2

Chadwick Biggins was naturally a loud man, but even he had to shout for his new intern-slash-executive assistant to hear him over the roar of the VTOL's engine. It didn't help that he was competing with the sound of other vehicles whipping by all around them, honking their horns and attempting to raise him on comms so they could curse him out. "So, what we're really talking about here is an untapped market for a sensory experience. One that exists right under everyone's nose. Anyone could be dominating it, but most people don't even realize it exists." Chad turned to look at the young woman, one hand on the VTOL's yoke, the other gesticulating in the air, the already erratic path it took through the air becoming even less stable. "RoboCorp isn't in the VTOL business, yet, but I really think there's potential for a luxury vehicle with these default settings."

"Uh huh," she squeaked. Chad frowned. Is she okay? he asked himself. He felt a twinge of something a lesser man might call insecurity, but Chad refused to learn the meaning of the word. Am I not conveying an aura of calm reassurance and control?

He looked away from the young woman and into the rearview mirror. A winner looked back at him. He had blonde hair, a strong jaw, sapphire blue eyes obscured by his mirrored sunglasses. His clothes were sharp, a real wool suit and a linen shirt, both with a generous cut to accommodate his muscular frame. His father had a standing policy to fire any executive who came to the office in anything less than their best. No, it definitely wasn't his aura. What then?

She seems frightened, Sir, replied the Multi-Modal Intelligence Resource chip in Chad's brain. Its voice was calm, soothing, vaguely European. The same as it had been since he was 13 and his father had sat him down and told him he was installing a digital assistant in Chad's brain because he wanted his son to have every advantage.

She does? Chad glanced over at… Damn, what was her name again? Candi? Sandi? Brandi? Something with an -andi at the end. She was pretty, fresh out of Cyber City University's business program and dressed in professional attire that highlighted the natural beauty of her body. She was the perfect candidate for an EA; young enough to absorb Chad's wisdom without having to unlearn bad habits, eager to learn, eager to please, and easy on the eyes.

Whatever, Andi was fine. It was a nickname. It showed that he could keep things casual but professional. They could have a relationship built on mutual trust and understanding, and they wouldn't have to call each other Mr. Biggins and Ms…

Hoefnagel, Sir.

Mr. Biggins and Ms. Hoefnagel.

MMIR cleared its non-existent throat, an affectation it had developed early to let Chad know that he was losing the thread. Sir, it said firmly but not unkindly. Based on the sensory data your augmentations are picking up, her pulse is elevated. Her sympathetic nervous system is quite active. She's gripping her armrests like they're the only things saving her from certain death. If that all doesn't read as frightened, well, I'm afraid I'll need a patch to update my understanding of human physiognomy.

Huh, Chad thought. MMIR was usually right about these things, and it knew damn well Chad wasn't going to look up the instructions for patching it, so he decided to just accept its assessment and move on. Okay. She's frightened. Why's she frightened?

It's likely she's never been in a vehicle without autopilot before, Sir.

Ah! Okay, that makes sense. Got to switch up the speech. Thanks, Mimsy!

Indubitably, Sir.

Chad cleared his throat. If she was scared, an insightful monologue about the rush of excitement that came from needless (but ultimately manageable!) flirtations with death wasn't quite right. He figured that what Andi would really benefit from hearing about was why flying without safety features like the autopilot was so safe, it was actually a sign of a savvy mind. "See, Andi, ditching the autopilot is all about calculated risks and 'the first-mover advantage.' Both for RoboCorp as a business, but also for us, the VTOL passengers." Chad turned and gave Andi a guileless grin. She looked away from the crowded airspace over the Peninsula and made eye contact with Chad. Progress!

"Everybody's got an autopilot," Chad continued, letting his sight bounce between the sky and the EA. "Personal transportation has had self-driving capabilities for, like, a hundred years. And the tech has gotten pretty good. Really good! Even The Uroyo Company and Globokhem's vehicles speak the same code so they don't slam into each other mid-air, and those companies hate each other!"

"Uh huh," Andi said. She was looking a little pale, but she wasn't shaking and her deathgrip on the armrests had relaxed some, and Chad let himself feel some optimism about this summer internship. He knew from experience that employees who could present an air of gravitas and dignity even in uncomfortable situations went further at RoboCorp than those who noticeably cracked under just a little pressure. The life of an executive assistant was always intense, and if Andi couldn't hack it on a trip from the headquarters in Old Town to the Biggins family estate in the rolling hills of the Highs, she certainly wouldn't be able to handle the high stakes negotiations that came with being part of an international business.

