The Unincorporated Man (21 page)

Sebastian thought to argue some more, but he’d learned long ago never to get in the middle of his boss’s always well-laid plans.

“It was a group,” Sebastian answered, “of factory workers who were laid off from a local auto plant.”

“This I can’t wait to hear.”

“Apparently they kept on listening to news stories about how your factory was going to cost Americans their jobs, and so they erroneously put two and two together and came up with five.”

“Did any of these people think that if the factory wasn’t workerless the workers I’d have to be hiring would be from another country? Or that no jobs would have gone to any Americans at all… including the locals who helped build the damned place?”

“No, sir, I would imagine not. Sir, the damage was minor and has already been repaired. It would help our public relations if we did not press charges on this group of unemployed men… it being so close to the holidays.”

Justin felt incensed. “Stupidity and ignorance should have a price, Sebastian. Then maybe it wouldn’t happen as often. Let’s press as many charges as we can, and let the people in Elkgrove know that future expansions of the plant and their tax base depend on how well they prosecute these idiots.” Justin saw Sebastian’s reaction to his diatribe. “Sorry, Sebastian…
desperate
idiots,” he amended.

“Sir,” Sebastian said, attempting one more pass for fear that his boss’s emotions might be getting the better of him, “they were just unhappy and lashing out at something—anything—to make themselves feel better. No real damage was done, and their reaction, while clearly illegal, was normal.”

“Normal my ass, Sebastian,” snapped Justin. “It’s that reaction and the willingness of people to coddle such actions that will lead the world to… collapse.” Justin said the last word almost as a whisper and lapsed into thought. Sebastian knew enough to let his boss have his moment.

“Fine,” Justin grumbled, “cancel the charges.”

Sebastian breathed relief.

“And do me another favor.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Cancel that call to the cryonics people in Arizona.”

“Oh, thank God, sir, I knew that you would come to your senses if only given…”

“. . . and call Dr. O’Toole at the laboratory complex. I want a meeting ready to go in three hours. I have a new project for her.”

“What should I tell her it’s about, sir?”

“Tell her it’s about… a lifeboat.”

Justin was sitting comfortably on a guest chair in the office of his chief technology officer. Sitting across from him was a tall athletic woman who carried her lithe, five-foot ten-inch frame with confidence. Though her demeanor was bookish and her look austere, she was in all likelihood the most oft fantasized about by her nerdish, pen-leaking-in-the-pocket underlings. But Justin was too smart to hire someone for personal appearance. No, he’d hired Sandra O’Toole and put her in charge of millions of his hard-earned dollars because she’d proven over and over again that “on time” and “under budget” weren’t mutually exclusive words.

Justin got down to business immediately. It took Sandra a minute to get over the shock of Justin’s impending death. As usual her boss delivered the news concisely and with a healthy dose of what she often referred to as “the intrigue factor.”

“Good evening, Sandra,” he’d said to her. “Let me cut to the chase. I’ll be dead in less than a year, and I plan on making it as mild a death as is humanly possible.” She listened to his proposal without batting an eye, and couldn’t help but be intrigued. Of course she was often intrigued by Justin Cord and the myriad schemes he’d thrown across her table. But this one was not like anything she’d ever tackled before. She wasn’t being asked to save his physical being—just ensure its preservation.

“Now let me get this straight,” she said, not believing her own ears. “You want a self-contained suspension unit that will keep you frozen for years, if not centuries. This unit will be hidden away from all human contact, and therefore will need to be self-maintaining and self-repairable.”

Justin nodded in the affirmative.

“And you want this in less than a year.”

Another nod.

“Well, Mr. Cord, as much as I’d like to take your money, my gut on this is that it can’t be done. Liquid nitrogen has a dispersion rate…”

“I don’t really give a damn about the dispersion rate of nitrogen, liquid or otherwise, Doctor,” he answered. “You can use laughing gas for all I care.”

“Well, laughing gas is… ,” the doctor began to explain, until she realized that though her boss was grinning, the smile had not reached his eyes.

