The Unincorporated Man (37 page)

“Are you dissatisfied with the ruling, Mr. Cord?” asked Manny.

Justin, leaning forward on his knees, clasped his hands together. “How dare that bastard do that?”

“Do what?”

“Throw Sebastian’s betrayal in my face, that’s what!”

“Ahh, that,” replied Manny. “Just good lawyering. Trying to throw you off is all. It obviously didn’t work. After all, you won.”

“I don’t think he cares about the judgment at this point,” said Neela.

Unconsciously acknowledging Neela, Justin continued with his diatribe. “The information… about… Blancano… it… it was not about this case. His evidence didn’t have a chance of changing the outcome. He did it to attack me, pure and simple. He wanted me to suffer, and you know what? The feeling is mutual.”

Justin turned away from his friends and stared out the window. He looked out through the maelstrom of flying machines chasing their limo, past the brightly colored geometric beauty of New York City, and saw… nothing. Hektor had been right. He
had
been abandoned by the man he trusted most. And three hundred years would not erase the pain he was only now beginning to feel.

Neela was about to offer her services as a professional listener when she heard something extraordinary—an avatar speaking without being spoken to.

“I’d understand if you’d want me to change my name and voice,” chirped sebastian. “You appear to have had a good relationship with this Dr. O’Toole. I could take on the name and approximate her voice with a little coaching.”

Justin snapped out of his malaise, shook his head, and, smiling a little sadly, said, “No. In some ways that would be giving that bastard more power than he’s worth, and would be punishing you for what he did.”

“Justin,” answered the DijAssist, “you could not ‘punish me’ in the manner you speak of. I’m an avatar, and so have no feelings about your decision one way or another.”

“Still,” answered Justin, “not my style. Besides, you weren’t just named for my assistant.”

“Really?” answered sebastian, managing to sound intrigued. “I show no other records of a Sebastian in your life. May I inquire as to whom my noble namesake is?”

Justin, noticing Neela, smiled for the first time since entering the flyer.

“Well,” he answered his avatar, “I’m not sure how happy you’ll be… .”

“Again, Justin, ‘happy’ is an emo…”

“I also named you after my cat.” Justin smirked.

“A feline,” said sebastian. “I’m named after a feline?” Despite his claim of indifference, sebastian sounded a little miffed.

“Hey, it
was
my favorite cat.”

“I suppose,” answered sebastian, not missing a beat, “I could learn how to meow, purr, and whatnot.”

It sounded suspiciously to Neela like fairly advanced humor for so young an avatar. She was impressed enough to make a mental note. She’d have her avatar check into the new DijAssist start-up protocols. It never hurt to be current.

“That won’t be necessary,” answered Justin, now smiling. He continued staring out the window, but it was obvious the fog had been lifted.

Neela had listened to the entire conversation in abject fascination. Whatever that little avatar had done to get Justin out of his funk, it had clearly worked.

Clever little bastard, that one
. Neela then joined Manny in a toast. Even if Justin wasn’t going to celebrate, she sure as hell was.

_______

When they were all back at Justin’s apartment, Neela brought Dr. Gillette up to speed.

“Well,” suggested the doctor loud enough for all to hear, “we could always give him a taste of his own medicine—how ’bout a P.A.?”

The den, which now included Omad, Manny, Neela, and Justin, quieted down. Even Manny, who aside from the trial had remained expressionless, raised an eyebrow. Only Justin seemed surprised by the change of mood.

“Dr. Gillette,” seethed Neela, “can I speak with you outside?”

It was not a request. As she and her mentor left the den, Neela saw Justin reach for his DijAssist.

Oh crap
, she thought,
now he’ll find out without us
.

When they were out of earshot, Neela let loose.

“How could you suggest a psychological audit!? Especially as a form of retribution? Of all the irresponsible, dangerous, impractical…”

“My dear Neela,” responded Dr. Gillette calmly, “if we can concentrate on the third of your accusations.”

“Wha…?” Neela sputtered, thrown off from her train of verbiage.

“The impractical aspect of a retributive P.A.,” Dr. Gillette reminded her.

“Impractical! Of course it’s impractical! In order to request a P.A., Justin would have to buy stock in Hektor! Which is about as likely as me seeing self-majority!”

