With my drink in hand, I didn’t even make it back to my booth before my MAX smartwatch began to vibrate. I checked the display. It read, ‘Unknown’.
‘Daniel Helmqvist,’ I answered after fishing my earpiece out of my front trouser pocket with my free hand and tapping a green button on the watch face.
‘Good afternoon. My name is Samuel Porter of HTS Intergalactic.’ His plummy upper-crust British accent nearly caused me to choke on the sip of gin I had just taken.
‘What can I do for you?’
‘I wonder if you could come down to my office and discuss a business proposition?’
‘I usually meet potential clients in my office, Mr Porter. It’s one of the reasons I pay the rent on the place.’
‘Naturally,’ he replied after another short pause. ‘However, your assistant informed me you were out of your office and not likely to return for the day.’ I detected a theme in the interruption of my afternoon. ‘And in any event,’ he continued, ‘I had hoped you would make an exception. There is something that I need to show you, but I dare not do so in any place other than my office.’
Now he had me intrigued.
‘Alright, Mr Porter. I’ll be there within the hour.’
‘Do you know the location of our corporate offices?’
‘I assume you’re on Mars. The rest I can figure out on the way.’
‘Give reception your name. They will be expecting you.’
‘Right. See you shortly.’
We both rang off the line.
I drained the contents of my highball, grabbed my things and directed my feet to the nearest subway station.
On the way, I dug up as much detail as I could on Porter and HTS from the web. High Temperature Superconductors (HTS) Intergalactic did exactly what the name implied they did: built superconductors. The company owned a flashy headquarters in Research District 2 and their main production facility occupied real estate in the IM. They also had offices and factories sprinkled throughout the known systems. Samuel Porter served as the company’s CEO and had done so for the last two decades.
Forty-five minutes later, I strolled through a pair of glass doors into a spacious, atrium-style lobby. Light flooded through the glass walls and ceiling to cast a warm glow on a myriad of displayed products made by HTS Intergalactic. Down the middle of all this ran a wide carpet to a massive reception desk.
‘Welcome to HTS Intergalactic. How may I be of assistance?’ asked a tasty piece of set decoration sitting at the desk.
I sized her up. It took me a few seconds to realise she wasn’t made of flesh and bones. An ultra-realistic model. Must have cost Porter a mint.
‘I’m here to see Mr Porter. The name is Daniel Helmqvist.’
‘Of course. One moment.’ She typed something into her computer. ‘Mr Porter will be right down. Please make yourself comfortable.’ She motioned to a nearby armchair.
I settled into one of two thick-cushioned Lawsons, grabbed a MIX13 from a nearby table and skimmed through all of the ‘innovative products and services provided by HTS Intergalactic’. Samuel Porter called my name as he approached.
Coming towards me, he checked in a shade over 180 centimetres tall and between 80 and 85 kilos. His bald head reflected the afternoon sun with a waxy brilliance. He wore a bespoke dark navy suit with a silk waistcoat and a matching patterned tie.
I stood up to greet him.
We shook hands. ‘Nice place you have here.’
‘Thank you, Mr Helmqvist. Business has been good to us lately,’ Porter replied with that odd butler inflection I had heard over the phone. ‘Would you please follow me?’
Porter led me to his office on the top floor of the three-storey building. On our way, we passed his personal assistant. Definitely human, and very easy on the eyes. Before I had a chance to make an introduction, he ushered me through a set of thick, wooden double doors and offered me a seat at an executive conference table.
‘Can I offer you something to drink?’
‘A gin and—’
In my peripheral, I caught a glimpse of an antique gallery wall clock. Neither hand pointed to Happy Hour. I checked myself and cleared my throat.
‘A cup of coffee. Milk. No sugar, please.’
‘Right.’
He eyed me with caution. I clearly had gin on my mind and it did not go unnoticed.
While we waited for his assistant to bring my coffee and Porter’s cup of tea, he grabbed a MIX13 from his desk and took a seat next to me. He opened up a few documents on the computer and was about to send them to a holographic display when the arrival of our drinks interrupted him. He flipped the tablet over to cover the screen with a look of mild panic. Strange reaction.
Once we were alone again, Porter leaned in and dropped his voice down to a level best described as conspiratorial. ‘What I am about to show you, Mr Helmqvist, is very private and very damning. However, I’ve been assured that you are an honest man with a great deal of integrity. So I can trust your discretion, yes?’
‘Who told you that about me?’
‘The District Attorney.’
‘You know him?’
‘We play golf once a week.’
By playing golf, Porter meant swinging a stick at a screen and chasing after a digital ball. Because the Martian environment is not conducive to the real thing, enthusiasts climb into sophisticated, immersive VR chambers and play any number of famous courses. They create clubs around these machines and even hire architects to design new courses for them. Rich people…
‘And I came up in a conversation?’
‘I called him this morning and asked if he knew of anyone good at solving problems… other than the police.’
‘And he gave you my name?’
‘He did, indeed.’
‘Heh, who knew?’ I asked rhetorically with a slight chuckle. ‘Anyway, you can trust me.’
‘Right,’ he said dismissively, once again. ‘As I was saying, this is a sensitive issue for me.’
Porter flipped the MIX13 back over, opened his email and sent a message from earlier this morning to the holographic display set in the centre of the conference table.
Embedded into the email was a video. When Porter began to play it, a factory tucked away in a tropical forest faded into view.
The video looked to be taken at a distance but the zoom capability allowed for some detailed close-ups. The images on the screen appeared to be the business end of a mining operation or mineral processing plant. The video went on for several minutes and then went blank.
A second later, the screen became a blur of images, moving too fast for me to process. Between the flashes of images and, at times, transposed over them, words appeared that looked like they had been cut out of a magazine – like some crazy ransom note.
Pillage
Plunder
Death
Destruction
Genocide
And so on and so forth.
The screen dissolved into nothingness. After maybe a second, words materialised once more in a blood red script that oozed down the screen.
Naughty, naughty, HTS! We know your dirty little secret.
After a few seconds, the sentences faded away and were replaced by something I had never seen before.