The Variables (4 page)

David, Roman’s Elektos partner in Australia, waited until he was certain it was okay to interject, and then he launched. “Reward
you
? Are you out of your mind, mate? Isn’t your inclusion here reward enough? And besides, the new world only works if you view yourself as part of a team. And I’m sure you remember how that old adage goes...”

The teenager Charles scoffed. He tugged his shirt down over his hands and let them fall on the table with a bang.
 

“By all means,” Huck said, “let’s allow
all
the Brikhams a voice.” Then he settled backward in his chair and waited. “Go ahead, young man. You think you have something valuable to add? We’re all waiting.”

“My son doesn’t answer to anybody except his father and me,” the woman snapped and she put her hand on her son’s head and wrapped her fingers in his messy hair. He scooched out from under her love-pat and shot his mother a dismissive look.
 

“I can talk, Mom,” Charles said, and he stretched his arms upward, his hands popping out. “This isn’t how it was supposed to be,” the kid complained. “This isn’t what
he
,” Charles nodded toward Huck, “promised us.”

“I’m hearing this a lot...this idea that you didn’t receive what you expected. So, I must ask. What did he promise you, young man?” Morowa asked.

The kid rolled his eyes and leaned forward. He looked at Morowa on the screen and shrugged. “You know. Like my mom said.”

If the accusations bothered Huck, he didn’t seemed disturbed. He eyed the family with nonchalance and picked at the edges of his fingernails.
 

“You’ll have to be more specific if we are expected to understand,” Morowa continued. “To the best of my knowledge, your family was promised
safety
. And nothing more.”

“Safety?” Eugene slapped his hand against the table. Scott jumped, unsettled. “I could have, with a fraction of the money I gave the Elektos Corporation, built myself a bunker in the middle of the godforsaken desert for
just
myself and my family. Could have bought myself my own safety from this nutjob.” He thumbed his finger at Huck.

“A fairytale,” Huck said under his breath.

“Excuse me?” Eugene looked up from the screen, his nostrils flaring. “I didn’t need you.
You
needed
me
. You think you can play me for a fool? What’s done is done, and I know that. But I deserve my share. If you can’t provide my family what we’re due
here
, then when we go to the Islands, we expect to see what we’re owed. Tenfold.”

“I did need you, Mr. Brikham. You and your billions of dollars, which you saved through various legal loopholes and good old fashioned tax evasion. I needed your money then because money still mattered. But it doesn’t matter now. You were guaranteed life. Nothing more. Had you denied me, we would have stonewalled your every effort to save yourself.”

The wife muttered the word “monster” underneath her breath. Huck ignored it.

“You want to maintain a shred of the old world...but none of that exists. Now you’re in my home. And you’ll do as I say.”

“My money was worth something to you. You took it happily. And now you’re going to discard me like a cheap whore?”

Scott noticed Claude cringe, and they both looked to the wife, who kept nodding, nodding, nodding. The room felt hot and sticky; Scott wished he could open a window, let in some air. But there was no air, only the illusion of air.

“We’re not going down like this,” the man hesitated. “We’ve been talking to the others...those whose entire lives were spent cultivating the cash that built these places. We want our share. We want decision-making power. Your Elektos Board shouldn’t be by appointment. We want
elections
.”

The Board members whispered and their hushed voices played on the boardroom speakers. Eugene raised his head and looked at Huck triumphantly. He had struck a nerve.

“You think you say it and...poof...it will happen? That the Board will nod their heads and relinquish their role here?” Huck shook his head and laughed. “You’re delusional. This is my chosen cabinet.”

“I have a voice and I was taught how to use it,” Eugene answered. “I’m not the only one who feels like our role has been relegated to blind follower, instead of the leaders we deserve to be. We are owed. We will take our payment...now. Or else we will rally the others to stand against you and your shameful Board.”

That pronouncement stopped Huck’s laughter and he trained his eyes on the man.

Charles looked across the table at Scott and shifted as if noticing his presence for the first time. He elbowed his mother and leaned over to whisper in her ear; she stared at Scott and then pulled her head away.