"So everybody uses autopilot, and, consequently, nobody experiences the rush of actually piloting. It's a lost art form. But for people like us, who know how to spot an experiential arbitrage opportunity, it's a gold mine! You can fly however you want whenever you want, and you'll never crash. Observe!"

Chad aimed his VTOL square at the nearest oncoming vehicle, turned to Andi, and gave her his most winning smile. She gave him a nervous smile, then looked back out the windshield. Her eyes went wide with horror.

"Mr. Biggins," she said, her tone respectful despite her fear. Honestly, she was amazing. He could hear the nuance in her words, the way she was saying, "Please don't kill us," without casting concrete doubt on his decision-making capabilities at all. That was the sort of honesty and willingness to deliver the hard news that Chad's father said was a key differentiator between RoboCorp and its closest competitors.

Chad reached out and gently touched Andi on her shoulder as if to say, "I care about you and your feelings and I'm someone you can trust" without also saying, "After a few drinks at the company Christmas party, I'm going to get real handsy."

"Hey," Chad said softly. "It'll be okay, Andi. It'll be over soon." She turned her head and gave Chad a look that he couldn't quite grasp the meaning of, so he decided to ignore it. Andi's eyes darted back towards the front of the car, and she screwed them shut and tensed every muscle in her body. Chad just kept grinning. He'd done this a dozen times or more. He knew how it went.

The roar of another engine passed by, sliding from the front of the VTOL, over the top, and around the back, high pitched as it approached and deeper as it receded. His vehicle's console shrieked with ignored warnings and alerts and expletive-laden communiques from whoever had just passed them by. They were closing in on the Biggins estate now, so he turned his autopilot back on, and enjoyed the sudden jolt as it took over from him and set them on a standard approach path.

"Feel that?" he asked Andi. "Your heart pounding in your chest? Your face flushed with blood? The adrenaline in your veins?" Chad pulled off his sunglasses, took a deep breath, and gave Andi a toothy smile. "That's life, Andi. The sad sacks in the other vehicle? All they let themselves feel is annoyance. Inconvenience. Anger. Fear. But you and me? We get to feel alive."

Andi turned to look at Chad, her breathing fast and shallow, her eyes a bit glassy. She giggled. "'Alive,'" she echoed. "I'm alive."

Oh, yeah, Chad thought as he gave her an approving nod. This one's going to do just fine at RoboCorp. "You're goddam right," he said. "Fun, huh?"

Her giggle turned into a laugh, and then into manic laughter, and Chad joined her. The autopilot navigated to the estate's landing pad, the landing gear deploying and setting them down with a heavy thunk. Their laughter subsided. Andi ran her fingers through her hair, checked herself in her sun visor's mirror, and cleared her throat.

"Thank you for the lesson, Mr. Biggins."

"Hey," Chad said with a smile and a gentle shake of the head. "My dad's Mr. Biggins. I'm just Chad."

"Well, thank you for the lesson, Chad," Andi said. "But I've got a question."

"Sure thing. What's up?"

"The other person, what if they'd been thinking the same thing?"

"What do you mean?"

"Like, if they have their autopilot off, too, and you're flying straight at them and their vehicle doesn't dodge out of the way. What do you do then?"

Chad blinked. Once. Twice. Then he laughed and shook his head, gave Andi a gentle smile. "I wouldn't worry about it. I mean, there's way too much traffic in Cyber City's airspace. You'd have to be a maniac to turn your autopilot off."

***

The Bigg Haus, as Chad lovingly called his father's home, sat nestled in the western hills of Cyber City. The neighborhood was green, at least as far as the City went, with lawns and carefully maintained fruit orchards, and copses of genetically modified trees designed to survive the unpredictable weather, the ambient pollution, the whims and attention of their owners. It was so green, you could smell it, pine on the air, fresh cut grass, the sweetness of flowers Chad had never bothered to learn the name of. He'd grown up hearing from his father that a century ago, before Cyber City was Cyber City, more of it had looked like the Highs than the Lows: hardly anything was flooded, there were plants and animals everywhere, everyone got along, and the waters of the Bay were so blue and clean and pure, you could drink them.

