Rebeka could see he wanted her to say something. Precisely because of that she remained silent.
He continued, “It’s a one-of-a-kind piece of equipment. It requires certain elements, cultures, to operate. Those cultures take over two years to harvest and refine.”
“Don’t patronize me, Waqanitoga. I know all about that, just as I know there are crops in reserve for emergencies.”
He tightly squeezed his hands in front of him. “Yes, well, Madam…they were contaminated.”
Rebeka’s pulse flared. “All of them?” She looked at the others. They lowered their eyes.
“According to the agrigenesis report,” Waqanitoga replied, “there was an infection, some sort of viral strain that infected the entire crop.”
“When was I to be informed of this?” She trained her eyes on Jocsun.
“We received the report moments before this meeting,” Jocsun said.
Rebeka knew she was screwed. A halt in production would be the perfect excuse for the government to finally end Ameri-Inc.’s monopoly on GTS. Bribes only went so far, no matter how large. “This is unacceptable. Ameri-Inc. must be at full capacity again within eighteen months.”
“With all due respect, Madam Takáts, without the cultures it’s impossible,” Waqanitoga said.
Chief Marketing Officer Docobo raised a hand. He was seated directly to Rebeka’s left. “Maybe now’s the time to start promoting the synthetic blend of GTS.”
“Yes,” Azuma said, “until we get the mine back to capacity.”
The others nodded.
“That stuff is shit and you know it.” Rebeka walked back to the table and pressed her palms on it. “I don’t care how you do it, but figure out a way to get the Teleporthaton rebuilt and running in a timely manner. Until you do, your vials of G-75 are hereby suspended and replaced with consumer grade sixty.”
There was an uproar. The board members faces showed just what she wanted—fear. She glanced at Jocsun. He looked amused.
“With all due respect, Madam,” Penator said. “To reduce us to the commercial product would be…” She shook her head.
Rebeka had dossiers on everyone in the room. The woman, Penator, had Leukemia. The G-75 not only kept her looking forty, but also held her disease in check. Most board members, each in their mid-to-late eighties, had their own health issues. “The in-house grade is a perk for employees who earn it. Do I make myself clear?”
Penator nodded.
“Is there anything else I should know about?” Rebeka made eye contact with the others. Other than Jocsun, they either shriveled from her gaze or stared back with suppressed anger. Rebeka stepped into her televator and said, “Have a great day,” and was whisked up to her penthouse.
~~~
Jocsun handed a martini to Rebeka. She was seated at her desk in the penthouse. “Are you really going to cut Penator’s solution down to consumer sixty?”
“Of course not. I’ll secretly keep her, and the others, GTS grade a little higher until the situation’s resolved.” Rebeka plucked an olive from the glass and ate it. “The idea is to scare them, not kill them.”
“You’re a pussycat, you know that?” Jocsun walked to the east wall, glanced at the awards and certificates hanging on it, and said, “Panorama.” The penthouse walls and roof went invisible. Jocsun stared at Miami. The thousands of horizontal buildings placed one on top of each other like enormous domino pieces never ceased to amaze him. The ocean, where decades ago Miami Beach once stood before the water levels had risen, and where the condos were now floating above, was blue and calm. As always, the sea was dotted with boaters.
He glanced at the road layers above them. Traffic was picking up. I-95, the main hub was crowded with vehicles, though the other levels still moved fairly well. “It’s another day in paradise.”
Rebeka moved to his side. She said, “Enclosed.” The roof and walls appeared again. “I didn’t summon you here to admire the view.”
“I never assumed you did.” He clamped the side of her neck with his teeth. She stepped away. A pinch of flesh ripped open. She bled. Jocsun raised his eyebrows playfully and said in a bad Hungarian accent, “Listen to dem. Children of da night. What music dey make.”
By the time Rebeka had retaken her seat the wound had closed. “I didn’t call you here for that, either.”
“I know that, too.” He sat across from her desk. “We’re here to talk about the infected cultures. You think it was done deliberately.”