“My son says that you are Lucy’s father,” the woman said, turning her full attention to Scott. “Is that right?”

Scott put his hand against his pocket and counted. One. Two. Three. Then he decided against answering her. He kept his mouth shut. She took his silence as an invitation for mockery.

“Lucky Lucy,” Mrs. Brikham said in a singsong voice. “And her little boyfriend...Grant. Oh yeah, we heard all about that little fiasco. Is that one of the perks of being on the Board? Grandfathering in outsiders despite the
rules
.” She turned her head to Huck, her eyes sharpened like talons. “I have one child. And this man,” she jerked her head to Scott, “has
six
. And you wouldn’t even let me save my niece? Denied her despite my pleas to save her. But you let that other child come, right? Someone else’s child was brought from the outside, but you wouldn’t let my family live? She was two years old.
You
let her die...”

The Board members watched the conversation unfold with rapt attention. Someone whispered, “
They found a child
?”

“It was a slippery slope,” Huck answered without emotion. “I am deeply sorry, but I must ask…where would it have ended? How many people could we realistically saved before this place and the places around the world became unsustainable? We made decisions for our future.” He pushed his index finger into the table, the tip turned white, and he breathed heavily out of his nostrils. “I did what was best for the future of society. You cannot think my only motivation was pure maliciousness. I mourn every innocent we could not save.” He stopped, and took a breath. “We could not save them all. These are my burdens to bear, and not yours.”

From the screen, Victor had raised his hand, and waited for acknowledgment. When Huck motioned for him to speak, he looked perplexed. “Excuse me if I am speaking out of turn, but we are in the dark. You found survivors?”

Huck nodded, his entire face tense, and he put up a hand to quell the anticipated backlash.

“I will address that
secondary
issue at a later time,” Huck replied through a tight smile. He could feel his tenuous grasp slipping, the balance shifting from his favor. “Mr. Brikham has proposed that we allow the Board to be an elected position...along with treating our financial benefactors as celebrities, as they are accustomed. And that is clearly the more pressing matter.”

“Is that a joke?” someone asked.

“Perhaps it was sarcasm,” another answered.

“We turned a blind eye to late arrivals...like you asked,” Mueez replied. He turned to Shay, the second board member in the Saudi System and they began to confer in low voices.

Eugene, watched the buzz and fiery debate spring up around him on the screens and he sat straighter in his chair, waiting for a moment to jump back into the conversation. His wife patted him on the back, but he didn’t acknowledge her touch or her presence; he just stared intently at the screen and then at the people in the room, the side of his mouth twitching.

Scott felt his insides go watery. He tapped his foot against the floor and kept his eyes trained on the wall.

From several feet away, Claude turned and looked at him. “Easy, friend,” he said in a whisper.

Scott didn’t need to know all the moves in Huck’s game of chess to know that from the moment Eugene Brikham opened his mouth he had already lost this game. The vials in his pocket said so. If Brikham had wanted to prolong his fight, he should have come to the Board with the issue of survivors as his primary objective. The Elektos Board required transparency to run well, and Huck’s nondisclosure of Lucy, Grant, Ethan, and Teddy’s presence was more damaging than Brikham might have realized.
 

Huck had underestimated the Brikhams’ ability to cause damage in their wake. He would win, but they would make him pay all the same.

“Eugene Brikham,” Huck said in a loud voice. Among the chaos of the Board’s inquisition, Huck had pulled out a manila file, and he began reading the contents in a steady, unyielding voice, commanding those to listen. “Felony assault. You attacked a young man at a party with broken bottle.”

Eugene laughed. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. “You have a file on me? Oh, that is rich. You knew everything about me when you approached me as a partner. You want to talk crime? Let’s talk about crime. I got nothing compared to you, Boss.”

Huck continued without pausing. He flicked through the papers. “Sexual harassment.” He lifted his eyes. “Rape.”

Immediately, Eugene’s laugh disappeared and he leaned forward. “No,” he pointed his finger at Huck. “No. Not true.”

“That bitch lied,” Mrs. Brikham said, and she crossed her arms, too, sticking her lip out in a pout. “Tell him, Eugene. Tell him how she
blackmailed
you.”