Chad hopped out of the VTOL, affecting an exaggerated stretch of his arms. The main landing pad was below and to the front of the Haus, so that the estate's security forces could maintain visual contact with anyone coming or going, and so that visitors would be forced to ascend the stairs leading to the mansion proper and take in the whole grandeur of the estate. Chad figured Andi should get the full experience since it was her first time at Bigg Haus, so he'd opted for the front landing pad instead of the much more discrete hatch that opened to the subterranean garage.

"Your home is beautiful," Andi said, and there was something reverent in her voice that surprised Chad. He turned to look at her, and her eyes were wide as she took in the vineyard, the grove, the children's playset that his dad meticulously maintained himself for whatever sentimental reason. Doubtless, she was from a wealthy family; she'd graduated from CCU, after all, and nobody got to set foot on the campus without every member of their extended family passing one hell of a credit check. But there was wealthy and then there was rich, Chad guessed, and if Andi's family had been rich, she wouldn't have a summer internship under Chad's wing. That made sense.

Better play it humble, Chad thought. "Oh, yeah," he said. "Thanks. It's nice, I guess. I feel like the Schengenese house is nicer, but I'm a little old school when it comes to my architectural aesthetics, you know?"

Andi's eyes went wide. "You have a house in the Schengen Empire?"

Chad shrugged. "I mean, I don't. It's my dad's. And it's not like it's a castle or anything. It's just a château."

The front doors to the Haus began swinging wide open as Chad approached. "Automated security," Chad said looking back over his shoulder. "It's keyed to me and my dad's unique biometrics and our cybernetics." He tapped his temple for emphasis.

Actually, Sir, MMIR spoke in Chad's brain, the main door is remotely monitored and controlled by the security team. It's the doors within the house that are keyed to your cybernetics.

Close enough, Chad thought back.

As the doors opened wide enough to permit entry, the smell of the house hit him, all leather and marble and a bright citrus scent that his mother had evidently loved. For all that he'd seen of the City and the world, nothing quite felt like coming home.

"Son," a deep voice called out. "We were expecting you half an hour ago."

Chad froze mid-stride. He looked up the imperial staircase, and there he was, Thaddeus Biggins, silhouetted against a stained glass window, a looming shadow in Chad's childhood home.

"Hiya, Dad," Chad called out, his mouth suddenly as dry as the Great Glass Desert.

"We were expecting you half an hour ago," Thaddeus replied. He descended the staircase, back as straight as one of the pillars in front of the house, 35 years Chad's senior and looking for all the world like a digitally altered version of the younger man: the same handsome face, but lined with a few more wrinkles. The sandy blonde hair going silver at the temples. The six-foot-plus frame diminished only slightly by age. But somehow the biggest difference between them was the eyes. Thaddeus's eyes were the same piercing blue, but darker somehow, some of the simple joy and exuberance drained from them by the pressures of running a multi-trillion dollar corporation.

Until Thaddeus glanced past Chad and saw his executive assistant trailing him in. The older man sprang to life, the same Biggins charm that animated Chad flowing through him. "Jocelyn!" he called out, delight plain to see on his face as he closed the distance between them, stepped past his son, his arms stretched wide. "Look at you all grown up! You're even lovelier than the last time I saw you. How are you?"

Jocelyn stepped into the hug, smiling as Thaddeus patted her back. "I'm doing great, Mr. Biggins. School was amazing. I learned so much, and I'm so excited to put it to work for RoboCorp this summer!"

Chad felt heat rising in his face, embarrassed at everything he didn't know about An– about Jocelyn. Mimsy, what the fuck? You couldn't tell me about this?

You didn't inquire, Sir, MMIR thought. And a résumé for young Ms. Hoefnagel was sent to your corporate account. You did read her résumé, no? Chad swore there was something amused in the AI's voice.

You know damn well I never check my email!

Chad cleared his throat, forced a grin to his face. "I didn't realize you two knew each other!"

Thaddeus turned to face his son, arched an eyebrow in a way that said, You should have. "I went to school with Jocelyn's parents. Hell, I was almost her godfather," Thaddeus said, a note of pride in his voice that made Chad's heart twist in his chest.

"Wow," Chad said through his bared teeth. "That's amazing."

Thaddeus looked back at Jocelyn, the smile instantly returning to his face. "If you have any of your father's acumen or your mother's drive, RoboCorp will be lucky to have you. How was the flight down from headquarters?"

