Emilio placed a hand on Valère’s shoulder and leaned down, whispering.
“Your contingency is failing us, Mr. Valère. I suggest a prompt resolution to this matter.”
Valère shook again and clasped his hands. His nervousness had been with him his entire life. It began as a slight tick in his boyhood years, growing into a noticeable oddity by his teens. As a young adult, Valère had learned to control it, forcing it down to a subtle, hardly noticeable level that didn’t manifest itself physically.
But it was still there.
Valère was constantly reminded of his weakness. The sweating, the shuddering, the teeth-grinding. All of it was a form of nervousness, a simple reaction to excitement.
Whether positive or not, any exciting stimuli in Valère’s life caused him to relive these moments, waiting until they passed. He dared not speak too loudly, or grow agitated, for fear that his weakness would once again wield its power over him.
He nodded. “Yes,” he said, softly. “I do agree.”
The man’s eyes widened. “Wh — what is… what can I do…”
Valère held up a hand, and the man stopped.
“Please do not talk. You have already upset my partners, and I fear you will only upset me if you continue.”
“B — but I can make it up. I swear. You don’t need to kill me —”
“Enough!” Valère yelled, slamming his fist on the table in front of him. He felt the nervousness growing within him, quickly superseded by the calming sensation of knowing he’d even startled his partners standing behind him.
He saw in his periphery each man take a step back.
The man — the failure — in front of him swallowed.
“Now,” Valère continued. “What makes you think I am going to have you killed?”
The man turned his head slightly.
“No, my friend. I don’t reward complete and utter failure with a swift and merciful death. It really isn’t my style, anyway. The messiness of it all, it… well, it disturbs me.
“I have a better idea. SARA?”
“Yes, Monsieur Valère?”
The man’s eyebrows arched when he heard the voice coming from the walls around him.
“I would like you to transport Mr. Olsen here to our facility in Brazil.”
“Of course, Monsieur Valère. Is there a certain destination you have in mind?”
Valère nodded. “I do. Please alert NARATech of a possible test candidate currently preparing for stasis.”
“Stasis?” Roland asked.
The man in front of them closed his eyes. “Please, Mr. Val —”
Valère shook his head, but SARA took over. “Mr. Olsen, please refrain from additional comment. Your scheduled stasis prep will begin in exactly fifteen minutes. I have alerted security, and they are en route for escort. Please follow the green arrows I will illuminate on the walls.”
The man, resigned, left the room and slumped down the hall.
“Valère, what is stasis?” Roland asked again. “Emilio — what are you not telling me?”
Valère turned to his partners, scrutinizing the fat man that stood at his left. “Mr. Jefferson, I believe I have waited much too long to reassert my authority over this little project. Please —”
“Reassert your authority?” Roland Jefferson yelled. “What are you talking about, Valère? This project was given to us by —”
“No, Roland,” Emilio said. “That’s where you’re wrong. This project was given to Mr. Valère and myself, and we brought you along because of your… assets, which we found valuable.” Emilio turned to Valère to continue.
“Yes, Roland,” Valère said. “We are excited to say that the Company no longer requires the use of these assets. Our investments elsewhere have performed admirably, and your lack of leadership so far on this project has informed our decision.”
“Your… decision?” Roland Jefferson’s enormous frame had moved out from behind Valère’s desk, and he stood, looming, in front of him. “You can’t… you can’t do this!”
“Your investments are in nothing but corporate bonds and shady real estate, Mr. Jefferson. Most of it is drying up as we speak, thanks to the work of our investments. Your companies are our companies, and your prized real estate holdings around the globe are now being scuttled or revamped, to make way for our next phase.”
“This is an outrage!” he roared, fuming.
“It is, Roland. It truly is. For you. For us — for the Company — it is a natural progression. We all eventually outlive our usefulness, and need to be redirected.”
“I will not be spoken to like a child! I have not outlived my usefulness!”
“Correct,” Valère said. “SARA, are you still with us?”
“Always, sir.”
“Perfect. Please arrange for Mr. Jefferson to join our friend Mr. Olsen in stasis.”
“Absolutely, Monsieur Valère. And shall I arrange for his delivery to Brazil as well?”
“No, actually,” Valère said. He watched Jefferson’s eyes grow wide. “Please arrange for Roland’s delivery to our holdings in Antarctica. He will preempt our facilities there, but our stasis research has proven to be quite effective in long-term storage.”
“Very well, Monsieur Valère. Mr. Jefferson, your scheduled stasis prep will begin in exactly fifteen minutes. I have alerted security and they are en route for escort. Please follow the green arrows…”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Crack! The sound of the rifle shot pierced the air and reverberated as it bounced over the calm, open water. Randall Brown sat up taller on the picnic table and offered advice.
“Good shot. You hit it, but it wasn’t centered.”
His wife grinned next to him, laughing at Randy’s instruction.
His teenage son nodded, reloading the .22 caliber Remington rifle. “At least I hit it.”
Randy smiled. “True. If it had been alive, it wouldn’t be anymore.” He took in the peaceful scene, watching the small pieces of clay disc disappear beneath the surface of the lake and the sunlight diffract over the gentle waves.
Way better than being at the office. He checked his watch. Late afternoon. He would normally be checking the server temperatures and running any final diagnostic tests, then getting ready to head home. Randall Brown had worked for the CDC for four years, moving to the Montana offices only a year ago. He’d had a brief stint in tech startups before realizing that he was considered a “dinosaur” in that world — at a mere forty-six years old. His world of IBM, mainframes, networking, and accreditations had been replaced in the past decade or so by a new world, one of sleek laptops, blogging, cloud platforms, and agile development. It wasn’t that he wasn’t needed, or useful; it was just that he wasn’t appreciated.
No one seemed to know, or care, what kind of experience and knowledge he could provide as an IT consultant, network administrator, or general “tech guy.” At the two startups he’d worked for, he was usually no more than an afterthought.
At first he didn’t care. The jobs always paid well, thanks to a mix of youthful overconfidence and arrogant market predictions, but Randy knew better. He’d worked a year at a startup that was trying to bring simple image manipulation to tablets and mobile devices, only to see the writing on the wall a few months into it. The company had a long list of deep-pocketed investors who knew next to nothing about the computing world, and they had an equally impressive amount of VC funding. The trouble was, the product wasn’t profitable. Worse, the college-age owners of the company didn’t seem to care about the future of the company’s product line.