Founder

Detective Galanos looked around the office waiting room and tried to distract herself from how long she’d been kept waiting.  

What is it with Nash Industries decor? Did they actually set out to make this place as bland as possible?

After two weeks of being assigned to the recovery of the stolen Archetype samples, Nash Industries’ most valuable prototypes, Galanos had already become accustomed to corporate stonewalling.

If they just gave me the information I need to do my job, I’d have this wrapped up in a week, the middle aged woman brooded. Her eyes flicked towards the plain wooden door opposite her, emblazoned with the nameplate: Michael Ivonak, CEO.

They deny every information request for weeks, then suddenly he summons me like some filing clerk!

Detective Galanos sighed and rubbed an aching wrist before reaching into her coat pocket for an energy drink. Despite the humiliation if being at Ivonak’s beck and call, she knew that she couldn’t walk away from this case. Weeks after she had been exposed to an Archetype prototype, the detective’s rare stretches of sleep were filled with someone else’s dreams.

She was just a girl, Galanos wandered, cracking open the small blue can and taking a furtive gulp. How was I able to access her memories from just a lock of hair? The child had died months beforehand. It shouldn’t be possible. It’s – unnatural.

“Drinking on the job?” came a familiar voice. “Detective, I’m shocked. I thought Baltimore’s finest would be above such a crutch.”

Galanos took a cynical look at the man standing in the open doorway. The Nash Industries CEO was a handsome figure, tanned, with wavy black hair and a disarming smile.

The detective looked Ivonak in the eye and took a long, slow drink, finishing the rest of the energy drink in one gulp before crushing the small can and placing it in a nearby recycling bin.

“So what do I owe the pleasure of this visit?” growled Galanos, walking past the CEO and standing in the dull grey office. “Are you going to fill me in on the background of the Archetype project?”

“No idle banter?” replied Ivonak with a mournful look. “A bit of verbal back-and-forth? They do it in all the cop streams I watch.”

“This isn’t a crime show and you’re not my Captain, Mr Ivonak.”

“True,” smiled the tanned figure. “But Nash Industries has poured tens of millions into your precinct. How’s the wrist, by the way? I understand the implants were top of the line. Anyway, I guess that kind of corporate sponsorship kind of makes me your boss, doesn’t it?”

“No. It doesn’t.”

Galanos examined the young man’s face, vaguely hoping for some glare or grimace, but Michael simply chuckled, taking a seat behind a bare wooden desk.

“Alright, enough playtime. I have a lead on a stolen Archetype sample.”

“Where?” asked Galanos, taking out a small data slate.

“Beckenham Investments, a global accounting firm with a branch downstate. I’ve confirmed that they have already used one of the Archetype treatments. I need you to retrieve the effected material and bring it back to me for safekeeping.”

“And are you going to tell me how you came to get this information?”

“No,” replied Ivonak with a happy smile. “Corporate confidentiality. Of course, if you have a complaint you’re free to take it up with you Captain.”

“I’ll see what he wants me to do,” said Galanos, putting away the slate and stalking out if the room.

“You do that!” called Michael to her retreating back. “Perhaps you can have some of that idle banter I’m missing out on!”

The Detective leaned on her steering wheel and looked out if the windshield at the shiny chrome building across the car park. Down one side was emblazoned Beckenham Investments: A Family Company.

“God damn you, Cap,” Galanos muttered, getting out of her vehicle and stalking across the parking lot. On habit she started noting the details of the building; the likely number of staff, emergency exits and probably security arrangements, but her memory was still angrily replaying her last conversation.

You have to understand the larger forces at work in our situation, Detective. If Mr Ivonak needs our assistance, we have to give it to him. It’s about being good citizens.

It’s bribery!

It’s survival. I was given a confidential memo from the Mayor’s office. The city is scaling back garbage pickups. We simply can’t afford it anymore. If you want to keep this precinct open, Galanos, you have to learn to play the game. Or would you like to return that fancy new implant and start handing out the severance notices yourself?