"It was…" Jocelyn's lips pressed together as she thought of a diplomatic answer. "Interesting! Chad and I discussed philosophy."

Thaddeus's eyes went wide. "'Philosophy?' My son?"

"Of a sort," Jocelyn said.

"Hey, I know philosophy! I've read 'Zen and the Art of War'!"

Thaddeus looked at Chad and blinked, then turned back to Jocelyn and gave her a mischievous smile. "Is he keeping his hands to himself?" Jocelyn laughed. "He is. Chad's been an absolute gentleman."

Thaddeus turned towards Chad and fixed him with a gaze that had steel in it. "He'd better be."

Chad frowned. "I am!" he said, wincing as he said it. The petulant note, the concession that he might even be capable of doing something unseemly rather than a flat-out rejection of the notion. He'd have to work on that.

Thaddeus turned back to Jocelyn and fixed her with a warm smile, one hand on her shoulder as he guided her towards the wing of the mansion with the kitchen in it. "Jocelyn, dear, I'm terribly sorry to steal your mentor, but we need to prepare for a rather important presentation. Normally, I'd say you should sit in on it, both as a service to your assigned executive and for your own learning and growth, but I'm afraid this potential contract is rather hush-hush."

Jocelyn's eyes went wide. "Government?" Thaddeus smiled and pushed a single finger to his lips. He pointed towards a set of double doors and said, "The drawing room is through there, then the dining room, then the pantry and the kitchen. Feel free to have anything you like for a snack and explore the grounds. Anything should be open to you but the bedrooms. Do you like steak? Our chef was going to make us steaks after the presentation, but he'll put together anything you want to eat."

"Steak sounds amazing. We normally only eat it for birthdays and the holidays. Thank you, Mr. Biggins."

Thaddeus gave Jocelyn a warm grin. "'Jocelyn, please. Mr. Biggins is my father's name. Call me Thad."

'Call me Thad?' Chad thought with a grimace. Come on, Dad. You're almost 70.

Short for Thaddeus. Originally the Aramaic Thaddai, Thaddeus is the Latin cognate by way of the Greek–

Yes, thank you, Mimsy, I know my father's name.

Jocelyn disappeared through the double doors and Thaddeus watched her go. Once they clicked shut behind her, he spun on his heels, the warmth and humor gone from his face. "You're late, Son." He walked with determination towards the opposite wing of the house where the library and his study were.

"The meeting's not for another 30 minutes," Chad protested as he followed.

"Yes, and we were supposed to meet an hour before it began to review the presentation one final time. Cathryn's been here since 8am helping me prepare. Herb's been here since 10."

Chad grunted noncommittally. Of course Cathryn Fox had been here since 8am. There were plenty of nights she and Thaddeus worked late into the night and she slept in a guest room. If Chad didn't know how closed off his father's heart was, he'd have assumed they'd been sleeping together for years. With all the time she spent around Thaddeus as his chief of staff and as pretty as she was (in a sharp edged, take-no-shit kind of way), Chad figured it had occurred to one or both of them.

Chad shook his head, tried to dispel the image of his father and his chief of staff naked and going over quarterly projections in bed. "So you're prepped," he said.

"Yes. But the question is, 'Are you prepared?' Because you're ultimately the one leading this presentation. Remember, the President of Panoceania herself is going to be attending this meeting, and it's on you to convince her that RoboCorp's the perfect partner for environmental remediation in the Southern Hells."

"We are their perfect partner," Chad said, but a knot of uncertainty was forming in his stomach. Panoceania was a joke compared to the Independent States of America, but still.

Thaddeus nodded. "We'd better be. Your name is all over this project, Son, and if it doesn't go well, we'll both take a very public and very embarrassing reputational hit." Thaddeus rested his hand on the doorknob to the study. "So, Son. Are. You. Prepared?"

Chad swallowed. Nodded once. "I am."

Thaddeus swung open the door to the study. Cathryn sat at Thaddeus's desk, an array of papers and tablets and computer screens open before her. She was dressed the way she always was: dark hair pulled back, just enough makeup to make her look impeccable, a HUD visor over her mirthless grey eyes. Herb Carlson paced alongside the desk, a hand to his ear as he mumbled softly through a conversation with some foreign dignitary halfway across the world. He gave Chad a little nod of his head. Chad returned it. Good ol' Herb. He was pretty low on the food chain, but Thaddeus had taught Chad to make every employee feel valuable.

