Chapter 17
No longer wearing the glasses he wore at the meeting, Stone eyed the group of Valentin, Summa, and Long, and began,
“Look, as you all know, the eyeglasses were developed by my team. I have worked closely with them to ensure that the glasses would be the tool that will ensure our success. I never expected that the upgrade to the eyeglasses would be available so quickly, and I know you are as excited about the upgrade as I am, but I need to get this pair back to be fixed, and to have them compared and calibrated to a second pair being made. Sorry but you’ll have to wait another day or two to try them out. It will be worth the wait. They are even better than we expected, and we expected a lot.”
When the meeting broke up, Stone asked Valentin and Summa to stay behind. The mood of the meeting had changed, but that had no effect on Stone’s suspicions of his co-workers. He needed fewer people to worry about and monitor.
He passed an envelope to each of them and told them that their services were no longer needed.
Summa laughed.
“This is a joke to ease the tension we’ve been under. I get it,” he said.
Stone didn’t laugh in response.
“I’m serious, Roy. The project is wrapping up and your services are no longer needed. By the way, the copies you made of the EER files are of no value. I suspected no one but everyone, and put worthless files in the vault as a precaution in case someone tried to steal them. Like you, for instance. You tried to take advantage of us and your neighbor Ms. Cole. I should have you arrested.”
Summa said nothing.
Valentin felt shock and anger at being fired, but realized that being on the bottom of the totem pole left him dispensable.
Stone let them recover from the shock for a few minutes then instructed them to open their envelopes. Their expressions changed and their voices quieted.
“Thank you for the money,” Valentin said.
“Goodbye Teddy,” Stone said.
Once he was gone, Stone went at Summa again.
“Whom are you working with?”
No answer.
“You think that because we’ve worked together and were once friends that nothing would happen to you? Think again. You gave the information to Miller. You have a brain but do stupid things. I’m giving you three days to tell me whom you’re working with or I will have you arrested. We were part of a team that did the impossible. There was no need for greed, or power, or whatever you thought was yours for the taking. Get out of here. You make me sick.”
Summa’s thousand-dollar paycheck could have been ten thousand times larger.
Roy Summa, halfway handsome, hearty, heroic, hostile, humorous, horny, and hazel-eyed, with the build of a ham hock, had been hopeful that the sale of the invention wouldn’t turn into a crisis. As the original but now former Chief Financial Officer of the Nelson Corporation he had been happy at his job. He had been living comfortably.
However, his thirtieth birthday was on the horizon and his life had been turned upside down. Jon Stone, out of the blue, had fired him. Finding a job was now his preoccupation. A second surprise that day arrived one evening in the form of a visit from a man calling himself a potential client.
Shortly after being fired, Summa was walking the aisles at a pharmacy while waiting for a prescription to be filled when a voice behind him asked,
“Mr. Summa?”
Turning around, Summa saw a well-built, medium-height man wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap. Summa didn’t recognize him. He didn’t look threatening, but bad people often don’t. Summa clearly heard the question, but was cautious in his response.
“Who?”
“Mr. Summa, Roy Summa?”
The store is busy, I guess I’ll take a chance, but I won’t be polite.
“Yeah, my name is Summa. Who wants to know?”
“I’ll get to the point. I know you are Roy Summa. I followed you here from your work. I need your help.”
Adrenaline began rushing into Summa’s bloodstream, anticipating a confrontation.
“You followed me from work?”
“Give me a chance to explain. Will you meet me for coffee next door when you are done here? I think you will be interested in what I have to say.”
“You followed me from work?” Summa asked again, his voice rising in anger.
“The coffee shop, please Mr. Summa.” The man turned around and left.
Why is he interested in me? He knows who I am, where I work, and what else? Bet your ass I’ll be at the coffee shop.
Ten minutes later Summa was sitting in a booth across from the guy who accosted him. He was letting his anger blunt his cautiousness without realizing it. He was unarmed, but was the guy?
“Okay, who the hell are you and what do you want with me?”
“Please quiet down. As I said, give me a chance to explain, then take it from there, okay?”
