Aurona, page 5
“What have you got here, boy?”
“Quick! Quick! Just read it, Grandpa. You’ll see!”
“Hmm.” The old man buried his nose in the article. “Wow, she’s a beauty! But what’s this? It says that ‘to the dismay of historical groups and the public alike, this abandoned structure is slated for demolition this afternoon.’” He looked up with a start. “This afternoon?” He bent back to the paper immediately. “Hey! It says that it can still be purchased for a song, but the buyer has to deal directly with cash in hand!”
“A song, Grandpa! A song! We’ve got that!”
He spun to his financial team and raised a questioning brow. “Guys, six months have flown by and we’ve grown way too big for my kitchen. Waddaya think? We got about a billion to play with, and two more in reserve. Can we pull this thing off?”
There was no hesitation. They all finished reading the article on the fly. One trip up the Aerie’s express elevator and a spectacular view from the once-posh penthouse roof garden convinced the group to buy the building on the spot. With the sale quickly out of the way, they decided to spare no expense on the much-needed renovations. Garnering enthusiastic nods from a small army of historical experts, the common areas would once again see only the thickest carpet and finest marble, with gold and crystal appointments. After the team got permission to totally rewire the soaring edifice and bring it into the information age, tiny, precisely aimed 3DSat and FarNet receptors were concealed on top of every stone outcropping and behind every gargoyle.
G&A’s new home base proved to be a winner right from the ribbon cutting. The contractors had hardly finished refurbishing the lower hundred and twenty floors when the big-name tenants began to pour in. The prestigious location, superior amenities, and unparalleled accessibility to the world all justified the sky-high leases.
Things really began to hum when a popular, savvy headhunter website put out the word: G&A’s fledgling empire would pay top dollar to a select group of financial whizzes and they’d be privilege to the Aerie’s six most coveted floors below the penthouse. Soon, the army of eager number crunchers were intensely schooled in the superior financial system and began to pull in incredible amounts of profit. In six more months, with seemingly unstoppable momentum, G&A had leaped from simple stock market whizzes into the ranks of one of the top ten venture capital firms in the world. G&A’s foot was securely in the door. Two incredible, dizzying years later, they pulled away from the pack as number one. Their lives had been turned totally upside down.
Grandpa breathed a sigh of relief: manipulating money and figures was never his forté; his real passion and skills were focused entirely on inventing. He promoted his trusted friend to CEO with total responsibility to run the show. All he wanted was to sit secretly on the board, erase his name from the roster, and pull a few strings from the shadows. In capable hands, G&A’s seeds started to produce that unimaginable, self-replicating harvest that he and his grandson had dreamed about.
Far more valuable than any kind of wealth, the old man had finally gained the precious, elusive commodity of time: now there’d be time for exploration, time for discovery, time for all the research and inventing he’d ever want … all with unlimited funding. Gradually, he pulled himself further and further back into the shadows.
Meanwhile, Adam swept through the finest gifted programs, prep schools, and universities in the world, causing a commotion as he attracted top honors like a superconducting magnet. In a coup, he astounded academic circles when he received the equivalent of his third doctorate at sixteen, a true prodigy. Amazingly, no one was aware of his vast wealth; both he and his grandfather had gone to great lengths to help him “blend in” and be just one of the guys.
His exciting years of education began to ring hollow. Living abroad at boarding schools most of the time, he was away far too long from his beloved grandpa and adventure. With no roots, there was no meaning to his lonely life. Nobody at college understood his crazy talk or the inventions he was constantly dreaming up.
Stopping by the Aerie on a rare visit, the old man filled him in on his latest exciting progress with the Star Map. Sensing a disturbing shift to the boy’s mood, he quickly made up a game of translating and memorizing the mysterious runes they’d photographed in the Galaxy Room. After he left, he sent off a salvo of encrypted messages, bombarding his grandson with their new secret code. It seemed to work for a while, but Adam’s keen mind soon mastered the symbols. The newness wore thin; mere words could never substitute for just hanging with his best pal.