Mr. Carlson's the Director of International Development, Sir.

Wow, really? Good for him.

Cathryn, meanwhile, looked up from her papers, locked eyes with Chad, and glanced over towards Thaddeus. "He's late."

Chad ground his teeth. "Good morning, Cathryn."

"Good afternoon," she corrected.

"He is," Thaddeus replied.

"Is he prepared?"

"I am." "He says he is."

Cathryn said nothing. She stared at Chad, her face an emotionless mask. He knew that meant she was literally biting her tongue to keep from chastising him in front of his father. Not for his own sake, but so Thaddeus wouldn't feel compelled to leap to his son's defense. "Good," she finally said, and Chad frowned, well aware that she didn't think his level of preparation was good at all. She turned to Thaddeus and gestured at the documents arrayed before her. "We should review the contracts for if… for when the meeting goes well. Herb just told me that his counterpart is insisting on payments being made in dollars."

Chad blinked. "Well. They're not bits, but that's not so bad."

"Their dollars," Cathryn said, wrinkling her nose in disgust.

Thaddeus snorted. "I guess nobody told them we don't accept toilet paper as legal tender here in Cyber City. Alright, then. Chad, why don't you set up in the study? Cathryn and I will review the contract and be in in a minute."

"Shouldn't I take a look at that, too?" Chad asked, stepping towards the desk. "I mean, it's my project and all."

Thaddeus waved his son away without looking up. "It's just numbers, Son. You focus on getting them to sign. We'll take care of the rest."

Chad stood there, but neither his father nor Cathryn looked up at him. "Right. Okay, then."

Thaddeus's study was a testament to the man's career and his refined tastes. Everything was organic, wood and leather, a combination of antiques accumulated by generations of the Biggins family and modern productions acquired at exorbitant cost. The bright citrus note that permeated the rest of the house was absent here, as if Thaddeus's wife's memory was not permitted within this space, but Chad knew that wasn't the case. There were so many photos here, plenty of records of corporate triumphs among them, but the vast majority of them photos of Chad's parents when they were young and still dating, wedding photos, photos of the three of them as a happy family.

There was almost nothing after the crash that claimed his mother's life. Even fewer of Thaddeus and Chad together.

Chad sighed. This was a distraction, he knew, and what he needed to focus on was making sure this presentation went perfectly.

Chad circled the room, checking the cables on the remote participation bodies his father insisted on using for all important meetings, checking his own tablet for notes and slides, setting out drinks for the physical attendees. "Shouldn't Jocelyn be doing this?" he mumbled to himself.

A pop-up appeared in the corner of his vision, projected into his brain through some combination of his augmentations and MMIR's techno-wizardy that he didn't fully understand. Chad thought the message open, figuring his father had some last minute thing he wanted Chad to take care of. Instead, the voice of his best friend echoed through his head.

"Bigg Man!" Jaime Cariño shouted. "You kill it on that presentation yet?" "Care Bear!" Chad thought back. "Not yet, but it's starting in a few minutes. Going to crush it!" "Perfect timing! I've got some new shit for you, bro. One of the nerds at the office cooked it up with an AI he's supposed to be using to come up with new cancer cures. It's fucking crazy!"

Chad grinned and shook his head. Classic Jaime. "I'll try it tonight, man. I can't be doing this presentation wasted."

"That's the thing! It's half-stimulant, half-nootropic, and totally safe! It's like coffee that makes you smart! It's perfect for you!"

Chad's eyes went wide. Any advantage would help, and he could have MMIR take a look before his PharmAssist cooked it up and injected it into his spine. If it was too sketchy, he didn't have to take it. "Alright, screw it. Send me the formula."

"Bigg Man! That's what I like to hear. You're going to crush it, and then you're meeting us at Sanctum tonight. We've got to celebrate that sweet new military contract you're working on!"

"Environmental remediation contract. And hell yeah! When the presentation goes well and we land it, I've got to celebrate!"

And if it goes like shit and we don't get it, I'll need to medicate.

Have heart, Sir! You must believe in your abilities to persuade and to sell. Thanks, Mimsy.

"My man! Here. Have fun, good luck, don't fuck up!"

The connection broke. An image of the molecular structure of the drug appeared rotating before Chad's eyes. It looked like… well, Chad didn't know what it looked like. But that's what MMIR was for.

