Chapter 2 - THE CHECK
I should have lied.
Instead, I said, “Your waitress.”
Nobody laughed.
Daniel Sterling stood three feet from me while twenty engineers stared as if I had just climbed out of the machine.
His chief engineer, Dr. Malcolm Voss, looked particularly unhappy.
“You changed a calibration coefficient,” he said.
“Yes.”
“That doesn't make you an engineer.”
“I didn't say it did.”
“You could have destroyed a twelve-million-dollar prototype.”
“It was already destroying itself.”
Someone coughed.
Daniel's mouth twitched.
Voss went red.
Daniel asked, “Where did you study?”
“Nowhere important.”
“That's not an answer.”
“It's the one I'm giving.”
He studied me.
Most powerful men hate being denied information.
Daniel looked entertained by it.
“MIT?”
My silence betrayed me.
Voss laughed.
“She doesn't have a degree.”
Daniel glanced at him.
“How do you know?”
“I know who graduates from programs worth knowing.”
That hurt more than I wanted it to.
Daniel noticed.
“When did you leave?”
“Junior year.”
“Why?”
“Life.”
“Specific.”
“Personal.”
“Fair.”
That surprised me.
Then he turned toward his attorney.
“Prepare the payment.”
Everyone froze.
I thought I'd misheard.
“What?”
Daniel looked at me.
“One hundred million dollars.”
The room exploded.
Voss actually shouted.
“Daniel!”
“You promised,” I said before I could stop myself.
Daniel's eyes returned to mine.
“Yes.”
“People like you make jokes with amounts like that.”
“People like me?”
“Rich enough that everybody pretends your jokes are contracts.”
Silence.
Daniel stepped closer.
“I don't joke about money.”
His attorney whispered something.
Daniel answered:
“I said one hundred million.”
My legs felt weak.
I imagined Ethan's college tuition.
A house.
No rent.
No overdue electric bill.
No calculating whether we could afford chicken.
Then common sense returned.
“You can't give a waitress a hundred million dollars for changing one parameter.”
“Apparently I can.”
“Why?”
“Because I said I would.”
Voss snapped:
“She got lucky!”
I turned.
“No.”
He glared.
“You saw one signal.”
“And then I checked your clock source.”
His expression changed.
I continued.
“Channel Seven wasn't simply delayed.”
Daniel became attentive.
“What do you mean?”
I pointed at the diagnostic log.
“The delay changed.”
Voss interrupted.
“Thermal drift.”
“No.”
“How would you know?”
“Because thermal drift doesn't count.”
Silence.
Daniel said, “Explain.”
I enlarged the log.
“The delay repeats in a pattern. Eleven milliseconds. Seventeen. Twenty-three. Then eleven again.”
“So?”
“Prime numbers.”
Daniel stared.
Voss went pale.
I looked at the machine.
“This wasn't a malfunction.”
Nobody moved.
“Someone programmed it.”
Daniel's entire demeanor changed.
The amused billionaire disappeared.
Something colder replaced him.
“How certain?”
“Ninety percent.”
“Why not one hundred?”
“Because good engineers don't say one hundred until they've proved it.”
Daniel looked at Voss.
“Shut down the floor.”
“Sir?”
“Now.”
Security locked the laboratory.
Phones were collected.
Daniel's people copied the logs.
Then he took me into a private office.
“You understand what you just said?”
“Someone sabotaged your machine.”
“Yes.”
“That's generally what sabotage means.”
“You're very calm.”
“I've worked brunch on Mother's Day.”
For the first time that night, he laughed.
Then he wrote something.
A check.
He slid it across the desk.
$100,000,000.
My hands went cold.
“You're serious.”
“I told you.”
I didn't touch it.
“What's the catch?”
“None.”
“There's always a catch.”
“You fixed the machine.”
“And exposed sabotage.”
“Yes.”
“So this isn't payment anymore.”
Daniel leaned back.
“What is it?”
“Hush money?”
His expression hardened.
“No.”
“Recruitment?”
“Possibly.”
“Bribery?”
“You have a suspicious personality.”
“You're a billionaire with armed men outside.”
“Fair.”
I pushed the check back.
Daniel's eyes narrowed.
“You don't want it?”
“I didn't say that.”
“Then?”
“I want a lawyer.”
He stared at me.
Then smiled.
Not coldly this time.
“Good.”
“Good?”
“If you'd taken a hundred-million-dollar check without asking questions, I'd have been disappointed.”
“Why do you care?”
Daniel's smile disappeared.
“Because whoever sabotaged that prototype knew enough about my company to get past six security layers.”
He pushed the check toward me again.
“And you're the only person in the building who saw it.”
My stomach tightened.
“That makes me useful.”
“No.”
He looked toward the locked door.
May you like
“It makes you a target.”
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