The Second Sphere

The doors of the elevator opened, and before us was the vast waiting area of Quincy Laslow’s office, a swirling half circular affair with curved walls of windows and comfortable black couches. Sitting at a broad, what I presumed to be faux-wood table, was the well-manicured woman who buzzed us a moment earlier. She had long, straight, black hair pulled back in a ponytail and the proper look of a doting assistant. She smiled stiffly at us.

“Morning, Shari,” Bryant said as he led us past her desk. She didn’t open her mouth, only watched us move. We walked through a set of doors to her left and down a long corridor. At the end of the corridor, Bryant led us through another set of doors.

There, sitting on a gray couch, as he sipped a cup of coffee, was Quincy Laslow. His transfer was tall, dark, and gave off an air of mystery, though his life as a playboy was well documented in the tabloids. Most recently photographers caught him with the star of the highest grossing film of all time, a woman who changed transfers more often than I changed my underwear. Our twice-weekly regular meetings with Quincy, supplemented with emergency meetings, gave me a glance into the life of the rich and famous, a life otherwise out of my reach.

A white suit clung to his lanky body. He wore a black shirt, no tie and a pair of white loafers. He stared at us for a moment, lost in thought.

Quincy Laslow was the kind of man who believed that he earned everything he had. In fact, though, his father, Ed Laslow, the wealthy founder of the company, gave him all the advantages that allowed him to feel entitled to run the Laslow Corporation’s lunar operations as he’d done for the past two hundred years.

The connections that he and his father developed over the years augmented his lack of knowledge about the threats we faced. The man had a way with people, particularly people in a certain elite social network. He knew the back-alleys of power, all the twists and turns that led the Laslow Corporation to new contracts with the Three Spheres Government.

“Good morning,” he said before he set his cup down on the shining, white coffee table and lifted himself from the couch to greet us. “I apologize. My thoughts are with the families of those killed in this attack.” He shook his head, and with it, the full mane of hair moved as a single organism. “I just can’t believe what’s happened. Just dreadful. And it seems a little worse than normal.”

“It does,” Bryant said.

“It’s a pleasure to see you despite the unfortunate circumstances. Please, sit down,” he said, pointing toward the couches. “Would you like some coffee?”

We nodded.

Quincy said rather loudly, “Shari, three coffees please!”

“We spoke to Lance,” Bryant said, eager to get down to business so that we could return to our regular state of manic operations.

“Oh yes, I’ve spoken to him several times already this morning. I trust that he gave you a hint about the investigation? The auditors who’ll be arriving this afternoon?”

“He did, sir,” Bryant said.

“You’ll give them full access to all of our files?”

“Of course, sir,” Bryant said.

“Good, I’m glad that I can rely on you to be cooperative. I’m already getting calls from the governors this morning asking about New Mumbai. The governors suggest that perhaps we were fooled by our moles into believing that the target was the Capitol, when in fact, all along, it had been New Mumbai.”

“It’s a bit of a stretch, sir,” I said. Quincy glanced at me.

“You’re the one who first introduced us to this case, are you not, Mr. Cox?” he asked.

“I was.”

Quincy smiled. He was a master of understatement. He could make anyone feel guilty with a mere flash of his eyes or a nod.

“So you all sincerely believe that you were doing the right thing by following this investigation into the plot against the Lunar Capitol?”

“Of course, sir,” Bryant said.

“Good. I just want to make sure that we’re all on the same page about this. We’ve got enough pressure on us as it is, especially with this potential new contract with the TSG. There are some who want any excuse to take our piece of the pie away and put it elsewhere.”

“I understand that sir, but we can’t--”

“I get it, Bryant. I get it. You believe that you were doing the right thing. We do need to speak with a unified voice. The problem is that it’s not good enough to simply tell the TSG or the governors or whomever it is that I’m speaking with that we believed we were doing the right thing.”

“Sir, but that doesn’t mean--”

“I’ll say it again, Bryant. It doesn’t matter what you believe or what reality is. You may very well be right. But politically, none of that matters. What matters is showing that we can get work done and that we have a specific reason, not of our making, preferably, for having erred. There are plenty of other smaller shops out there, Agnew Company, The Trane Group; all of those folks are interested in taking what we have. And they’re putting their money in the right places to do it. So we’ve got to show that no one can do what we can do.”