Mimsy, is this going to kill me? A moment's pause as MMIR analyzed the chemical structure of the drug. I don't believe so, Sir. It appears to be a novel stimulant, but I really must object to using an untested illicit substance during a presentation to potential investors.

I'll be fine. It's a stim, right? Maybe it'll give me a killer edge, you know? That special something that helps me turn a "Hm, maybe," into a "Hell yeah!"

That seems highly unlikely, Sir.

You're worrying too much. It can't be that strong if one of Cariño's nerds cooked it up. And even if it is, you can just have my PharmAssist! make something to counteract it. Let's do this.

Sir, you never restored my PharmAssist access after you–

Chad mentally ordered the miniature controlled lab reactor embedded in his spine to manufacture and administer the drug. It hit his blood stream near instantly.

"Oh, my God!" Chad hissed. Cariño had some talented nerds working for him. He felt like he could headbutt a hole through a brick wall. He felt like a walking, talking whirlwind, ready to descend upon the unsuspecting Panoceanian elites and teach them the meaning of RoboCorp ingenuity. "Going to pitch the fuck out of these environmental remediation robots!" Chad said, karate chopping the air and throwing kicks as high as his tailored suit would allow.

Another ping. His father. "Everything set up?"

"Yep!" Chad sent back. "Yep, yep, yep! Ready when you and the Panhandlers are!"

"One minute."

Chad took a deep breath, lightly slapped himself in the face, and jumped in place a few times. "Let's go," he whispered to himself. "Let's fucking go, go, go, go go."

The door to the study creaked open, and Thaddeus and Cathryn walked in. Cathryn took a seat at the back of the room near the RP bodies and Thaddeus stood up at the front, hands clasped behind his back, stock straight. The android RP bodies seized up for a moment as the President and the Vice President remotely connected, and then adopted more natural poses as the androids synced with them: one of them rested their elbows on an invisible desk, hunched forward, hands clasped expectantly. The other appeared to be playing with some kind of invisible communication device or game system. An older woman's face appeared on the hunched over RP, serious, lined and creased by a lifetime of cares. She was looking past Chad, nodding and occasionally speaking a muted response to someone else, her mouth moving but the RP emitting no sound.

Not paying attention.

The Vice President was decades her junior, and from the way his eyes darted back and forth as he glanced at his hands, Chad was very confident that he wasn't paying attention, either.

Well, then. He'd just have to get their attention.

Mimsy, Chad thought. You got my back? Always, Sir, but I can't read the Panoceanians' biosigns if they're not in the room.

Just watch their faces and use your best judgment. Teamwork!

"Madam President. Mr. Vice President," Thaddeus said. "Thank you for coming today. It's an honor to finally meet with you after months of negotiations with various members of the administration, and we're especially pleased to present the fruits of our collaboration. Vice President Biggins has been spearheading 'Project Eden 2' these past six months, and will take things over from here. Chad."

Chad took a deep breath and let it out. His face was solemn. He needed to be serious. This was serious business with a serious face. "The environment. We all hate it, right?" Chad flashed his grin, hit them with a little razzle dazzle. "Well! What if I told you we didn't have to?"

The president ran on a platform of restoring fertility rates. Perhaps mention something about children, Sir?

Chad nodded to MMIR. He noticed Thaddeus's face twisting into a quizzical look, but there was no time to worry about that. "What if I told you that instead of being terrible and poisonous and full of dangerous mutated animals, the environment could be a place you'd want to raise your kids?"

The president's RP body turned towards Chad. Good. She was paying attention. "'Impossible,' you might say. 'The environment's always been a nightmare! This planet hates us! And it hates our children!' That's very true. Very, very, very, very true.

"But.

"This planet's never seen anything like this before."

Chad tapped at his tablet, and a rendering of a bipedal robot standing twice the height of a man filled the room. It was all sleek chrome, a blunt triangular head topped with a complex sensor suite, multiple arms each tipped with a different power tool. The rendering saluted, bringing a whirring buzzsaw close to what seemed to be its head. "Ladies and gentlemen, it is my sincere pleasure to present the RoboCorp EV Model 209 environmental remediation automaton!

The Vice President has a military background, Sir.