“Do you think it was an accident?”
He shook his head. “Not in a green frog. We both know the security and sanitation measures they’re kept under. It had to be a malicious act.”
“My brother, Herb,” Rebeka said. “He’s the one most likely to gain by my downfall.”
“No doubt. Without the culture there’s no Teleporthaton and without that you’re fucked.”
“We’re fucked, love. Do you really think he’d keep any of my team, especially you, if he takes over?”
Jocsun frowned. “I suppose not.” He rubbed his cheek a few times and said, “Someone’s working on the inside with him, don’t you think?”
She nodded. “There’s no way in hell he could have access to the nursery without me knowing about it unless he got to someone. Find out who it is.”
“Count on it, but we still have the bigger problem.”
Though Rebeka knew exactly what he was referring to, she asked, “Which is?”
“The contaminated cultures.”
She smiled. “We’ll have clean cultures within five months. I made the arrangements a half-hour ago.”
His eyebrows furled in disbelief. “It’s impossible.”
She shrugged and remained silent. She liked toying with Jocsun.
“Okay, okay,” he said. “How’d you do it?”
“As you know, the only other available cultures are in Old Zealand.”
“And as you know, their currency is backed by the culture’s value. If they were taken away, they’d go under. Prime Minister Gronska would rather die than let that happen to his country.”
“Unless—” Rebeka raised her index finger for emphasis. “—he had something he valued more than his country.”
Jocsun cocked his head. “Like what?”
“His Prime Ministership.” She leaned forward, placed her elbows on the desktop and cupped her chin in her hands. “Did you know at one time the Prime Minister enjoyed pre-pubescent boys?”
Once more Jocsun’s eyebrows furled.
Rebeka tapped an icon on her desk. A cyclorama of a man with a thick head of blonde hair cuddling with a young boy flickered. Rebeka quickly shut it down.
“My God,” Jocsun said. “Is it real?”
“Oh, yeah. And it gets a lot worse.”
“Who’d you have to kill for it?”
“No one. It was compliments of my dear, dear brother Herb.” She laughed. “He showed it to me years ago, before we were at each other’s throats. At one time he and Gronska frequented the same entertainment circles. This was before the future prime minister’s rise in the political realm, of course.”
“Herb gave the cyclo-vid to you?”
“Not exactly. My tech-op team hacked into his private collection.” Rebeka saw in Jocsun’s bemused expression what she had been thinking all along—Herb had tried to ruin her, but ended up saving her. She leaned across the desk and nibbled his lower lip. He moaned. She nibbled harder.
Chapter Twenty-One
Date: 2030
Everglades, Florida
Connie Swamp’s Café
There was nothing but darkness and a high-pitched buzz. Darkness and buzz. A cloud of plaster. Not plaster, coral-rock powder was hanging in the air. Niyati hacked so forcefully her limbs tingled. She spit rust-colored sputum. J-1 stood. The pile of crumbled coral fell from his body like snowflakes from a windblown tree. Niyati’s darkness became sunlight. J-1 had covered her with his body during the blast. As he wiped himself off, J-1 said somet
hing. Niyati saw his mouth move, but all she heard were the mosquitoes droning in her head. He reached down, removed the plastic handcuffs binding her wrists, and helped her up.
She was standing where there had once been a restaurant. Now there was nothing but mangled rock and wood. J-1 pointed to something behind her and she turned. In the distance there was a line of military vehicles and fire-rescue trucks speeding their way. Most had the Ameri-Inc. logo on them. J-1 said something and nodded upward. The helicopters had returned. He tapped her on the shoulder, said something and raised his eyebrows as if he was waiting for an answer. Even if Niyati had heard the question, she had no will to answer—or to listen, move, weep, or laugh. Where was Miguel? Her eyes welled up. She just wanted to wake up from wherever this nightmare had taken her.