The times of utter, grinding isolation crept in: long, lonely days staring at clouds from the Aerie’s penthouse and longer, lonelier nights fending off waves of disturbing dreams with alien-filled invasions and amazing, shape-shifting saucers. The dreams became relentless, so real and so vivid they began to frighten him. Was he going crazy? He woke up sweating and confused, trying desperately to separate fact from fantasy. As his life’s foundation crumbled, his fearless, rooting spirit began to wither. Once inquisitive and full of life, he grew quieter and more withdrawn. His voicemails and texts to Grandpa were starting to go unanswered. The old man was increasingly unreachable, busy on all consuming “projects” at undisclosed locations. He’d never experienced this degree of isolation before and started to grow angry and jealous; he and his grandpa had always been a team, right in the thick of everything.
Eventually, to his total dismay, his grandfather’s cherished notes and cheerfully illustrated runic letters stopped coming. It seemed that he’d simply dropped off the face of the Earth. Adam suddenly realized the chilling truth: only seventeen, he was now completely on his own. Any more postgrad college was out of the question; he’d garnered all the post and post-post grad degrees he’d ever want or need. It was time to move on, to take command of real matters … like his future. He loathed the very concept of just sponging around and living off his fortune. He knew he had a lot to give, and was way too adventurous to turn into a house cat.
He knuckled down and scanned the Internet for employment ideas. There was a promising job offer, a ground floor position at the Interplanetary Flight Academy, an exciting new offshoot of his all-time favorite, Space-X. He moved fast and was immediately accepted at IFA; it seemed his education and reputation spoke for itself.
On a short introductory visit, he was astounded to find the fledgling institution clumsily flapping along on outdated ideas and obsolete equipment that he and his grandfather had discarded as ballast when he was a kid. Taking a gamble, he tactfully suggested a short list of radical changes to get IFA airborne. When his rambling conversation began to focus in exclusively onto R&D, he casually dropped his grandfather’s name and O&A’s philosophy of distributing venture capital. Maybe they could use some help?
The shop foreman stopped dead in his tracks. Keeping his voice low, he turned to Adam to explain something that he didn’t know: it was O&A’s generous grants that had funded the formation of their secretive, radically new R&D department: Adam’s own investment firm had already been working behind the scenes!
The shocked board of directors pulled a late-night emergency meeting. Suddenly, sitting right in their laps was this genius, their main investor’s teenage grandson, with a list of astounding suggestions and ideas. Things began to rumble. Wasting no time, they shook off the dust of bureaucracy and took a leap of faith. In a unanimous decision, they gave the boy an unprecedented promotion, catapulting him from the lowly ground floor position he’d sought to a coveted spot within the lofty senior ranks in their Space Lab Division. He’d be involved in research, pure research … and flying as a test pilot as well! He was astounded. Just like his grandpa, now he could actually think! His future assured, he knuckled down and began to put in long, exciting hours. The hectic, rewarding, yet tiring days turned to weeks, and then years.
Then it happened. One night, barely a week before his twentieth birthday, his fragile, scholarly world came crashing down. A mysterious messenger showed up at his penthouse door with the news he’d secretly dreaded for years. Grandpa had died.
Numb with shock, he slumped against the door listening with only half an ear. The nervous messenger would only identify himself as a government employee and, as such, was courteous and to the point. He’d be divulging classified information, so Adam would be expected to remain close-mouthed about it. It seemed there had been a disturbing … incident.
The story unfolded: a few weeks ago, on a routine flight through the asteroid belt, planetary patrol had spotted a nimble, ultrafast spacecraft of unknown origin streaking toward the Earth, decelerating rapidly and ignoring all efforts at communication. After a wild chase, interceptors forced it to land at Mars Base 7. The moment it touched down, all hatches had popped. The space-suited boarding parties had found grandpa’s frozen body strapped tightly into the pilot’s seat, his last will and testament recorded in the craft’s flight log.