"The EV-209 was designed from the ground up with one goal in mind: total domination of the most inhospitable parts of the globe. Repairing wind turbines at sea? Evie's fully watertight and coated in the most advanced corrosion resistant materials the world has to offer. Jump jets built into the chassis allow for limited flight capabilities, perfect for rapid engagement from turbine to turbine.

"Decontamination efforts in the Great Glass Desert? Evie's got more radiation shielding than a nuclear reactor. Her chassis's so thick and her electronics so shielded, she could survive a half-kiloton nuclear detonation aimed at her face.

"Rewilding in an area where time is of the essence and encounters with hostile local flora and fauna are expected? Evie's .50 caliber seed dispenser can penetrate compacted soil, and equivalent substances, from an effective range of over 1,000 meters."

Chad leaned back against his father's desk, and tapped at the tablet. The rendering exploded into a dozen identical units, each with a different color or camouflage pattern. He crossed his arms and grinned. "Now. Let's talk customization."

***

The meeting continued a bit longer, transitioning away from Chad's active presentation to negotiations between Thaddeus and the President, the occasional non-sequitur interjections by the Vice President, recitations of facts and assurances from Cathryn. Chad sat quietly in the corner, feet tapping, fingers tingling, fighting the urge to interject when the negotiation began to slow down. An endless conversation with MMIR played out in his head about what went well, what could have gone better, what jokes should he hit harder next time. The President thanked everyone for their time and promised her people would be in touch soon. The RP bodies seized and fell lifeless.

Chad let out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. "So, that went good, right? It feels like that went good. That was great. We killed it."

Thaddeus and Cathryn exchanged looks but said nothing. Chad thought very hard about keeping his jaw from spontaneously clenching and unclenching.

"That was… unorthodox," Thaddeus said finally. "But certainly not a disaster. We'll have to wait and see what they say."

Cathryn opened her mouth to speak, then stopped, put a finger to her temple. Her eyes raced back and forth as she scanned whatever was displayed on her visor, and she frowned. "They… they want to move forward with a live demo as soon as possible. And they're willing to pay in bits, not dollars." Cathryn cleared her throat and kept reading, her voice switching from disbelief to a flat affect. "They found Chad's presentation vibrant and refreshingly honest. The President thought he was an articulate young man, and the Vice President said he felt like a real salt-of-the-earth kind of guy."

Silence filled the room, but only for a few seconds. "Yeah!" Chad shouted. "Fuck yeah! That's what I'm fucking talking about!" He threw his arms around his father, too excited to notice the older man tense up for a moment before patting his son's back reassuringly. "We did it! Bag fucking secured!"

"Cathryn," Thaddeus said softly. "I'd like to speak to my son in private, if you please."

Cathryn didn't say a word, simply gathered her things, and left quietly. Chad grinned as he watched her go. This was going better than he'd dared dream. Him and the old man were going to have a heart-to-heart about the job he'd done, about him succeeding Thaddeus as the CEO of the company, about finding a day when they could spend time together on the estate.

Chad turned to face his father, and his heart sank. Instead of a warm smile, the kind he'd given Jocelyn when he saw her, his father's back was to him as he looked out a window at the estate's gardens.

"You got lucky," Thaddeus said simply.

"...what?"

"That presentation of yours was closer to a mountebank running a con than to the leader of this company selling their vision. You're good at it, Son, but it won't always work."

Chad felt heat rising in his face. Fighting with his father was like fighting a mountain: as worked up as he got, Thaddeus didn't give an inch, didn't even give him the satisfaction of fighting back. But Chad couldn't help himself. "If they signed, they signed. What does it matter if we got there because I wowed them instead of because they liked yours and Cathryn's numbers? Especially since Evie is a good product! All of the simulations have worked perfectly! Better than our most optimistic projections!"

Thaddeus gave no reply. Chad could feel his pulse pounding in his temples, and he realized that Thaddeus was waiting for him to calm down before continuing, and the thought angered him all over again.

"Do you know what your name means, Son?" Thaddeus said suddenly.

Chad blinked in surprise, his anger suddenly dissipated. "Huh?"

"Your name, Chadwick. Your name."

Chad clenched his jaw. "Is my name relevant to the EV-209?"

