The sale of the Pinnacle Tower to Znth had been controversial in part because the building was on the registry of Recondito historical landmarks, and the graceful art deco spire of the skyscraper had been widely viewed as a symbol for the city since the building was first completed in the early 1930s. The main elevator lobby with its ornate bas relief featuring symbolic depictions of the history of the city and the surrounding countryside was described on one website Patrick visited as “a timeless monument to Recondito’s rich cultural heritage and all that the Hidden City has meant to so many of its denizens.” Which, while perhaps a little flowery, pretty accurately summed up the esteem with which many in the city held the building and its fixtures.
When it was first announced that Znth planned to purchase the building, however, it was discovered by the local press that Zotovic intended to substantially renovate the interior of the structure, but had no intention of letting the board of Recondito Historical Register review the plans. Outrage among local historical societies and concerned citizens groups put pressure on the mayor’s office to enforce the provision requiring that any substantial changes made to a historical landmark would first need to be approved by the board. And at the outset the mayor’s office signaled that it would indeed be requesting that be made a prerequisite for the sale. When at the last minute the mayor reversed course, and issued an executive order that the transfer of ownership to Znth could go ahead without impediment, and that the new owners would be free to make any alterations to the structure that they desired without the need for any official approvals, even going so far as to relax to standard permitting required of any large construction project, many in the local press believed that a backroom deal had been struck between the mayor’s office and Zotovic himself.
There had been some simmering outrage in the editorial pages and community websites for several weeks, but when the lobby of the Pinnacle Tower was once again opened to the public after the renovations were completed, and the signature golden bas relief in the foyer was pristine and untouched, looking the same as it ever had, the controversy quickly died out.
Otherwise, Zotovic’s brief career as a software mogul was largely free of controversy. Though he appeared regularly at tech conferences and charity events, he was rarely seen in public in social settings. In the photos that Patrick found online, Zotovic looked more like someone who would be working in a coffee shop or behind the counter of a comic book store than the head of a billion-dollar company, with a shaggy mop of dark hair and five o’clock shadow on his chin, favoring jeans and hoodies over suits and ties. There were no mentions in any of the articles Patrick could find of Zotovic being romantically involved, or of maintaining anything like a social life in general. There were no paparazzi photos of him at clubs with supermodels on each arm, or palling around with Hollywood stars, or carousing drunkenly with his friends. Zotovic kept a condominium in a City Center high rise and a veritable mansion way up on the hills of Northside, but seemed to spend the majority of his time inside the Pinnacle Tower, day and night.
There was no mention anywhere of Zotovic’s involvement in Ross University’s Undersight research project years before, though it was a standard element in the puff piece write-ups to mention that he was a “college dropout.” It was a nice bit of mythologizing, Patrick thought, emphasizing the humble origins from which this mighty titan of industry had arisen, but it wasn’t entirely true. Zotovic had been a graduate student when he joined the Undersight team, and while he had left before completing his master’s degree, that made him a “college dropout” in only the loosest of definitions.
Patrick was unable to find any major scandal or controversy, beyond the flap over the Pinnacle Building purchase and renovation. Even after logging in and searching various law enforcement databases resulting in nothing more serious than a few parking violations when Zotovic had been a teenager.
But when he found a link to a video playlist entitled “Parasol’s Dark Secrets,” a lengthy series of YouTube postings that all appeared to revolve around some shady doings involving Zotovic and his software offerings, Patrick was certain for the moment that he had hit pay dirt.
Five seconds into the first video in the playlist, that certainty began to falter.
All of the videos in the playlist were the work of the same man, who identified himself only as “Bitstreamer 9000” and wore a robot-like helmet that obscured his features, using electronic effects to disguise his voice. But as Patrick watched further past the first few seconds, he found that despite his outlandish look and cartoonish persona, the man gave the impression that he had some expertise. The first video began with a discussion of steganography—the art of hiding information and messages within images, audio, or video—and then went on to discuss spectrograms: graphic representations of the frequencies that make up a sound and how they change over time. These were illustrated throughout with graphics that appeared on the screen, showing textbook examples of each topic in regular usage. Patrick failed to see how any of it pertained to software applications that had been released by Zotovic’s companies, or what they might have to do with Parasol’s “dark secrets,” but he was learning things
