt them when you die…”
This woman, I thought to myself as I marveled at her powers of quick, effortless perception. Who on Earth IS this woman?
“I want you to know something,” Kiona continued, slipping off of the barstool. She walked around the counter and entered the kitchen, coming straight up to me. “My job… My real job… I was trying to get inside deep enough to get my hands on your little magic box.”
Cole started to laugh, then broke into another fit of coughing. Finally composing himself, he smiled. “It’s ok Key… I forgive you.”
“I’ll be here for you, Cole. We can fight this thing. I’ll be by your side the entire time, no matter what.”
“I can’t fight it,” I told her. “The only way I can escape this thing is with a double lung transplant, and there isn’t a match in the donation pool.”
“So, I’ll get tested,” I told him.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, you don’t understand…I have to have both lungs replaced at once. Otherwise, there will be reinfection, and I’ll only buy myself a few weeks. If it’s not both, it won’t work.”
“Cole, you’re the most selfless man I’ve ever met,” I told him. “You deserve a few more weeks, and I want to be there with you to enjoy them.”
I knew her intentions were good, but that wasn’t going to work. “Key, you’re being brash and impulsive,” I told her. “First of all, we’re not even the same race – the probability of you being a match is close to zero. Secondly, I’m not going to let you make a mistake like this. You’ll move on with your life, you’ll take what I leave you and live a life free of fitting into everyone else’s rules and restrictions to get by…”
“There HAS to be a way!” She shouted, throwing her arms around me. Kiona buried her face into my chest. “There just…there has to be something else…”
“There isn’t,” I told her gravely. “We’d need a miracle.”
“Miracles can happen,” Kiona sobbed.
“Not in my life,” I told her, my arms squeezing around her shoulders. I clasped her head against my chest and held her as she cried. “I don’t believe in miracles. I believe in math.”
I held her like this for several moments, until she finally pulled herself free, wiping off her eyes. I bowed my head in shame for putting her through this… And I felt her take my hand.
“I love you Cole,” Kiona whispered.
Part Four
(Back to Table of Contents)
Chapter 24
Devin
And they thought it would be so easy to get rid of me.
The board was lying, backstabbing pack of fools. A den of thieves and liars, they were, the entire rotten bunch of them! A gaggle of sanctimonious, self-serving hypocrites, they bitterly argued among themselves and threatened to drag this entire operation into oblivion. These insignificant worms thought that they wielded power.
They wield no power.
I wield power. True power.
I’ve paid my dues. My contacts brought this hungry and growing company to new echelons of success. Without me, Andrews Enterprises would be nothing. NOTHING! Half of these gluttonous suits wouldn’t have a chair to squat on if it wasn’t for all the work that I’ve done. Did they honestly think that they could toss me aside like crumpled garbage? Did they believe that I was such a lowly cretin, just a strong breeze away from losing everything?
No. Not Devin J. Coppersmith.
Cole Andrews was a fool, too – a dying fool, that’s marginally sympathetic, but a fool nevertheless. The day I discovered his secret, I discovered my power. That was the day that I forged the alliance that would save me.
He never suspected his darling little Kylie.
Whatever he did to piss off that little ginger minx, it did the trick. I would have never known that he was breathing his last without her help. It was she who “accidentally” gave me access to his files – she who showed me what I needed to know. Of course, he needed to know this for the plan to work.
The rookie changed the game. She played her part better than I could have imagined. Larry Higgins was perhaps the biggest fool of them all, but that was yesterday’s news. The imbecile should have seen right through her deceptions, but he let her do the job I hired her for.
She was just like me. She was a survivor.
Her skills were exactly what I needed and she came well recommended. I set up a little shell corporation named Technolust and reached out. It was all so easy, I didn’t even have to leave a paper trail. For promises of a paltry sum, she was willing to compromise this entire company. She would start with Larry and work her way up. With the right passwords and access I could reach to the core of this company and take control of Cole Andrew’s little magical box.
His impending death presented a unique opportunity. He wouldn’t dare tell anyone until it was too late. Cole had too much pride for that… But he cared about this company and its employees too much to let us all piss in the wind after he expired. There was a contingency plan in place. In the event of his untimely death, three of the senior company officers could use their corporate ID and password to unlock the one door nobody had ever went through outside of Cole Andrews himself.
While everyone would be scrambling in the wake of the news, I would solidify my place at the helm by walking straight through that door.
Kylie was instrumental in getting Kiona into the company, giving the final approval in her third interview. It was beautiful to watch Kiona operate on the inside… To see how easily she adapted in the middle of conversation, improvising her way through everything, constantly learning and evolving even as she helped herself to the intellectual property of a billionaire. I admired her spunk… She had the first password within a few short days. Any time now, she was due to return with Larry’s credentials and the pieces would be in place… Or at least, that was the plan before she decided to go rogue.
For now, I was safe. I just needed to sit quietly until all hell broke loose. Andrews couldn’t afford to lose me now. I knew too much – and I made it very subtly clear that I would bring this company to its knees if I were cast aside.
Perhaps he meant to dispose of me another way, but I still had aces up my sleeve. Half the board wanted me gone, but the other – the senior members – they do not. They want me in charge. They understand my claim, and they honor it as well they should. With the lowly founder’s personal assistant pulling the strings and filtering misinformation, they want stability. My track record speaks for itself. Sure, I’ve made a miscalculation here and there – who doesn’t? Even their messianic leader has made a few, but his biggest was a very, very long time ago…
He told Kylie about his little fortune-teller computer, and she relayed that message directly to me.
Kylie has shadowed the fool for five years, and she knows everything. Serving the billionaire buffoon as a mere assistant? I think not. No, she deserves a proper place on the board, given real power, real presence.
Coppersmith rewards his friends.
Of course, the billionaire bastard marrying my crooked little pawn was a surprise. Even I, with all my pieces in play, couldn’t have foreseen that. It seems Kiona was better at her job than even I c
ould have suspected. She’d used her skills to find herself in Cole’s pants… And with his fading health…she now had a grip on his bank account and a claim on his company.
A pawn turned into a queen? That intrigued me. It also worried me briefly, but I consolidated power, ensuring that her claim to the throne would not go uncontested. I was a senior ranking member of the company; my claim was ironclad. My supporters were willing to fight the virginal queen, particularly once her deceit was publicized among them all. In fact, the fool went so far as to do all of my work for me! It was as if he was forfeiting the game, tipping his king.
Maybe when all of this was over I’d have a little fun with her myself. Clearly she was already willing to throw herself into a man’s bed for money. Some blackmail and a threat to have her tossed into federal custody for corporate espionage aught to do the trick. I could enjoy that tight little body of hers, so ripe for molding and manipulation. I could keep her around until I tired of her presence. She would never know that I was the one who hired her to steal those passwords, and I would receive my refund for services not rendered in the form of flesh.