As the messenger leaned toward Adam, his eyes darted curiously around the Aerie’s slick 50’s style penthouse. He lowered his voice still more. Per his grandfather’s recorded instructions, they’d pulled both him and his strongly crated, incredibly heavy cargo off the silver craft. Suddenly, unexplainably, the mysterious vessel had burst to life. Despite all they could do, it blasted away at an incredible rate of acceleration. Within moments, it had reached sublight speed and disappeared without a trace. The press had been given a severely laundered version of the unsettling rendezvous: after all, international panic had to be suppressed. His grandfather had been revealed as the mysterious founder of G&A, and had become an icon even in the intrasolar planetary circles. The abbreviated, edited news of his untimely death was being broadcast at that very moment. Without another word the caller nodded curtly, turned on his heel, and quietly slipped out the door.
Absently thanking him, Adam sagged back into a chair, his head reeling in confusion. “How cold,” he muttered. “H-how absolutely unfeeling. Was that mole of a man a robot? Did he actually say the news was being broadcast? But Grandpa loved to work from behind the scenes! He hated the spotlight!” Trembling with hesitation for a moment, he cleared his throat to activate the apartment’s voice-remote. A single word followed by a spoken numerical code turned on the huge, 10-foot wall screen. One by one he called out the news channels, scrolling through them in astonishment and throwing them up in multiple split-screen arrangements.
“Wow! He wasn’t kidding!” he gasped. “They’re all covering the event!”
Despite himself, he was sucked into the frenzy. A great funeral was planned, running for the next few days! With true-to-form sensationalistic fervor, the wild-eyed journalists all portrayed Grandpa as the elusive, secretive cloak-and-dagger figurehead behind G&A. The old man was an eccentric hermit and supposedly the wealthiest man ever to have lived!
As they spewed on effusively, Adam’s jaw sagged. “What is all this crud?” He had to back his chair way back from the big screen to take it all in. Multiple cameras were panning ever so slowly over a sea of famous faces as a sequence of prerecorded well-known voice-over personalities droned with their testimonies of Grandpa’s generosity. ‘Philanthropy’ seemed to be the catchword of the hour. He sat there numbly, shaking his head in disbelief. Apparently, it seemed that no one could calculate the actual total of this mysterious man’s lavish gifts, but they dwarfed that of all charitable organizations, relief funds, philanthropies, scholarships, and Nobel prizes combined!
His eyes popped. “Grandpa, you’ve been busy! I never dreamed you helped so many people in so many countries!” The 3DTV camera unexpectedly cut back to America, to Washington, DC, then to the Capitol building.
“Wow! You even helped out our crazy government??”
It zoomed inside the entrance toward a dazzling, blurry gleam in the center of the huge screen. Adam caught his breath as the camera pulled in for a close-up of the old man’s face. Grandpa! Yes, there he was, hands folded, lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda like a king! What in the world was going on?
Shaking in his gut, he turned down the volume and slumped in his chair. He squeezed his eyes shut. “Why hadn’t he...? Where’d he…?” It was all happening too fast. As the raw, underlying truth struck with an icy sword, he fought valiantly to keep the tears from coming. He’d just seen everything with his own eyes: his only real friend was dead and he was indeed alone now. Suddenly life itself had become impossible, unbearable. The torrents broke loose and he cried himself into a fitful, exhausted sleep in the chair.
Too early the next morning, the phone rang. After a round of seemingly endless incoming calls and condolences, a long black limo appeared to sweep him away. A quick flight to Reagan Airport in Washington, DC, produced an even longer limo waiting out on the tarmac. He raised a brow. This one was enormous: a disproportioned, ugly land yacht sporting twelve flags and a motorcycle escort to boot. But it was smooth. As they glided silently up to the Capitol building, he was amazed at the pandemonium outside. It looked like there were thousands of important people outside awaiting his arrival. Presidents of nations, kings, ambassadors, everyone jostled for space to see him, elbowing into each other’s way. His heart began to pound painfully in his chest.
“Yikes! They’re all waiting for me?”
Teeth and fists clenched, he glanced up nervously over his head, peering out through the full-length electrically darkened roof panel. Swooping low over the Capitol’s dome and jostling dangerously for the restricted airspace, a swarm of blunt-looking Notar jetchopper drones sounded like angry bees. Their undersides literally bristled with antennas and domes concealing state-of-the-art 3D radar cameras panning the dramatic scene.