Summa was trying to size the guy up. He was unable to get a good look at his face, with the sunglasses and cap still on. The guy saw that Summa was about to speak when he said,
“I need to remain anonymous for the moment. If you choose not to work with me, it’s better that you don’t know who I am.”
Again he saw that Summa was going to say something when he began,
“You have chosen to be here; be quiet and listen. I will answer all your questions. I know reading people’s thoughts is not some farfetched science fiction abstraction, that Julie Miller was correct with what she said to Jon Stone in her interview with him, that you work for the Nelson Corporation and that your company has been working on the development of special eyeglasses that can display, as text on the eyeglass lenses, thoughts of people when their brain’s neural impulses are intercepted and translated by software created by the Stone Corporation. I also know that Stone, the Chief Executive Officer of Stone Corporation is the owner of the Nelson Corporation. I know, in general terms, of the status of the competition, and, unlike your company, none of them are ready to bring this to the market. We both know that you can sell your inventions for trillions of dollars. I know that you will instead sell it to a benign entity because you have a collective concern for what the misuse of your invention can cause.”
Summa was impressed and intimidated. He tried bluffing.
“You’re nuts. I have no idea what you’re talking about. Reading people’s thoughts? You are pulling my leg, you must have gotten this crap from a sci-fi magazine. You’re wasting my time.” He stood up to leave.
“Sit down.” He took a picture out of his pocket and showed it to Summa.
“Where did you get this?”
“I took it. Now, here’s why I’ve contacted you.”
The picture was of Stone wearing the special eyeglasses observing Becky Murphy as she shopped at the mall.
“How did you get this?”
“I took it. I’ve been following Stone since I saw the news piece about your company’s work with reading people’s thoughts. It is true, there’s no point in trying to deny it. Mr. Summa, I need your help in getting my hands on your team’s invention to bring a killer to justice.”
“Bring a killer to justice? How do I know what you say is true? Even if it is, I can’t help you. I don’t work there anymore, and no one who does will risk doing anything for me.”
Disappointment covered Lewis’ face like a popped bubblegum bubble. He took some deep breaths to refocus. Summa waited patiently for him to proceed.
“Mr. Summa, I saw Stone wearing the glasses in public. They’re not only functional, they work better than the original specifications. Whatever version of code they’re running under is good enough for my purposes. Now, let me tell you what this killer did.”
Over the next five minutes, Lewis told Summa all about what Davids had done, and why he needed the thought-reading invention.
“I remember that accident,” Summa said. “And I would like to help, but I think it’s a matter for the police. Tell them what you have told me and let them investigate this Davids guy. You have to go to them if you find out anything using the invention anyway; let them do their job.”
“Again, the person he killed was my girlfriend. I can’t take any chances that the police won’t be able to tie the accident to him. I have to prove he did it, not merely prove it beyond a reasonable doubt. I don’t want people wondering, I want them to know. The invention will get me proof.”
“Not directly it won’t. You may be fortunate enough to learn a person’s thoughts using it, but that means nothing. The invention has never been used outside of the testing we’ve done. Maybe one thousand people in the world know this type of technology exists. If we announced tomorrow that it does, we’d be laughed at. Today’s concept of reading someone’s thoughts is something done in a science fiction story. Clearly any findings you’d get won’t be admissible in a court of law. I’ll say it again, turn the information you have over to the police.”
“I know all that. I need to use your technology to get him to provide me with the information that ultimately will prove in court that he was the driver of the car that killed my girlfriend. There has to be someone who can help.”
“I’ll tell you what,” Summa answered. “I’ll speak with a friend who may let you use the invention if you promise to involve the police. You don’t have to tell them anything about using the invention; in fact, I must insist that you don’t. But you have to go to the police now without knowing if you will ever be able to use the invention.”
“How will I know that you are doing everything you can to get me the invention?”
“I guess you will have to read my mind,” Summa replied sardonically.
“I’ll save you the trouble of reading mine. Tell the people in charge that if they don’t help me, I will go to the TV station and provide proof that the thought-reading technology exists. The publicity that results from that will put a lot of pressure on your people because I will be the second person to tell the world what’s been accomplished. If the Chinese aren’t already taking steps to see if Ms. Miller’s claim is accurate, they will when I go public.”
“Let me get back to you.”