The Quantum Brain (Pulse Science Fiction Series Book 2) (6 page)

“It won’t be easy, but I will deliver generation two in whatever timeframe you allow, sir, if you are willing to allocate enough resources,” Dr. Kell said.

“Consider everyone in the room that wants to keep their jobs at your disposal, Doctor.”

At least the managers had all stopped glaring at him. Dr. Kell had a feeling they were all about to start desperately hounding him and kissing up. That was somehow worse in his mind than their forthright contempt.

“Yes, sir.”

“When the security contractor arrives, Dr. Kell, I want you to bring him up to Hazel Conrad’s office,” Miles Decker said.

All eyes were on Dr. Kell again.

“Her office, sir?”

“Yes, I have it sealed off until you and the contractor get there,” Miles Decker said. “I’ll come on for a conference call on the screen in there once you are both there. Do you have any questions, Doctor?”

Thomas Kell cleared his throat and said, “A lot actually, sir.”

Miles Decker actually smiled and Dr. Kell found it terrifying. Decker lifted his mug and took another sip before setting it down with a clunk. “Do you understand the instructions as I have given them at least?”

“Yes, sir. Do you want me to call in the contractor early?”

“No. Whenever he arrives is fine. I have other things to attend to as well. The rest of you will have instructions emailed for each of your divisions. Follow them exactly. Those of you being let go today, security is waiting for you at your office to see you out. Your personal possessions will be mailed to you.”

The screen went blue.

No one moved at first.

One manager near the head of the table turned his chair and said, “Dr. Kell, let me be the first to tell you how honored and proud I am to be working with you through this transition for our company.”

Dr. Kell turned and walked out of the conference room without responding. He found himself hoping that guy was going to be one of the ones cut today. He thought maybe Miles Decker’s ruthless nature might be contagious.

Dr. Thomas Kell and Mark Spencer walked past the industrial shredder in the outer office toward the ornate door. Two security guards stood outside.

Dr. Kell cleared his throat and said, “Miles Decker told us to go in there. That’s all I know.”

One of the men nodded. “We know.”

“How’s it going, Mr. Hall?” Mark asked.

Thomas felt bad that the contractor knew the security guard’s name, but he didn’t.

The one that answered to the name Mr. Hall crossed his arms over his broad chest. “I’m guarding the office of one of our beloved partners who is now dead. So, I’ve had better days.”

“Buck up,” Mark said. “Maybe the week will still turn around for you.”

Dr. Kell’s eyes went wide. Mr. Hall was glaring at Mark. He turned his attention off the contractor to Thomas Kell. “When you are in there with him, Dr. Kell, keep your eyes on him at all times. We don’t need any sensitive materials mishandled or her things mistreated.”

Thomas Kell swallowed. “Okay.”

“Does this mean I’m not going to be calling you Calvin any time soon?” Mark asked.

“Tread lightly, Mr. Spencer. This is not the time for your jokes and disrespect. Thank you.”

Mark Spencer was glaring back. “With all due respect then, Calvin, Mr. Miles Decker has asked me to enter this office now. Unless you overrule him at CDR, then I don’t need your permission on top of that. So, kindly step aside and don’t delay our work any further. Thank you.”

Calvin Hall narrowed his eyes, but he and the other guard stepped aside. Mark and Thomas stepped forward. Mark opened the door himself and they stepped through before closing it back.

Mark held out his hands. “Well, that went swimmingly. What now?”

“A conference call on a screen?”

Thomas did not remember a screen from his last visit to this suite. The porcelain warrior and lion were still on the table in front of the leather sofa. So were the tea set and the silver case. Thomas heard the clock ticking and spotted it sitting on a shelf with leather bound tomes on both sides. Thomas wondered if they were just for show or if they were prized property of Hazel Conrad or whoever was now her heir. There were no pictures of children or grandchildren. A laptop sat closed on the center of a pristine wooden desk.

“Did you bring a screen with you?” Mark asked.

An oil painting on the wall slid sideways with the sound of an electric motor under the ticks of that solitary clock. For a moment, Thomas Kell imagined the ghost of Hazel Conrad sliding it as she haunted the office. It stopped one painting length down from its original position. Underneath the painting had been hidden a monitor like a wide screen TV sat silent and black. It went blue and then Miles Decker was sitting in a recliner with his feet kicked up.