“Well,” responded Dr. Gillette, “with regards to getting some of Hektor’s stock, it’s really not too difficult to do, even if his price is likely to rise. Your self-majority is quite another matter.”

“Perhaps you didn’t hear me, Thaddeus. I said Justin wouldn’t take Hektor’s stock even if he got it for free. Besides, why would anyone want to buy the stock of that snake, Sambianco?”

“Don’t belittle your opponents,” answered the doctor, “it clouds the judgment. And in answer to your question as to why would anyone want to buy Mr. Sambianco’s stock, I’ll simply answer with a question. Why shouldn’t anyone buy Mr. Sambianco’s stock? If I wasn’t financially tied up in an attempt to deprive Dr. Bronstein of his majority, I would buy it myself.”

Dr. Gillette saw that he wasn’t getting through.

“Neela, what do you think the rest of the world sees when they look at Hektor?”

“They see the same asshole from the press conference that they saw at the trial.”

“But what if they don’t see an asshole?” the doctor countered. “What if they see a competent adversary, and perhaps a pretty good lawyer?”

Neela had to admit it was a possibility.

“Now you’re beginning to see it from a layman’s point of view. When they see Hektor Sambianco, yes, they might see an asshole, but if they do it’s an asshole who was a good lawyer… who lost an unwinnable case, and that’s something they probably won’t hold against him. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if he ends up running GCI’s Legal department. Now, more important, try to think why this asshole wants Justin to hate him.”

“Wants?”

“Yes,” replied the doctor, “ ‘wants.’ All of his acts, all of his strategies seem bent on forcing visceral responses from our patient.”

Neela wasn’t buying it. “What if he’s just an ass? You know what Freud used to say.”

Dr. Gillette sighed, remembering just how young Neela was.

“Neela, you’re so focused on the concerns of your patient that it’s giving you a slight case of myopia.” He paused briefly. “Imagine,” he continued, “that Hektor is your patient and that you need to understand him.”

Neela was about to argue but stopped midword and considered what Dr. Gillette was asking of her. For more than a minute Dr. Gillette saw her go through the delightful, painful, and rewarding struggle of incorporating old information to a new thought pattern.

“Justin is no longer a job to Hektor,” she answered with a dawning awareness. “Justin is pushing one of Hektor’s primal emotions, jealousy, fear, hate… something. Hektor might not even know it’s what’s motivating him. That’s why he keeps on pushing Justin’s buttons.”

“Precisely, Neela. Our Mr. Cord has many wonderful attributes, but he also has a temper, which is well exposed when he feels threatened.”

“I guess you could say they’re both good at pushing each other’s buttons.”

“Yes, you could,” answered the doctor. “It might also help to think of Justin as an adolescent. In that way his emotional responses may make more sense to you.”

“But he’s in his fifties.”

“Physiologically?”

“Well, he looks thirty, but his actual physical age is closer to nineteen.” Neela paused, realized she’d missed something important, and smiled ruefully. “Of course. He has all the raging physiological attributes of a young adult male and none of the social training or years of experience on how to redeal with them.”

Thaddeus nodded in sympathy. “Don’t fault yourself, Neela. In so many ways he’s a unique case. When age reversal became available it was introduced slowly to those who needed it… those who needed to ‘catch up’ to the medical technology that would restore their youth. These individuals grew up staying perpetually young with years to deal with the effects of near-eternal youth, or they had years to come back to their ‘new’ age. But Justin is the first man I’ve ever heard of to simply go from his fifties to his late teens in one fell swoop.”

“I’ll need to talk to him about this,” she said, “but it will be hard to convince him that he’s mad at Hektor because of hormones.”

“You won’t need to. Just explain to him that his anger is appropriate but his responses are not. I’m sure he’ll understand. It’s also why I suggested he institute a psychological audit against Hektor. It will give Justin some way of striking back, which will enable him to calm down. Once he no longer feels helpless against Hektor and GCI, which to Justin is the same thing, you can then prescribe a physiological readjustment, or at least some hormone therapy. And because there’s no chance that Justin could succeed with the audit, after all, there’s no basis, and any judge would throw the request out, we can consider it an exercise in futility that will help our patient cool off. If by some miracle a judge does approve a psyche audit, it would be, given the resources of GCI, appealed all the way up to the Supreme Court. And we all know how they feel about psyche audits.”