A small group of Seminoles—five men and three women—raced down the sidewalk toward them. She recognized two of the men. They were Sheriff Chili’s deputies, though she didn’t remember their names. When they neared the destruction, the deputies motioned for the others to stop. The deputies searched through the rubble. J-1 moved Niyati behind him. “No.” She could barely hear herself speak. “I’m all right.” J-1 moved aside. Niyati’s mosquito buzzing slowly diminished and was replaced by approaching sirens and helicopter thrums.
The deputies came up to her. The younger deputy, the one with the sparse beard, said something. She tapped her ears and shook her head.
“Where’s Sheriff Chili? What the fuck happened?” he yelled.
“We were attacked by them,” she motioned to the approaching vehicles and copters. “That’s all I remember.”
“We gotta get outta here, Bobby!” the older deputy shouted.
Bobby, wild-eyed, asked, “What about the sheriff, Mitch?”
“Goddamn it, everything here’s gone. They’ll get us next if we don’t haul ass!”
“What about them?” Bobby pointed to Niyati and J-1.
Mitchell looked perplexed for several moments. He glanced at the vehicles racing toward them. “Take her, and leave the robot.”
“No! He goes with us,” Niyati said.
“Look, lady,” Mitchell replied. “Whoever’s after your mechanical friend will do anything to get him. That means killing every last one of us if they think we have him. If you want to stay here and die, that’s up to you, but we’re getting the hell out of here.”
“I can’t leave him behind.”
“Lady, please do as Mitchell says,” Bobby pleaded.
Mitchell pulled his gun and aimed it at Niyati. “Let’s go. I mean it!”
Niyati shook her head. “I’ll be fine. They want me, too, for my knowledge.” She thought about J-1 and the car crash that killed her son, Jay. The paradox didn’t escape her. Her life was based on scientific facts, yet she was making this choice on emotional impulse.
The vehicles rounded the final curve. The copters descended.
“Fuck this.” Mitchell lowered his gun and motioned for Bobby to leave.
J-1 stepped behind Niyati. He wrapped his arm around the front of her neck until his elbow lined up with her chin. He brought his other arm around the back of her neck and pressed it forward in a classic chokehold. It plugged the blood flow from her carotid artery into her brain. Niyati passed out.
He handed her to Bobby.
J-1 said, “I’ll inform them that I was the only survivor.” He motioned to the flattened building. “The evidence will support that. One of you must take her out of sight, but the other must remain as if you just arrived. It will allay suspicion.”
“Bobby, take her out of here,” Mitchell said.
“How do we know this ain’t some sort of trap? I don’t trust that thing.”
Mitchell glanced at J-1.
“Mister Acevedo’s final order was to protect Doctor Bopari from this. It is the best way I know how.”
Helicopters were touching down. The military vehicles were practically upon them. Mitchell took a deep breath. “Do as he says, Bobby. Now!”
“Shit.” Bobby slung Niyati over his shoulder and hightailed it down a backstreet.
“None of what you saw with the woman happened,” Mitchell yelled to the small group. “There was an explosion. That’s all. Okay?”
They nodded. Someone said, “Fuck the white man.”
Mitchell clawed through the rubble as the cars and trucks pulled up to the crumbled building. He shouted to the soldiers scrambling from the vehicles. “I need help here!”
A bevy of soldiers aimed their weapons at him. He raised his hands. Another five scrambled past him, grabbed J-1 and whisked him into the helicopter.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Date: 2030
Everglades, Florida
Seminole Commerce Center
Tribal Council Building/Tribal Chief Dan Panther’s office
Chief Dan Panther, a tall, bulky man with ink-black eyes and thick, collar-length hair of the same color, sat at his desk twiddling his thumbs. Panther had smooth high fleshy cheeks, great teeth and full lips. They made him look younger than his forty-two years. He had a champion smile that he liked to use to his advantage.
Today, he wasn’t smiling.
Panther glared at the three lawyers sitting across from him. “As much as the Tribal Council appreciates Ameri-Inc.’s offer of restitution, people are hopping mad. And damn it, I don’t blame them. You storm into our land like nobody’s business.”