Shari brought in the coffee just as Quincy stopped speaking. I thought about doing a dose right there.

“So, we can be confident that this is the Green Revolution?” Quincy asked.

“I just don’t know who else it would be,” Bryant said. “They’re the only ones with the level of sophistication it would take to carry out something like this.”

Sure, there were other groups out there, Mafioso types who liked to flex their muscles occasionally, let a bought politician know that he or she had crossed a line with them. But 99 times out of 100, these were Green Revolution cases.

“Well, what’s your game plan?” Quincy asked as he patted his coiffed hair.

“Lance knows he has our full support and that anything we can do to help the team in New Washington and the JSF accomplish what they want to, we’ll do. I’m having our analysts comb through everything from the past months to see if there’s any evidence that might be useful,” Bryant said.

Quincy’s stare fell to Rosie. “My dear, what are your thoughts on this matter? You’ve been rather quiet this morning.”

Rosie opened her hazy eyes wide and shrugged. “I agree with everything they’ve said.”

Quincy smirked, eyed Bryant, then me. He searched for something. “Am I getting the sense that you’re not taking this auditor very seriously?” He asked.

“We take it very seriously, sir,” Bryant said.

“Because let me make something perfectly clear; what’s most important to me, right now, is ensuring that our contract is renewed with the TSG for lunar intelligence and military services. I don’t give a damn about anything else.”

“Yes, sir.”

“What I’m telling you, Bryant, all of you really, and let me make myself perfectly clear, is that I won’t hesitate to let any of you go if we don’t find a way to make this right. All of these hundreds of years of service that you’ve given to our company will go out the door. All of you. That means no pension transition, and no positive reference for any future employer.”

“Sir, I’ll be speaking with my informant this evening, trying to work my way up the chain.”

Quincy looked at me and smiled, slightly. He nodded, then put up a smooth, un-calloused hand. “I’m giving you forty-eight hours to come up with something significant, something that can deflect attention away from this mistake that was made by you and your team.”

“Yes, sir.”

“If I don’t have something by then, I’ll be forced to bring in people who can get something for me. Do I make myself clear?” he asked.

Bryant clicked his teeth together and stood.

“Yes, sir,” Bryant said, though I knew he wasn’t clear at all. His hands fidgeted. But, ever the good worker, he pushed his rage down and didn’t let his anger overwhelm him.

Rosie and I stood, but Quincy remained seated.

“I’ll be in touch with you at some point later this afternoon when the auditor arrives,” Quincy said. “Thank you for your time. That’ll be all.”

Without another word, his eyes guided us to the door.

We pounded by Shari and caught the elevator. No one said a thing as the doors closed. We needed to commiserate and we wanted privacy. When we got back to our office, Bryant followed us.

“Son of a bitch,” he said. Sweat beaded at his brow, and his eyes bore the threat of losing his job. Rosie and I took our seats.

“I don’t know what to say, Bryant,” I said. “But--”

“Your mole had better find something,” he said as he shook fists at me.

“I told you, I’m on it.”

“Our jobs?” Bryant asked. “Our pensions?” His face burned a deep shade of red.

“Hey, if Quincy’s worried about renewing our contract with TSG, then--”

“There are worse things that could happen,” Rosie offered. Her mind was on another plane. Love had run off with all of her senses. I hated to think this, but she sounded like a throwaway, devoid of all things human.

“Worse than losing our jobs?” Bryant asked, his voice low and throaty. “Tell me, Rosie, what would you do if you didn’t have this money coming in? Go back to the military?”

“I don’t like it either,” I said. “But you know that Quincy gets what Quincy wants. You know that. You need to be focused on making sure that we get the best out of our analysts.” I touched my chest. “I’ll worry about my mole. Okay?” I said.

“Doesn’t seem to matter to Quincy whether you take responsibility for it or not,” Bryant grumbled.

This pressure to deflect attention from the Laslow Corporation and the threat to make us the fall-people for this fuck up, something wasn’t quite right with it; something that my mind just couldn’t grasp.