Neela had to admit that the plan seemed well thought out, and certainly made a lot of sense. But that didn’t mean she had to like it. “I will trust your judgment, Thaddeus, but I’m not thrilled with it. Hektor is up to something.”

“My dear,” he answered, ignoring her intuition, “it’s a spurious request for a P.A. and will be seen as such by any competent judge. The only thing you have to worry about is getting our patient up to his correct hormonal levels and back on track.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Neela said, resigned. “Now if I could only convince the knot in my stomach.”

The doctor smiled and indicated that they rejoin the group. As they entered the den they both noticed that Justin was no longer sitting glumly on the sofa but was up and moving about the room.

Justin looked up and saw the both of them. “Let’s give Hektor a taste of his own medicine, shall we?” Neela couldn’t help but notice that for the first time in a long time, Justin’s eyes seemed as bright as his smile.

Hektor was enjoying his newfound power. He was once more on special assignment to the board, but this time he had an office at GCI system headquarters on the floor with all the executive vice presidents. And while he wasn’t an E.V.P. himself, his presence on their floor was meant to send a clear message—screw up this badly again and the “new” guy—the guy who warned you all—the guy you all chose
not
to listen to—gets your job, office, and perks.

He even had a secretary, though he didn’t particularly like or trust the man. Hektor was willing to bet Chairman stock to cow shit that his secretary really worked for the V.P. of Special Ops, Kirk Olmstead. But, thought Hektor, pleased, Kirk had enough to worry about. The new director’s “go to trial” strategy was not only proven wrong, it was proven disastrously, publicly wrong. The trial was followed by the worst market day that GCI had ever seen. Though, due to the inherent strength of the company, it had soon recovered 85 percent of what it had lost, it was still not fully healed. The effects would be felt systemwide in the bond, stock, and currency markets for years. Although he was still officially head of Special Operations, it was understood that the DepDir’s job was now open. If Kirk couldn’t fix the current mess, it would go to the first person who could. And Hektor had a plan.

“Mom,” said Hektor, practically screaming at the holodisplay, “will you please listen to me?”

“You’re talking crazy.”

The woman, formed in perfect three-dimensional beauty before him, was a platinum blonde in her late twenties. She was wearing a plaid pink and fuchsia dress with a plunging neckline that was long on cleavage and short on class.

Hektor sighed as he went through the “mom” effect—feeling like he was eight though knowing he was older.

“Will you at least consider it?” he asked.

“You want me to suggest that my son—my own son!—get a psycheslam?”

“Mom, it’s a psychological audit, please don’t use that slang; it makes you sound so… well, young.”

“I’ve been called a lot of things, dear boy, but to be called ‘young,’ ” she said, almost weeping, “and by my own son…” When she saw he wasn’t taking the bait she began to pout. “Hektor, dearie, what will my friends say? And more important, do you have any idea what it will do to your stock value?”

Hektor sighed. “Mom, did you sell me short?”

“What a horrible thing to ask!” she said, feigning shock. “You’re my only son.”

Hektor wasn’t buying. “Well, did you or didn’t you?”

After a pause his mother had the good grace to look ashamed.

“Honey, your stock price was plummeting, and you lost your great job, and then that transfer to the Oort Cloud…”

“Mom, I understand why. You raised me to be realistic and take chances, so I did. If it were my kid I would have done the same thing. But let me ask you another question, Mom: Did you regret it?”

Her anguished expression was all the answer he needed. He also knew where the pain was emanating from—her portfolio.

After Hektor’s court appearance his stock began to rise steadily. Once his new appointment and office had been confirmed, it practically soared. Of course, owning most of it himself he was able to use his increased equity to arrange a much better loan and pay off all his outstanding debts. He could have sold about 9 percent of himself and still have had a comfortable majority, but Hektor believed in his star. And if anyone wanted whatever stock of his was out there, let the bastards pay market price. Hektor was holding on for now, and he even got his Neela Harper stocks out of hock. And that was proving to be an even better investment than the one he had made in himself. As if to confirm his suspicion, his mother seemed on the verge of breaking down.