London

Sebastian Luna stood at the head of the conference table, his hands held slightly outwards from his body, palms up. To one or two of the delegates, a picture of Jesus Christ had already come to mind. He’d been speaking for more than an hour without pause, fluently, assuredly, his gaze intense yet floating benevolently from face to face.

A long silence ensued and everyone’s eyes and ears were tuned to him, waiting for some dramatic summing up.

‘Out of the sea, I create land,’ he concluded, tilting his face up towards the ceiling. ‘You can already see my work from outer space. It’s the closest thing to being God.’

The men and women around the table stared at him in stunned silence, some amused, some unnerved, most of them bowled over by his audacity. Someone tittered. Sebastian Luna looked only slightly embarrassed and his face split into a boyish grin. There was a collective sigh of relief and everyone joined him in laughter. They glanced at each other as they guffawed. He was just kidding, of course he was, yet wasn’t that exactly what he was proposing? They all knew that it had never been done before. So, if Luna were not God, to accomplish it he would have to be in cahoots with Him.

As the laughter died down Luna leaned forward and put both hands on the table.

‘Any questions? Please, tear me to shreds.’

Friendly and open as the invitation sounded, an awkward silence grew as though each felt too intimidated to challenge this smooth-talking powerhouse with some trivia. Instead, they studied him covertly. While on the short side, his physique had the muscular compactness of a boxer. His face was broad; handsome in a workaday kind of way. With his unruly black hair and dark eyes, he did not look wholly English but his skin was whiter than white, as if it had never known sunlight.

‘Thank you, Sebastian, you’ve clearly covered your material to everyone’s satisfaction,’ said Henry Saunders, standing up. ‘You’re the last of our three contenders but – shall we say – not the least. As you well know by now, I – for one – am frankly stunned by your proposal. Our engineering team has scrutinised your plans and the model, and it is – what can I say – groundbreaking stuff.’ Everyone laughed anew at the pun.

‘If you’d like to step outside, Miss Norton has this mean cappuccino machine in her office. She’ll look after you.’

When the door had closed on Sebastian Luna, a silence hung in the boardroom. The thirteen men and women around the table flicked questioning glances at each other. They’d already discussed Luna’s submission for weeks; their people had tested and re-tested the concept, calculated the costs, conferred with the powers that be in Gibraltar. They could certainly choose to go with a conventional land reclamation, and they probably would have, had Sebastian Luna’s mesmerising presentation not painted his concept right onto their eyeballs.

Bethan Williams opened a capacious handbag and rifled in it for her inhaler. Ian Shearer leaned across the table to grab the pitcher and pour himself a glass of water, drinking it down.

‘He’s a bit peculiar,’ Fred Weston reflected. ‘But if he can do what he claims, just imagine where this could take us in the international arena.’

James Downing, the oldest member on the board, was shaking his head. His pained, incredulous expression spoke for itself.

Saunders noted it and spoke up. ‘All right, all right. So Mr. Luna is a bit eccentric and he works strictly freelance, but you’ve got to admit his proposal is remarkable, and not just remarkable, it’s faultless.’

‘He’s a mouthy punk with delusions of grandeur,’ Downing protested. ‘How old is he anyway?’

‘Just turned thirty-six. No offence, James, but did you look at this guy’s CV? He’s already picked up two awards for the Starfish Development in Dubai, and that article I sent you… he designed the concrete-encased polyfoam islands using plastic waste, long before plastic waste got a bad name. They’re churning them out in China as we speak. Personally, I believe Sebastian Luna is a bit of a prodigy. With this project under his belt he could well be the leading light of the civil engineering world.’

A reddish bloom spread over James Downing’s sallow cheeks. He picked up the glossy brochure that had been hastily put together for the meeting and tossed it towards the centre of the table. ‘It’ll cost upward of four million to do the environmental, marine and engineering studies. There are a whole host of other considerations – not least political – quite apart from the fact that I don’t think you can build such a structure.’

Saunders sighed with thinly disguised forbearance. ‘Look, we know Gibraltar have had several tenders for something to replace the failed Eastside project, and I’ve gauged that they’re gung-ho to see something truly unique. So the outline planning could be had within a month or two. The latest land reclamation in progress on the Rock has surpassed a billion already, and they’ve run into all sorts of trouble. If Luna is right, we could do this for a fraction of the cost.’ He touched his laptop and an image filled the wall behind him. Someone drew breath. The towering rock that was Gibraltar never failed to stir. ‘The actual site looks straight out over the Med, with the Spanish coast on one side and the Moroccan on the other. So far nobody has considered developing there.’ Saunders directed the pointer to the precipitous south-east side of the crag. ‘Here the cliff plunges straight into the sea. People have never looked at this bit of the coast: the cliff is simply too sheer for any kind of conventional land reclamation. It’s also dotted with caves at water level, but Luna has come up with strategies to have them incorporated in a way which will creatively enhance the development.’ He rubbed his hands together. ‘Sir Anthony loves the concept. If we at SeaChange International – together with the Goodbard Group as architects of this glittering new development…’ Saunders let his gaze sweep around the table. ‘We’ll be fruitfully employed for the next few years. And no doubt beyond.’

‘Christ!’ exclaimed Downing. ‘Luna isn’t the only one around here who thinks he’s God.’