He was wearing a fleece parka. The storm had picked up outside nearly whiting out the scene. The camera view was closer to the windows now. Decker had an open crystalline bottle on the table next to his chair and held a tumbler half filled with a liquid Thomas guessed was scotch.

Miles Decker said, “Hello again, Dr. Kell. Mark Spencer, I presume.”

“Yes, sir,” Mark said.

Thomas exhaled feeling relieved that Spencer was not talking to Decker the way he had spoken to Calvin Hall outside.

Miles Decker said, “I’ve had a day, but I’m not interested in recounting it or receiving your sympathy – heartfelt or otherwise. If it works for you two, I’d like to explain our business here in a dead woman’s office and be done with it. Will that do?”

Thomas Kell nodded.

Mark Spencer said, “Works for me. Tell me what you need.”

“Your non disclosure agreements cover this conversation. It would serve you both well to fully understand that. Do you both understand?”

“Yes, sir,” both men said in unison as they faced across Hazel Conrad’s nearly empty desk.

“Hazel Conrad did not use computers despite being senior partner of one of the largest technology companies in the history of the world.” Miles Decker paused long enough to take another swallow of his scotch. Thomas glanced down at the laptop in front of him and back up at Miles Decker on the screen. “Her secretary and personal assistant input all of her data, transcribed messages into e-mail, and so on. Of course, her laptop utilized for that purpose sits in front of you. Her secretary died with her in a fiery mess in the mountains of West Virginia. I need the data pulled from her computer and everything that involved her secretary’s codes. I need it sent to my private computers and swept off our systems there. Is that something you can do for me, Mr. Spencer?”

Mark Spencer stepped around the desk and sat down as he opened the laptop. As it powered on, Mark turned the chair toward the screen. “Do you know her password?”

“If I knew her password,” Decker said, “I’d have one of our IT guys do this. Did I mention the fiery mess in West Virginia? That’s where the password went and now I need this data and this computer opened.”

“Is it automatically connected to the CDR servers?”

“I believe so.”

Mark turned the chair back toward the desk. “Give me just a moment.”

“She would be quite upset in whatever afterlife she finds herself to know you were sitting in her chair,” Miles said from the screen behind Mark.

Mark Spencer sighed and asked, “Would you prefer I stand while doing this task for you, sir?”

“Just do the task.” Decker took another large swallow and refilled his tumbler from the bottle.

“I’m in the system,” Mark said. “I have all her data and all information that passed through this laptop and from codes used on this laptop. It appears ‘Iron Ladybird’ was the label used by her secretary as Ms. Conrad’s proxy. All that data is bundled, if you want to tell me where to send it.”

“That was fast,” Decker said. “Are our systems really that vulnerable to hacking?”

Mark made eye contact with Dr. Kell and then turned the chair toward the screen again. “Not exactly, sir. We created an encryption to handle the uplinks for Dr. Kell’s projects. We also created an algorithm that sorts data more quickly for his projects. I was able to use that to collect what you needed, but it does not allow me to see any of it because my temporary clearance is not high enough. Yours will allow you to see everything. If you’ll tell me where you want the data sent, I’ll do that and then once you confirm you got it, I can sponge it from the system.”

“No one else will be able to retrieve it even from within CDR?” Miles Decker asked.

“Only you will have it after we complete the transfer,” Mark Spencer said.

“You are in her laptop now?”

“Yes, sir.” Mark swung back toward the desk.

“I’m sending the address for the data transfer through an instant message to the Iron Ladybird account.” Decker took out his phone and typed with one hand while holding his scotch with the other.

“I have it, sir. Transferring now.” Mark Spencer stood up and walked back around the desk.

“What about erasing it from the system?” Decker asked.

“You’ll get a command icon once you open the data,” Mark said. “Then, your code will allow you to authorize the erase automatically from CDR’s system.”

“Well done,” Decker said. “Both of you. Now, stay there until this is done. I’ll send in the crew to pack her things once it is finished and you can go back to your other tasks then.”

The screen went blue and then black. The painting motored slowly back into place.

“It must be a real trip working here every day,” Mark said.