Galanos took a weary sip from an almost-empty energy drink can, threw it beneath the seat with the others and made her way into the building. The detective spotted the reception desk, but was stopped in her tracks by a brightly-dressed young woman waving cheerily at her.

“You must be Detective Galanos! Michael said he was sending one of his people over!”

“And you are-?” asked Galanos, flipping her badge and making a grim mental note to follow up the phrase “his people” with Ivonak later.

“I’m Deputy CFO Candice Donahue, don’t worry about writing that down, if you’re with Michael, I’m sure you understand how things work.”

“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on here, Miss Donahue?” grated Galanos.

“Oh, Michael didn’t say? He does love his little tricks, doesn’t he? Well, Beckenham is in the middle of what the media calls a ‘corporate demerger,’ but that’s just a polite way of saying a civil war. Our board is divided into two camps, and voting for a way forward has split down the middle. There’s our camp of course, people like you and I who understand and embrace the coming GR Event, and then there’s dinosaurs like John Holland, who will mindlessly stick to company tradition long after it’s clear that the old ways aren’t going to work.”

“So how is this my problem?”

“Unfortunately, our goals for the company’s future haven’t been successful lately. Every enterprise we’ve put forward has not met the expected revenue, or been caught up in all sorts of red tape. One of our senior members came close to unseating Holland as Director if the Board, but some rather embarrassing financial indiscretions from more than 30 years ago suddenly resurfaced. We did our own investigation, of course, and it appears that Holland is behind this – you understand that failure of our business plans means he retains his hold on the board.”

“And?”

“We think he has insider help. Someone with a deep knowledge of Beckenham’s personnel and finance history, corporate meeting records, stock movements, that sort of thing. We’ve examined all available staff but we have no idea where the information is coming from.”

Galanos nodded and put away her data slate.

“I think I know. Mr Holland may have come into possession of an… item stolen from Nash Industries.”

“Really?” asked Candice brightly, unsuccessfully trying to hide the greed in her expression. “Is it something you can tell me about.”

“Ah, I think that Mr – I mean Michael, wants to keep it under wraps for now. But if you want to help, here’s what I need to know…”

A few hours later Galanos waited behind a concrete pylon and looked out at the rows of high-priced corporate cars.

A single one of these would pay my rent for a year. Bastards.

The detective tried to console herself that she was working in an honest job, but the reassurance turned bitter when she remembered the Captain’s deal with Ivonak. Sighing in frustration, she felt her hands reach for an energy drink in her coat pocket but came up empty.

Somewhere in the carpark a mobile phone chimed, and Galanos bit down the curse on her lips as she sunk deeper into the shadows.

“Gerry, I’m telling you, you have to trust me. This isn’t the future old man Beckenham would have wanted for the company. Embracing the GR Event? What kind of a monster does that? The old man would be spinning in his grave. Yes, I do know he would. Look, we’re going to cut them off at the knees this time, ok? I happen to know where some missing files have been kept, it’s in a safety deposit box downtown-“

“Mister Holland?” asked Detective Galanos cheerily, stepping out from behind the concrete pillar and flashing her badge. “I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

The old man carrying a briefcase was short, but powerfully built, with the broken nose and cauliflower ears that suggested a history of being a bad boxer or good brawler. Holland looked her up and down then whispered into his phone.

“Gerry? I’m going to have to call you back, Gerry. Got a situation here. Love to the wife and kids, ok?”

The businessman straightened his expensive coat and looked deliberately over Galanos’s shoulder at the waiting car.

“Got me before I could get into my car or back home. Smart – harder to argue for a warrant. I suppose my rivals on the Board sent you?”

“I’m simply here following up on a theft case,” replied Galanos politely. “Some materials from Nash Industries has been sold on some kind of corporate black market. You wouldn’t happen to know anything about this, would you?”