Saunders narrowed his eyes but didn’t acknowledge the insult. ‘The Spaniards are making a lot of noise, claiming the seabed belongs to Spain. But what our good Mr. Luna proposes won’t touch the seabed.’ Saunders paused and lowered his voice. ‘A titanic tide-proof cantilevered shelf…it’s so fucking brilliant it takes your breath away.’

His words hovered over the massive table for a full minute, until Bethan Williams tapped her water glass loudly with a pen.

‘I’m being politically incorrect here, but Mr. Luna seems a bit big for his boots, for someone so young. We know what he’s accomplished, but what do we know of his personal situation?’

Saunders looked at some notes in the pile before him. ‘His criminal record check and sickness record are in order, clean bill of health apart from occasional crippling migraines. I had a word with Ian Smith who worked closely with him in Dubai. Outside of his obsession with changing the face of the earth, it seems he’s a bit of a loner. A workaholic and an insomniac, according to Smith. Met an American diving instructor in Dubai with whom he co-habited. Apparently, she’s got to be part of the package.’ Saunders lowered his voice a little. ‘Off the record, I was told he had a lot to juggle during his postgraduate studies and early career. The parents were divorced and the mother dumped a much younger sister on him, so our man had a lot on throughout his time at Imperial College. Smith reckons the girl is a bit of a tearaway. She came for a holiday in Dubai and Luna was pretty frantic about her, apparently.’

‘Aww, well,’ said Bethan Williams softly, ‘sounds human enough.’

‘He’s already got a connection with Gibraltar, a forefather on his mother’s side fought in the battle of Trafalgar and was buried in Gibraltar. His father, though a British citizen, was born in Seville, and Sebastian’s a fluent Spanish speaker. That might just be very helpful in Gib. Some of the bigwigs are of Spanish ancestry, and who knows what Gib’s future is in relation to Spain.’

‘I like him,’ Bethan Williams declared.

‘A shelf!’ growled James Downing. ‘What next?’

‘I don’t know about you people, but I think we need this man and his brainchild on board,’ said Saunders, pointedly ignoring his ageing nemesis. ‘Are we really going to hand him over to our competitors?’

After a brief silence he looked around at his colleagues. ‘So…are we ready to take a vote?’

Sebastian was in his element when talking to any gathering – conference, symposium or seminar – it was small talk he struggled with. While he sat and waited for the meeting to conclude, he kept quiet so as not to attract Miss Norton’s attention. He simply wouldn’t know what to say to her and felt bad about it. She had neither youth not beauty to trade on, but he was always alert to that quality of decency and kindness in people who otherwise seemed unremarkable, and yearned to connect to it in some way. Miss Norton’s mean cappuccino machine had ground, clicked, pumped, gurgled and fizzed out a frothy concoction that had been cooling in his hands for the last twenty minutes. The doctor had told him – in a long list of measures to combat insomnia – that coffee was a total no-no. Sebastian leaned forward and quietly put the cup on the coffee table in front of him.

‘Can I get you something else?’ said Miss Norton, poking her head out from behind her computer screen.

‘Oh, no. Thank you. This is lovely.’

‘Can I get you a magazine or something?’

‘Oh, no, thanks. I’m too nervous to read.’ He didn’t know why he’d said it, because he wasn’t a bit nervous. Jittery yes, but high as a kite.

She nodded. ‘Trust me, I know exactly what it feels like. Not so long ago I was sitting in your chair, up against three other PAs, and they were all a whole lot younger and prettier than me.’

He smiled at her. ‘Good on Mr. Saunders. He knew what he was doing.’

She blushed slightly. ‘Maturity and experience still have their place, thank God.’ She hesitated. ‘But you, Mr. Luna, have nothing to worry about. I read all about you on the internet. The world is your oyster, as they say.’

‘Call me Sebastian, please.’ He indicated the boardroom with a toss of the head. ‘I only lied about one thing. I’m not a team player, I’ll have everything my own way.’ She peered at him, clearly suppressing a smile. ‘Don’t take any notice of what I say,’ he said, biting his lip. ‘Modesty isn’t my strong point.’

‘No,’ she said with emphasis. ‘You should believe in yourself. Us Brits are far too reticent. We’d get nowhere in America with our misplaced modesty.’

‘You think so? Eva, my fiancée, would argue that point. She’s always on at me to pipe down and not be so cocksure of myself. She is the font of all wisdom.’ On impulse he jumped up and drew from his back pocket a slightly concave photo. ‘This is her,’ he said, dashing over to Miss Norton’s desk.

‘Ah,’ she said, peering at the well-worn image. ‘Gorgeous girl.’

She was right, Eva had not at all the look of a wise woman. Embarrassed, he slipped the photo back into his pocket and retreated to his chair.

Another ten minutes passed before Miss Norton’s phone chimed.

‘Yes, Mr. Saunders. I’ll tell him.’ She nodded to Sebastian. ‘You go on back in there, young man, and be a good team player.’

Sebastian stood up, brushed some flecks off his jacket, bowed to Miss Norton and opened the door. Once inside the boardroom, he paused and looked at the men and women around the table. The lovely lady with the soft Welsh accent smiled broadly at him. Trust a woman to give the game away.

I am the creator, he whispered to himself.