“Never mind,” she continued. “What you want can’t be done in a year. We would have to research, test, and build; we may even need a new science to do it.”

“Dr. O’Toole,” responded Justin, with the perfect measure of impatience in his voice to make her realize her job may be on the line, “I am worth seventeen billion dollars.
That
is your operating budget. Hire who you want, work where you want, and buy, lease, beg, borrow, or steal what you want. Just get it done. And if you succeed, the research laboratory and an annual budget of a hundred million dollars is yours… personally. However, if you feel you can’t…”

He made sure to let the last word dangle perilously.

The doctor wrote down a few brief notes in her tablet computer and looked up.

“Alright, Mr. Cord. I’m not making any promises, but I’ll try. I should have a better view of things by the end of the week. At which point I’ll call you. I don’t have to tell you that time is of the essence, so I will ask that you keep your nose out of it until I have something to report. I work better that way.”

“Dr. O’Toole, you have yourself a deal,” he said, reaching across to shake her hand.

He smiled inwardly. Dying might be a battle he was destined to lose, but not without a fight.

Sebastian was having an unusually hard day. It had nothing to do with being overwhelmed—that seldom happened—and everything to do with death, or rather, his boss’s contemptible attempt to avoid it.
Maybe
, he reasoned,
it was disconcerting to see a fearless man experience fear. Of course, Mr. Cord wasn’t
acting
afraid. Quite the opposite. He was determined
. In fact, Sebastian had never seen the fire of determination burning so brightly in Mr. Cord as it was burning now. Justin, whose body was beginning to show the telltale signs of dying, was, to put it awkwardly, so very alive. Sebastian realized that everything his boss had done until now was a game. And rattling the world and changing the way it thought about work was just part of that game.
But this endeavor he’d embarked upon was no game
, thought Sebastian—
it was plain foolish
. If only his boss would realize the folly of all that wasted money and prepare for his end in the dignified and proper manner more befitting a man of his position.
That
Sebastian could prepare for. Death was supposed to be a well-known process, with forms and procedures to follow, and rituals developed over thousands and thousands of years. Sebastian was good with anything that could be learned and replicated. It comforted him, and he knew it was what made him valuable. But this “freezing” thing was just plain wrong. Still, even with his mind made up, Sebastian was a creature of habit, and had spent too many years obeying Justin Cord to stop now—even if it went against his moral and ethical grain. So it was with feelings of both pride and ambivalence that he now approached his boss.

“She did it, sir.”

“Did what?” Justin asked in between the cough and gasps.

“Created your… um… unit, I guess.”

Justin moved his hands to indicate that Sebastian should continue.

“Apparently, the key was in the insulation. As long as the,” he made a slight but noticeable pause, “
unit
is made durable enough to protect the insulating apparatus it will be continuous and sustainable, but not very eco nom ical. This is a rich man’s toy, Mr. Cord, and a very, very rich man’s toy at that.”

“Not a toy, my friend,” Justin said, between coughs. “A lifeboat… cast upon the sea of time.”

Lifeboat, how ironic
, thought Sebastian.

“Sir, I am also happy to report that the security is holding up. No one appears to have the slightest inkling that you are sick.”

“The word is ‘dying,’ Sebastian, and I’m not at all surprised. I hired the perfect man to… ,” he took a few more deep breaths, “. . . hide this little news item.”

“I’m still not sure why that ugly little reporter took a job that would force him to hide a major news story.”

Justin smiled knowingly and steadied himself. “My dear Sebastian. Everyone who’s good at something secretly wishes… to see if they’d be good at the opposite. The fireman, in the back of his mind, wonders… how to… set fires. The brilliant police officer in his spare time plans the… perfect crime. In most cases these remain daydreams of the competent. Now… our reporter has stumbled onto a great story before anyone else. He was unappreciated and, I suspect… underestimated, probably because he wasn’t good-looking. But he was…” Justin let out a loud, painful-sounding cough. “. . . very good at being a… reporter. I asked him… if he would like the challenge of keeping a secret rather… rather than exposing one.”

“That’s all it took?”