Holland looked the detective up and down with a hard gaze.

“So it was Michael then. What a bastard, I didn’t think he’d take their side. I suppose you’re armed? We both know you couldn’t take me if it came down to it.”

Galanos grinned coldly. “Of course I am. But for the record, I’ve taken nastier – and younger – men than you.”

Surprisingly, Holland laughed, a deep throaty chuckle that bounced around the empty carpark.

“Good. You have no idea how depressing it is to be surrounded by whiny little sycophants with no spine. Take a ride with me, and we’ll talk business.”

Without asking for permission, the heavyset man strode past Galanos and waved his wrist over the car door, the sleek black vehicle responding with a chirp and opening its doors.

“Get out of the car, Mister Holland,” snapped the detective. “I have to take you down to the station for questioning!”

Holland sighed, arching his eyebrow and looking at her with mild disbelief.

“Oh come now. If your one of Michael’s people you understand how it works? Michael wants what’s in this briefcase. I want my investment company back. We don’t do interviews at the county lock-up, Detective. We have quiet conversations and make… arrangements.”

Galanos weighed her chances with asking her Captain to send down an incident response team, then grit her teeth and climbed inside the car. Holland nodded as she took the leather seat opposite him.

“Drive,” the old man ordered, placing the small black briefcase neatly on his lap. The car chirped obediently and the vehicle and pulled out of the carpark, with only the shadows behind the blackened windows and the hum of the electric engine to indicate to Galanos that they were moving at all.

“Very well,” rumbled Holland. “You have my attention. Please state your offer.”

“There is no offer. You’ve acquired an Archetype sample that is the intellectual property belonging to Nash Industries, and I’m guessing you used it on a hair or bone or something belonging to the Beckenham who founded this company. But if you surrender the remains and any additional samples, we may be able to keep this off the news streams.”

Holland laughed.

“Detective, people like me own those news streams. What else have you got?”

Galanos narrowed her eyes and thought about what she’d learnt of the heavyset figure, keeping a hand on her weapon as the car sped silently through the night.

“What about the company itself, Mister Holland? Surely you understand that Nash Industries siding with your board opponents is more than you can handle. If I go back to Michael empty-handed, his response is bound to… escalate.”

The detective kept her face carefully neutral but marked how Holland tensed up, leaning forward to reflexively grip his suitcase.

“Short term gain versus a long term loss,” he rasped. “Interesting. But what would happen if you simply disappeared, presumably after stealing the Archetype sample for my opponents on the board? Security footage is surprisingly easy to manipulate, and Mister Ivonak would then turn on his new-found friends.”

The old man’s eyes glittered as the silence in the car lengthened.

Galanos gripped her weapon tightly, weighing up her possible futures.

“And what if there was a struggle in apprehending a corporate criminal?” whispered Galanos. “An old man under stress, attacking a Detective in the line of duty. No one could blame her. The Beckenham Board and Nash Industries wouldn’t blink an eye, and would back up such a brave officer of the law.”

Or at least I hope so, she added in the privacy of her skull.

Galanos watched the leathery hands and face twitch, and felt her finger tighten around the trigger of her gun. The old man snarled, reaching into his jacket, and the Detective started to raise her weapon, but instead of a gun Holland sighed and flopped back against the upholstered seat, pulling out a handkerchief.

“You win,” grunted Holland, wiping his brow. “I’ve made some significant gains in my position. No point reversing that by taking on Ivonak.”

The old man waved his wrist over the briefcase, the top of which slid aside with eerie silence to reveal a small tooth in a foam cup.

“Beckenham lost it when I won my first boxing match against him,” continued Holland, fishing the tooth out and offering it to the Detective. “Hung onto it for years as a keepsake. Never thought it could be used to see what the old man was thinking. Here, take it.”

Galanos put out her hand on reflex, and it took her a second to recognise that Holland had used the hand holding the handkerchief to handle the tooth.