Thaddeus gave a quick inhalation and exhalation through the nose, not quite a snort, not quite a normal breath. It was an affectation Chad knew well, one that meant, I'm disappointed in that answer, but we're moving right past it. Thaddeus finally turned to look at Chad, and Chad felt himself shrinking. Being stimmed up and dressed down was not a fun combination. "It means 'defender.'" Thaddeus crossed the study, reached out and tapped his son in the chest, two fingers, firm enough to push Chad back a little bit. "It means, 'protector.'" Another poke. Thaddeus was normally a patient and subtle man, the kind of CEO that had to be pushed to his absolute breaking point before he'd scream at a subordinate, and this was about as rough as he ever got with Chad. The chest pokes were reserved for the moments before Thaddeus would simply let out a disappointed sigh and turn and walk away rather than continue the conversation. "It means 'more is expected of you than drugs and partying and fucking.'"

Growing up, Chad had some dim sense that this firm, two-fingered poke was as close as Thaddeus was capable of getting to slapping the absolute shit out of him. Chad was grateful his dad wasn't that kind of man, but it didn't make the poke feel like any less of an absolute rebuke. "Dad, I'm not–"

"Son," Thaddeus said with a sigh. "Just stop. I'm not stupid. I know what rich young men get up to. I'm not blind. Your eyes look like fucking dinner plates. And I'm not a prude. I had plenty of my own misadventures before I met your mother.

"I'm not asking you to be a role model to impressionable young boys and girls. I'm asking you to work as hard in the board room as you do at having fun." Thaddeus opened the back door to the study and gestured for Chad to follow as he stepped into the gardens. He began making his way towards an oak tree that his own great-grandfather had planted, a behemoth that had survived climate change and pests and even a mild nuclear winter. "I'm asking you to live up to your name, to be this city's protector and not just another parasite. RoboCorp's something special, Chadwick. I truly believe that."

Thaddeus set his hand on the tree and looked up at its branches. His face twisted in anger. "The other zaibatsu view this city as something like their birthrights. They take and take and take. And we take, too," he said, a touch of embarrassment in his voice. "But we give back, dammit! I've pushed you so hard on Eden 2 not because it's important to our bottom line. It is. But because people deserve clean air. They deserve fresh water. They deserve affordable housing in places that aren't radioactive wastelands. Do you believe that?"

Chad nodded, his anger long gone. "I do. I really do." Chad swallowed. "Okay. I can do that. I can celebrate the good news with Jaime and the boys, and still be in the office bright and early tomorrow. No problem."

Thaddeus nodded. "Good man. Come on. I've got some work to do, but you can give Jocelyn a tour of the grounds before you take her back to Old Town."

They walked back into the study and Thaddeus settled into his seat at his desk, looking for all the world like the room had formed around him, like a thing eternal. He smiled. It wasn't warm, exactly, but there was sincere effort behind it. "Now, then. Congratulations on securing your first major contract. Spare me the gory details, but what are you and your friends getting up to to celebrate?"

Chad smiled sheepishly and scratched at the back of his head. "Well…"

***

From the mezzanine of the club, Chad ran the katana's blade along the neck of the bottle, riding the seam, shattering the crown, sending the cork and its accompanying glass ring and some fragments of priceless Edo-era steel flying into the crowd below. The handful of people who noticed him amongst the pumping bass of the music, pointed, laughed, cheered.

"I'm going to save the fucking world!" Chad screamed, and a cheer went up through the whole crowd. If it was him or for the DJ on the stage, Chad couldn't say, but in his heart, he knew. He held the sabered bottle aloft in a toast, took a swig from it, and turned to his friends and grinned, completely failing to register the looks of shock and disgust on each of their faces.

Each of them except for Jaime Cariño. The dark skinned man was howling with laughter. He was bent over double, coughing and wheezing. "Bro! Bro, you're bleeding out your fucking mouth!"

"Huh?" Chad pulled out his handheld and swiped at the screen until it reflected his image back to him. Blood streamed down his chin, and when he bared his teeth, his mouth like something out of a horror movie, sliced lips, bleeding gums, pink spittle, red-stained teeth.

"What the fuck?" Chad whispered, then he glanced down at the bottle in his hand, the neck sharp as a surgical knife where the cork had been sabered away. Chad ran his finger across the glass to test it, and now he was bleeding from the finger.

"Huh," he grunted. He shrugged. He took another pull from the bottle, turned around, threw his head back, and spewed the champagne into the air, letting it fall onto the crowd, a mist of priceless wine and spit and blood. "I'm bleeding out my fucking mouth!" Chad screamed, and the crowd cheered again.