“Yes, Sebastian. The challenge was irresistible. Now… the secret isn’t mine, it’s his. He will… continue to keep it. Call it professional pride.”

I call it tripling his salary
, thought Sebastian.

It’s a good day to die
, thought Justin Cord.
And a beautiful place to do it
. To anybody else the “beautiful” site he was looking at would appear to be as decrepit and lifeless a rock pit as one could imagine. To Justin it would be his, or, more specifically, his body’s new home.

As he hovered in the hydraulic chair under the belly of a private helicopter, he was able to peer down on about as deserted a mine as one could hope to find in the continental United States. He took solace in the fact that he’d taken the precaution of having all locatable records of the mine expunged. Humorously, Justin also became the sole owner of this piece of worthless property that had not been worked since the late 1800s—a mine that barely existed legally. Justin, covered in a thick blanket, was lowered from the helicopter to the mine entrance. He was shivering, not from the weather, nor from the slight buffeting winds, but rather from the disease that now had almost full control of his body. As he looked around he saw that all evidence of the excavation had been removed, and that no one would be able to know about this place by either air or casual hike. This was a hidden tomb the pharaohs would have been proud of.

As his feet touched the ground he reviewed his list, barely noticing that Sebastian, as always, was dutifully waiting for him. Justin’s mind was racing over the final pieces of the amazingly complex puzzle he’d built over the course of the last nine months. The estate was to be left in a perpetual trust fund, administered by Sebastian and his chosen aides. The corporation was big enough to last decades if it was run conservatively. A special committee would monitor advancements in medicine, nanotechnology, and other related fields. When it became feasible to revive and cure Justin, they would first excavate, then revive him. Justin looked over the list of treasures that he was having buried as part of his tomb. Taking no chances, he wanted to make sure that if he was going to wake up, he was going to wake up wealthy—corporation or no corporation. Diamonds, gold, silver, platinum, stock certificates, and priceless works of art would be stored in his chamber, his suspension unit, and at various places around the world.

“They’re ready for you, sir.”

Sebastian and a trusted bodyguard carried Justin into the mine. The guard, though a loyal employee for years, had been blindfolded the entire length of the journey, and had been promised an annuity for life if the activities of the day remained a secret. He’d readily agreed.

It wasn’t much effort to lift Justin’s body; it had wasted away to almost nothing. From a robust 185 pounds, the rock that Sebastian had for so long looked up to was weighing in at barely 120. Justin was paying grievously for the drugs that had enabled him to appear “normal” at the New Year’s Eve party he’d just discreetly made his exit from. He’d sat in a darkened corner of a room whose lighting and sound system he controlled, forced a few smiles, waved occasionally, and pretended to talk into a cell phone. Very large men guarded the table and made sure that no one got near enough to pierce the facade their boss was struggling to maintain. Justin had naturally cut back on his commitments and appearances in the past few months, but not so drastically as to create too much speculation. It was vital that he appear OK at his last event, and at least now, mercifully, it was over. In the lexicon of the old thinking it had been an unwise use of time. That appearance had cost him a week of his life. But Justin was a man who, when committed to a course of action, did not take half measures. If this “lifeboat on the sea of time,” as he now always thought of it, worked, then he wouldn’t need that extra week. If it didn’t, he wouldn’t lose much except a week—of life—in a hospital room—with doctors—and machines—all conspiring to rob him of hope.

And hope is what it all came down to. He tried unsuccessfully to explain that concept to Sebastian. His endeavor had nothing to do with the probabilities of success or failure, or the apparent waste of money, time, and resources toward that end. In fact, Justin knew even better than his doubting assistant just how long the odds were of the whole “frozen suspension thing.” True, he had probably spent more than anyone else in the pursuit of his vision—a whopping $2 billion. However, for a man within countable breaths of death, he was pleased.

Sebastian and the bodyguard stripped him of his clothes and placed him on the platform that would act as his “bed.” He first saw the bright lights of the chamber ceiling shining down on him, and then the face and sad eyes of Dr. Sandra O’Toole.

“Are you ready, Mr. Cord?” she asked.