Thomas sighed and turned away. “I’m supposed to be handling pure research. My job is drifting further and further away from that every moment into whatever this is that we are doing.”

Mark shrugged. “Wealthy people and their secrets.”

Dr. Kell laughed and choked it back down thinking that having a laugh over a dead woman’s desk wasn’t the best idea. He thought Calvin Hall in the outer office might hear through the door and not take kindly to it.

“Would you ever work for a place like CDR?” Dr. Kell asked.

“I am working for CDR right now,” Mark said. “I’m doing work they don’t even want their own IT guys to know about.”

“Right.” Dr. Kell shook his head. “That’s not exactly what I meant. I meant would you ever consider working for a place like this all the time? Coming here morning after morning?”

Mark shrugged. “Not much advantage to the illusion of a steady paycheck. The money is better in contracting. Not so much between contracts, I suppose. You have to sign away your rights same as me for that steady paycheck. They are always threatening to fire everyone if you aren’t looking scared and submissive enough. Then, if they do fire you, you can’t even get a job in your field for two years. So, you can’t afford to quit. You can’t even afford to look for other work. When I’m done here, I’ll take my money … I’ll take what’s rightfully mine and I’ll walk away a free man. So, I guess that’s the long way of saying I wouldn’t be interested in being beholden to a place like CDR or a man like Miles Decker … or Hazel Conrad’s ghost. No offense to either one if they are listening in right now.”

Mark looked up at the ceiling.

Thomas Kell laughed and didn’t make an effort to stifle it this time.

Dr. Kell said, “Maybe I should think about joining you. We could be a team and get work as …”

Thomas Kell staggered and grabbed hold of the desk as a wave of dizziness took hold and wouldn’t seem to let go.

“What’s wrong, Doctor?” Mark asked.

Dr. Kell didn’t know how to answer. He needed to get a good night’s sleep in an actual bed, he thought.

He looked up and opened his mouth to try to explain, but the words caught. He saw the small china cups of the tea set lift off the table behind Mark and spin slowly in the air as if they were about to begin a dance in some musical about a magic kitchen. The silver case scrapped and lifted into the air as well. Thomas Kell pictured the ghost of Hazel Conrad leaning forward from her chair to lift the objects to bring fear from beyond her fiery grave.

The silver case tilted to one side in the air and banked like an unbalanced aircraft. It pinged against the porcelain statue, turned it so that the warrior was displaying his dying lion for Dr. Kell again. A white chip broke loose from the shoulder and twirled up into the air reminding Dr. Kell of some rogue asteroid flying off course to destroy the world.

At the noise of the impact, Mark turned around to look behind him. He had heard it too. This was not all in Dr. Kell’s head which made Thomas Kell even more afraid.

Mark’s turn caused him to waver on his feet. He tilted backward with the motion and lifted up on his toes at an odd angle. He looked like he was performing some ballet or modern dance. He was not falling. It was as if he was being lifted up too.

Dr. Kell gripped the desk harder. The laptop slid and then hoisted into the air with the tether of the power cord dragging behind it.

The clock drifted off the shelf and rolled in the air causing the ticks to change tone. The guts of the clock were coming off balance. Books fell in the absence of the clock and drifted off the shelf as well. The leather covers opened and the golden edged pages splayed out. Thomas imagined birds taking flight with leather bound wings. He thought that would be a better description of a bat or something demonic.

“What’s happening?” Dr. Kell whispered.

Mark did not answer.

Thomas Kell felt his weight come back and objects fell around the room. Teacups bounced off the table like ping pong balls. The silver case smashed the statue and cracked the table’s surface. The warrior’s decapitated porcelain head rolled away. The clock crashed to the floor and gears exploded out of the clock’s broken face. The books landed around it. The laptop landed on Dr. Kell’s hand and he staggered away from the desk like he had been bitten.

He turned toward Mark Spencer who was straightening his shirt. Dr. Kell shook his head. “What was that? What happened?”

“I signed a non disclosure agreement,” Mark said. “Everything that happens in this room is a secret, I’m told.”

The door to the office flung open and bounced off the wall. Calvin Hall ran inside and looked around the floor. He looked up at Mark Spencer and Hall’s expression went from surprise to anger. “What happened here?”

“Nothing yet,” Mark said.