“Thanks. It’s good to know I’m not the only crazy one.”
Sandy reached over and pushed his bangs back off his forehead. “You’ve changed a lot over these last few weeks,” she said.
“How?”
“I think you said it yourself, you’re not desperate anymore. You have a purpose.”
“I feel like I do. More than one, to be honest. After this job, I’ve got to make sure Gomez’s mom has what she needs. I was thinking about giving her my portion of the credits for the job. At least most of it.”
“That’s good of you.”
“She was my second mom.”
“You want another drink?”
“Sure.”
Sandy went inside, and Jacob looked back to the Your Better Life building. Designed to resemble a strand of DNA with different colored lights moving up the strand, it was a unique structure in the skyline. The last time he was in the building, he spent the day excited because he just put the finishing touches on the code he and Xia were doing the night he got burned. When he told her at lunch that day, he acted like a giddy schoolboy who had just won the science fair. He deserved to. He had worked hard creating one of the most nuanced codes he had ever seen, a work of art. So much so that Your Better Life used it. He ran across it in the streets shortly after he got out of prison. They modified it a bit, but he knew his code when he saw it. Of course, they had the right to take his code. The same contract they used to fire him and send him to prison without a trial gave them the rights to anything he created while employed at the company. They made millions off of his code, and he would never see a single credit. He wouldn’t have seen much more if he had created it for them legally. When you were under contract with a corporation, everything about you belongs to them. Employees even had to apply to have children, and if having a child conflicted too much with the company's schedule, the application was denied. That day at lunch, three years ago, he worked hard to convince Xia to try the code with him. She resisted and told him they shouldn’t. He spent many hours since then telling himself he should have listened to her that day. Things would be so different. So much better. But he hadn’t felt that way in a while. Sitting there, watching the lights climb up the twisted form of the building, he knew he was living his better life now. No matter how complicated it had become in the last few weeks, it was better.
“Hey, deep thinker,” Sandy said as she sat down.
“Yeah, kind of lost in thought I guess.”
She handed him his drink. “What about?”
“Your Better Life and their hold on people. You know, when we helped that kid at The Market, Xia couldn’t use her deck. She was afraid they could use it to fire her.”
“For what?”
“If any non-authorized code is registered on her deck during a random company scan, she can get fired, no questions asked. Who knows what could have happened to that kid if she hadn’t been able to help me with Two-Step’s deck.”
“Still no idea about why his chip went nuts?”
“The only thing I can think of is that the Steamer who implanted it screwed up something in the process. I’m sure the SRS is involved. I don’t know how, but they are.”
“Worry about that later. First, let’s break into the headquarters of one of the biggest corporations in the world and steal their latest technology and sell it to, wait, we don’t know who,” Sandy said.
“Since you put it that way, I guess it can wait.”
“Do you know what can’t wait?” Sandy said, grinning.
“Tell me.”
“Dessert.”
“I didn’t make dessert.”
“Not yet.”
Chapter 46
Johnson enjoyed being driven around. While it was true any self-driven car was essentially driving you around, he enjoyed having someone in the front seat, even if they were just sitting there while the car drove itself. Like most symbols of wealth and power, it served no purpose other than to make the wealthy and powerful feel wealthy and powerful. And for him, it did.
He asked his driver to take him to Galveston for an early morning drive along the seawall. Tomorrow, Mr. Quince and his friends would either fail or succeed in their plan, and he wanted to consider the possibilities going forward. A drive down the coast always had a calming effect on him and cleared his mind. He never got out of the vehicle, but he enjoyed the sound of the waves against the wall. It was so soothing to him, he often went to sleep with his room playing the sounds of waves on a beach.
He asked the driver to stop, and he rolled down the windows. Taking a deep breath, he let the cool Gulf breeze fill his lungs. The silhouettes of decommissioned oil rigs dotted the horizon, their shapes breaking the long, clean line of the Gulf meeting the sunrise. While they hadn’t been used to drill for petroleum in decades, the rigs were teeming with activity and life. Shortly after they were shut down, people found their way to them, and they were now a vast network of loosely connected communities throughout the Gulf. If those communities had their version of the wealthy and powerful, he wondered what symbols they used to project their wealth and power.
The monitor linked to Mr. Craig’s office beeped, interrupting his thoughts, and Mr. Craig’s image appeared on the screen.
“Yes, sir?” Johnson said as he pressed the button to roll up the windows.
“Johnson, I see from the tracking data, you are taking one of your beach drives.”
“Yes, sir.”
“I do not know what you see in those drives, but who am I to argue with what a man does to center himself. I realize it is technically your off day, but on to the business at hand.
