and she touched the cloth of her dress where she had once touched the button of her jacket.
Immediately, I got a team of analysts together to decipher her message, but the hunt for clues was unnecessary, as later that day it was announced she would attend the Intel-Sunbeam Ironing and Renovation Invitational. I redirected the team to set up a covert rendezvous.
“So, Mr. CEO,” concluded Rex, obviously irritated that I had been daydreaming, “that’s the scenario.”
“Sorry,” I said. “I got the strategy if not all the details.”
He asked, “Shall we go ahead?”
Two days ago, I would have immediately said yes, but now that I knew she was alive I didn’t know. To delay, I asked the others, “What do you think?”
Around the hammered-silver and sugar maple table sat Mom, Mason, Ari, the girl whose skin looked like scrambled eggs, my tailor, and Walter Noole. We were in what had become our conference room on the fifteenth floor of the PartyHaus. The black toilets had been removed, and so had the ornate and pastel couches and easy chairs, but cobalt tiles still covered the floor, walls, and ceiling. Mom complained it was gloomy and cold, but I liked it.
“The risks,” said Mason, nodding thoughtfully. “Are they worth it?” He wore a tuxedo-like black suit and glasses. Out of his ratskins, he had become a distinguished gentleman and presided over a popular game show on channel 43,001 at dawn each morning.
“No,” said Mother, shaking her head. “Rex, I’m sorry, but you know I don’t like it. We’ve been about positives. This is purely negative.” Mother now wore her hair short. It was frosted a light strawberry, and although I wasn’t sure it worked with her tanned complexion, it was better than before. Her tailored charcoal suit was beautiful and made her look both strong and yet delicate in a way she never had before. “I think we should forget it and go to the ironing show. I’m sure no one wants to miss Maricell’s singing.”
“Have you really thought it through?” asked Mason, eyeing Mom.
“I have!” she replied. “It’s destructive. That’s why I hate it.”
“The question is,” began Ari, leaning forward, “will it win us customers?” She was always the pragmatist.
“Definitely,” said Rex. “Most of our customers are still Ultra and they want blood.” Shrugging, he added, “We’ve been weak for a year.”
“The plan is very mean,” said Walter, who sat beyond Mr. Cedar on my side. “But what they did was very mean, too.” Frowning he added, “I’m not sure what to do.” It turned out that Walter had an amazing gift for coding, and while he was still learning his way, I had given him the job of chief code officer.
Mr. Cedar, who often spoke last, sat back and twisted his single beard hair. “Does it jeopardize your future with Nora?”
“That can’t be part of a business decision,” I said.
“It has to be,” he countered.
“It does not! It cannot. She has nothing to do with the business.” Even I could hear the overtones of denial in my voice.
“That’s maybe the best reason not to,” said Mom, her voice softer, as if she was hoping the notion would just fade away. “Let’s table it and go. We’re going to be late.”
“I need a decision,” said Rex.
“We’re not interested,” said Mom.
“Wait!” I said, pushing back my chair. “If we can’t increase our percentages, our creditors aren’t going to keep us going. We’ve got to be courageous.”
Rex spoke toward Mom. “If all goes well, his death alone will make the product show a success. I get questions about retaliation from our clients all the time.” Softer, he added, “A lot of them still love Hiro.”
Sitting back, Mom said, “It shouldn’t be like this! I hate how the families do business like savages. When we toured the slubs, we never were like this.”
“It was worse!” said Mason. “It was much worse out there.”
“It was,” agreed Ari.
Standing, I stepped toward the windows. An hour from now, I was to see Nora off the system during the ironing invitational. What would I tell her? What could I possibly say?
When Mom came to my side, I looked up as though I had been staring at the lights of the city. Actually, I had been gazing down toward the far end of the oxygen gardens at Father’s headstone. It might not have been visible except the ground lights were on and, a couple of months ago, I had spread a handful of mutant carrot seeds, and their tops formed a thick black patch.
After the product show last year, I retreated from the world. I lived in my dressing room and while I did nothing but burn a lot of gen-cotton shirts with a Schiaparelli-Firemaster Jr. that I had sent out for, I told myself I hated all of them, especially Joelene. When a family commission found she was born a freeboot it was clear that she had deceived, betrayed, and used me. Worse, she had killed Father at just the moment when I had started to see him for what he really was—a flawed, frantic man who had let the company disfigure his heart. Maybe in the future, in a few years from now, I would be able to forgive Joelene since she had done so much for me, but clemency wasn’t yet in me.
A month after the show, one morning, after I scorched the collar of another shirt, I started to cry. I fell to the floor and wept so hard I could barely pull air in my lungs. Once I had picked myself up, I headed to the technology building and walked into the code lab, where I knew there was still activity. The thirty workers stood and began to clap, but I told them to stop.
“I know almost nothing about the business,” I told them. “But in my Father’s name, I’m going to try.”
I became CEO of RiverGroup and began working the long hours that he had. Five months later, after weeks of negotiations, the
Even after all the hard work we had put in, we were struggling, and without something daring and dramatic, I doubted we would make it another year.
“It’s just not good,” said Mom, quietly. “It really isn’t. You know how you felt… how you still feel.”
I thought of Father’s last moment, the confusion and bewilderment he must have felt as the jacket flew toward him. Sometimes I thought I was being sentimental to imagine that things would have changed between us. But documents that Xavid had left indicated that he had issued the order for the freeboot to cut off Nora’s toe. I don’t know if that truly exonerated Father, but maybe it had in my heart.
“RiverGroup will be fine without retaliation,” she continued. “I know Mr. Gonzalez-Matsu is not a good man. Everyone knows that, but where will it end?”
As I had before, I wished that the morning I’d heard Joelene’s cursing I’d told Father, and that somehow together we discovered that she was working for MKG. What we would have done, I wasn’t sure, but anything that changed the past seemed preferable. “Gonzalez-Matsu planned it for years,” I said, as if that made it doubly bad.
Mom whispered, “Think about her.”
“That’s all I used to do,” I said, trying not to raise my voice. “That was exactly the problem. I only thought of her. If I had done something else, just once, then Father would still be here.”
“Don’t blame yourself!”
Whipping around, I told Rex, “Go ahead! Kill him.”
Rex nodded once and turned to go.
“Wait,” I said, as I pictured Nora alone in her dressing room after she had gotten the news of her Father’s death. “Hold on… I don’t know…”
“I’ll go ahead,” said Rex. “If you want to stop, let me know within two hours.”
The Intel-Sunbeam Ironing and Renovation Invitational was being held in the new massive single-crystal ConEmFuKo building in Ros Begas. Ninety-five thousand fans had gathered. Most sat below in theaters seats; the balconies were filled with corporate boxes. The RiverGroup boot was on the far right, MKG’s, was in the center.