“She was after my money,” the man said matter-of-factly. “That was expunged, anyway. It’s old news.”
 

“They had DNA proof,” Huck said. He squinted at the text and then looked up, “A whole file on it. Your DNA under her fingernails. Pictures of your scratched face.”

Eugene turned white, but his eyes flashed pure fury. “That’s not in any file,” he said. “You’re lying.” The big man stood up and the chair toppled behind him. Gordy stepped forward and set it upright; even though he was several inches shorter, he stood behind him, making his presence felt.

“It’s most certainly your file. Paying corrupt cops to destroy evidence does not prevent it from reappearing. Especially when I have the
best
of the best working for
me
. You think you’re the only one whose services I needed and paid for? People like you disgust me. Read it for yourself. The truth about you is a heartbeat away...there is no escaping it.” Huck closed the folder and placed it on the table, then he put his palm on top and pushed it forward; it slid and stopped within Eugene’s reach.

“That was a different life. You said it yourself,” Eugene replied in a whisper. He eyed the folder, but didn’t go after it. “We’re here now. Things are different.”

“No, we said your money is of no use to us anymore. It doesn’t gain you power or privilege or help you escape the law,” Gordy clarified. Eugene jolted and turned, surprised to see him standing there.

“My son is right. Character lasts forever.”

Eugene put both hands on the boardroom table and leaned forward. “Character? You want to talk about character? You’re a man who killed the world. I’m sorry, so sorry...
depopulated
. Isn’t that the word you used with me? Does it help you sleep at night when you say it like that? You have a piece of paper in a file that means nothing. And that girl is dead. You were the one who made sure of that. Decomposing in her living room, for all I care. She’s a non-factor. I built this place!”

“No,” Claude replied, now standing, too. “
I
built this place. And you should sit, my son. Before you do something you regret.”

Turning his attention to the tall black man before him, Eugene eyed him with disdain before plopping himself back down.

Scott exhaled.

The faces on the screens were riveted, unmoving. They watched the drama unfold like a teleplay, afraid to interrupt.

“That girl is dead. And deserves to rot,” Eugene mumbled from his chair. “How dare you walk her into this.”

The words hit Huck and he recoiled. He rose from his seat and walked with steady footsteps to Scott and put his hand on his shoulder.

“It’s time,” Huck said in a small voice.

Hesitating, Scott let his hand hover his pocket. “I can’t, Huck,” Scott replied in a calm voice. He had been practicing the words in his head for the last ten minutes. “It’s not the same.”

From the corner, Blair shifted in her seat and strained to hear. She uncrossed her legs and leaned forward, her hand poised above her notepad. The monitors hummed, someone cleared a throat, another rustled papers.
 

Huck bent down, his lips near Scott’s ear. “Everything we did was to rid the world of men like this. He was responsible for attacks on girls, Scott. And his wife was complicit in those crimes. Their son was expelled from two private schools for carrying on his father’s tradition of feeling he is entitled access to everything, even people. We used him and now we’re done with him. These are the people who deserve to die.”

“What’s he saying?” Eugene demanded. “What’s he whispering?”

The members of the Elektos began to ask questions from the screens:
“How did a man with his history make it through your background checks and personality tests? Why was he let inside, knowing his past? Tell us about the survivors. There is a child?”
They crooned in waves of questions, each voice rising above the next, then dying away.
 

And behind it all was Eugene. “I demand to know what they are saying!”

Scott stood and turned to Huck, his back to the people he was commanded to kill. “Why now? How easy would it have been to count him among the missing...spirit him away...why the fanfare?”

“I’m allowed my reasons,” Huck replied and he turned away from Scott and walked over to Claude, whispering in his ear with empathic tones. And after he was done, Claude rose and walked over to Blair and extended his hand to her.

“What?” Blair asked, confused. She drew her notebook to her chest and looked at her father. She narrowed her eyes. “I’m staying.”

Putting his large hands on her shoulder, Claude pulled Blair to her feet and directed her toward the door. Reluctantly, she leaned back and grabbed the lined up pens and dumped them into her purse. She shook Claude off with a glare.