“May I remind you that you granted us permission?” This was Robeson Moshood, the lead attorney. He spoke calmly with a hint of a Creole accent.
“May I remind you that one of our sheriffs, one of our elderly citizens, the restaurant proprietor and the restaurant were blown to pieces less than five days ago?”
“It was truly unfortunate and we offer our sympathies.” Moshood was tall, thin, and dressed impeccably in a brown suit that eloquently complimented his black skin.
“A rogue traitor set off the explosion, not us,” Deborah Orta said. She was the heavy-set attorney sitting left of Moshood. “That man killed not only one of our most valued scientists, but twelve of our militia. If our team hadn’t intervened, Old Town in its entirety would have been—”
Moshood placed his hand over her wrist and gave it a slight squeeze. “What Ms. Orta is trying to say, is, we deeply regret this unfortunate incident. In addition to what we discussed yesterday, we are prepared to further express our deep remorse.” He nodded to a small woman seated to his right. She snapped her briefcase open, handed Moshood a notepad and pencil and snapped it shut. He wrote a figure on the pad and slid it across to Chief Dan Panther. “We know the tribal council has been discussing a new cancer wing for your hospital. We believe this would offer complete relief in that regard.”
Panther glanced at the pad. Though he liked the numbers, he frowned. “Cypress General will do fine without your blood money.” He slid the pad back.
“And because we know, as chief, the loss of any of your constituency plays heavily on your mind, we’d like to offer you this personal apology.” Moshood wrote another figure on the pad and slid the paper to him.
Panther studied the second figure. “This is an insult.” He pushed the paper back.
Moshood smiled, crossed out the figure and wrote another. “This is our final offer.” He slid it back. “Though it’s not our preferred method, we’re prepared to go to court.”
Panther glanced at the new figure. The last thing either of them wanted was a trial. He knew it like Moshood knew it. Both sides digging up shit on the other? No sir, he thought, that was a recipe for an overflowing septic tank. Panther said to Moshood, “The first figure, for the hospital, is to be done with much fanfare.”
“Of course,” Moshood said. “Ameri-Inc. is proud to make a corporate donation toward the welfare of the Seminole people as a result of the wonderful relationship we have with them and in particular with you, Chief.”
“The second figure—”
“Is a cash arrangement between two dear frien
ds. Nothing more.”
Chief Dan Panther smiled his champion smile.
Moshood motioned to the small woman. She handed him the briefcase. “We’re prepared to make the second transaction at this time.” Moshood unsnapped the case, opened it and reached inside.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Date: 2250
Planet Truatta
The base of Mount Kwieetus
J-1 rested against Coco. He watched Norma and her crew from his spot outside of the campfire’s lasso of heat and light. The mountain that the giant, Stringer, had called Kwieetus was practically within arm’s length. Teague was standing guard near him, holding his electro-rod weapon. His back was to the fire. His eyes were on the surrounding forest and at the same time, J-1. Orson was on the opposite side of the campfire, standing sentry over that half of the wilderness.
The squadron had gathered for the night. They were sitting around the fire, watching a large pot of stew simmer. Small tents were set up nearby.
Norma reached into her pouch, pinched bluish-purple granules from it, and sprinkled it into the food. J-1 could see that it was the core dust Stringer had used to spice his meal.
“Phineas?” he heard Norma say to the man with the stooped back who was seated across from her. Phineas slipped an ocher bottle from his knapsack, uncorked it, and took a long swig. He passed it to Prudence on his left, who did the same. The action was repeated until the bottle returned to Phineas. He corked it and slid it back in his bag.
Matilda and Hob scooped a stew that looked more gravy than substance into bowls and passed them around.
As they ate, the group gossiped about people J-1 had never heard of. Someone named Hortense, who had been caught on the mattress with Tuck, who was the husband of Amabel. This evoked oohs and aahs, and an “I’m not surprised. Amabel treated him like tradshit,” from Norma.
They debated the age of the person called Mata. “I’m telling you,” a man said, “she’s older than a pollanda tree.”
To Dream Page 10