Suddenly, the door of the limo was jerked open and a wafting of bad body odor assailed his nostrils. Eclipsing the sun, a wall of sweating bodyguards bent toward him as a unit, yanked him out of the car, and closed ranks behind him. Through chinks in the armor of black-suited muscles, he caught a few glimpses of the curious crowd. His stomach flopped in fear and revulsion. Pressing closely around the rapidly moving wedge of bodies, a mass of new, hopeful “friends” seemed to be all smiles and teeth, attempting to catch a glimpse or perhaps win a favor. Blinking in confusion, he felt like a young wildebeest circled by a herd of protective, bad-tempered adults.
Abruptly, like a cork buoyed along in the rapids, he was literally lifted by his elbows and whisked above the throng. Grunting and sweating profusely, the group carried him up the stairs and through a set of open doors. Hemmed in tightly by a sea of broad, damp backs, he felt like screaming. Who were these people? Who assigned these brawny, Kevlar-lined brutes to him anyway? Why, he was a nobody, a nothing! He didn’t even exist until last night, when the press named him as the only surviving next-of-kin! Forget the spotlight; in a heartbeat, he’d been thrown center stage!
As the circle parted, he made a Herculean effort to compose himself. Pulling down his rumpled sleeves and straightening his hair, he peered inside. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the dim light, he noticed a smallish, specially constructed room with an ornately gilded doorway out in the center of the hushed rotunda. There seemed to be an endless, looping line of silent, black-clad figures disappearing into it and coming out somewhere on the far side.
He jerked involuntarily as someone tapped him on the arm. He glanced over his shoulder. Seeing nobody, he turned back to the spectacle. There was an insistent tug on his sleeve. His eyes traveled downward. It was Senator Caulfield, literally at his elbow. She smiled sweetly and motioned ever so discreetly for him to bend to her diminutive level. He bent his head awkwardly; she stood on her toes to whisper in his ear. She’d been appointed acting executrix of Grandpa’s will and, as such, informed him of his last recorded request.
He listened, blinking in astonishment. Incredibly, most of these elaborate provisions had been made for him! He squinted in the bright lights. Well, whoever was in charge of carrying out his grandfather’s last requests had run with the theme. Too much fake gold, everywhere! It looked like a gaudy, recycled movie set. She continued smoothly. That fancy, guarded room was created for him, exclusively, and it was a way to be completely alone with his grandfather in the middle of this blatantly public spectacle. No strangers would be inside weeping on his arm, no cameras spying down his neck. He listened incredulously, but inwardly breathed a silent sigh of relief. Whispering a heartfelt thanks to Senator Caulfield, he gathered his courage.
The crowd melted away as he slowly walked up to the heavily guarded privacy chamber. He entered, the pneumatic doors closing behind him with a soft whuff. For a long silent moment he stood there trembling, his eyes closed. Exhaling slowly, he turned to face the open casket in the corner.
“Holy cow!” He gasped. “What in...?” His hands flew to his mouth in shock, his eyes popping out of their sockets.
Grandpa was lying there in an ornately gilded alabaster coffin, decked out in a resplendent golden ROBE! It covered him from hooded head to slippered foot, blazing and glittering garishly under the bright Asron minispots!
He inched closer and leaned over the icy, gold-encrusted rim, quavering in his gut. “This-this is unbelievable, Grandpa,” he whispered. “What have they done to you?” He studied the unfamiliar features. The person in the coffin looked just plain awful: the coroner’s makeup hadn’t quite covered all the flat, bluish veins under the skin and the forehead seemed grotesquely swollen. He turned to study the robe in the reflected glare, his eyes aching painfully in the spotlights. It was woven of the purest spun-gold threads, a scintillating tapestry, polished and buffed to an almost blinding sheen. Despite himself, he reached out to touch the cool, slippery fabric, admiring the delicate workmanship. Suddenly, almost involuntarily, his eyes narrowed.
Column after column of stylized, brilliantly burnished golden shapes stood out in bas-relief against a pebbly matte background, seeming to repeat and repeat in a hypnotic, interwoven pattern. Drawing in his breath sharply, his eyes and fingers traveled down the column. “EROBEADA,” he read, his heart pounding. “MKEYSINSID….”