By the time Galanos registered what was happening, the tooth had fallen into her hand and her world dissolved.

In his mind’s eye great waves of numbers rose and fell around him, each a pulsing frantic glow of colours and sounds.

“Do you see what’s happening, Beckenham?” a voice asked. “The company’s doing better than ever, but in the long run-“

“I see it. Oh my God, it’s even worse than I thought.”

“It’s what you get with good old fashioned greed, Bob. But what does it mean for us?”

He looked up at the mountains of numbers surrounding him. They had turned dark now, towering higher and higher. One day soon, he knew, they would wipe everything out.

“We have families who depend on us, John. Mom and Pop retirement funds aren’t going to matter a damn when it all falls apart, and they’re going to be the first to suffer.”

“The Board won’t be happy. They’ll want to look after the shareholders first.”

“The Board will do what I tell them. We still have time – a few decades, at least. Perhaps… I don’t know. Maybe we can think of something.”

As the young man left the room he felt the old depression eating away at him again. John was smarter than most, and he’d seen what others were only beginning to suspect.

It was inevitable. There was nothing any of them could do to stop it.

And it was going to destroy them all.

Galanos blinked, feeling like her mind was rising up out of the murky sea as she looked up at the muzzle of her gun.

“Well, shit.”

“Deep shit,” replied Holland calmly. “I’m sorry it had to end this way. I’m one of the good guys, Detective, I really am. But if I want to fight against what’s coming I need to take back control of this company first.”

Galanos watched as Holland squeezed the trigger on the firearm, which pulled back with an angry buzz. Confused, the old man squinted at the gun and pulled the trigger again.

“Having problems?” smiled the detective. “I understand it’s quite common with men your age.”

Before Holland could reply Galanos snatched the weapon from Holland’s hand. The weapon replied with a happy chirp.

“You’re not the only one with security implants,” continued Galanos, pulling back her sleeve with her free hand to expose the fresh surgical scar in her wrist. “Top of the line, or so I’ve been told. It also registers all attempts to fire my weapon, which would look bad if the information was provided to the Board.”

“Damn you,” spat Holland, his leathery face pale and shaking.

“Already there, believe me. Now you’re going to give me the briefcase, then turn this car around and drop me off at my car. In exchange, I’ll let you live and you can squabble over Beckenham Investments to your heart’s content. I’d say that’s a pretty good deal, wouldn’t you?”

Holland glowered.

“Drive home,” he snarled.

Galanos smiled as the vehicle gave a chirp and shifted into a new path.

“So you got back the stolen Archetype,” said Ivonak, pulling himself up out of the pool with gusto.

“I dropped it off with your security team,” replied Galanos, noting with surprise how toned the CEO’s body was.

“How did you do it?” continued Michael, hanging a towel around his neck and walking past the detective as the water dropped off his body. “I was expecting to see Holland dragged out of the Beckenham building in handcuffs.”

“I made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.”

“Oh my God, I have always wanted to hear someone say that!” laughed Ivonak. “See? Idle banter! No-one here does that anymore!”

“It would have went a lot easier if you have me all the information I needed from the beginning,” growled Galanos.

“Come on, it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun if I did. On that subject, we’ve uncovered a few new details regarding VOC from D’Courcy’s backup server. I’ll forward it through to your office.”

“I have just one question, then.”

“You wouldn’t be such an amazing detective if you didn’t. Ask away.”

“What’s the GR Event?”

At the words Ivonak stopped, the muscles on his back bunching up before relaxing.

“Oh, that’s not something you need to worry about, Sandra,” he replied, turning around and flashing a smile. “Your precinct is part of my organisation now. You concentrate on the Archetype Project, and leave the larger battles to me.”

Galanos’s eyes narrowed.

What are you hiding from me, you slick bastard?

The detective’s mind was still turning over Ivonak’s words as she was escorted away.