Communications and the Sorting
The soft hum of the geothermal vents was the only sound in the "Green Room" as Dan used his cell phone to adjust the UV sensors over a patch of tropical ferns. Amber watched, marveling at the technology and the idea that he was maintaining this entire space all by himself.
"You've had this place for a long time, haven't you?" Her eyes slowly roamed over the structure and back to the ferns. "You were an expert in environments long before my flower garden, weren't you?" Amber asked, leaning against a titanium pillar and truly admiring her husband's skill sets.
Dan looked at the reinforced ceiling, his fingers still hitting a few buttons on his phone. "Since I was seventeen." He looked to her with a gentle, loving smile. "I am not brilliant like you. I have to work hard and do a lot of research. You know that my family is in communications. My grandfather built towers. My father built satellites." His eyes slid down the pillar behind her. "My sister, thank goodness, is the innovator. My father and my grandfather both looked at me and saw the third generation of Engineers. They expected me to go behind the curtain, to sit in a boardroom and manage the pipes that connected the world. I was not built that way. Rebecca, on the other hand..." He laughed. "She has as many degrees as you do—all in engineering and mathematics."
He slid closer to her, a faint, knowing smile on his face. "But I learned something different just by watching them all. I saw that the people behind the curtain are the first ones people look for when things go wrong. They were invisible, but they were also targets. People want someone to blame. They want to be able to explain away the ugliness of this world. It doesn't matter if you do good works or not."
"So you chose to be the opposite? You wanted to be seen?" She looked up at the reinforced ceiling and the faint shine of lighting, like dim evening light.
"I chose to be the voice," Dan said. "I told them that Rebecca was better suited to take over but that I would always be a part of things. I don't want the limelight per se, but I don't want to be a builder behind the scenes. I don't want to be the one building infrastructure. I want to be the one showing the world how to use it appropriately. For now, I wanted the microphone. I wanted to be the face in front of the camera, not a ghost behind it. I realized that if you're the one everyone is looking at, they stop looking for what you're actually doing."
Amber looked at him with interest, then she looked around them again. "You've had this place since you were seventeen?"
Dan shook his head. "I bought it as a present to myself for my eighteenth birthday. I got a big chunk of my inheritance when I turned seventeen and I started a few companies, let them exist a year, and then bought this place with one of them. Then I had them sell to each other, allowing the last company to own it to close down." He shrugged.
He reached out and tucked a stray hair behind her ear. "This stalker is a creature of ones and zeros. He hides behind those same signals that my family has studied for generations. But what he doesn't know is who laid the cables he's crawling through. My grandfather built the foundation. My father built the sky. My sister makes it all stronger. And I have learned exactly who he is; I have learned how he can hide in a cloud of background noise and data."
He kissed her gently, and she reciprocated in kind, leaning into him, her eyes closing as she took him in. She savored their moment of closeness and solitude, though the weight of the key in her pocket was a psychological pressure that felt suffocating. But for now, it was nothing. For now, it was just her and her husband. The rest of the world could be a side note—even if only for a moment.
As Amber and Dan shared a quiet moment together, Sebastian continued to search. He backtracked several times and found nothing. He sent his drones out in different directions, looking for tracks, and found nothing. He even had a drone duck into the tunnel where he had lost them. His frustration was mounting, his hands constantly going to his locket or to the bronzed toe in his pocket.
He would need to think. He had to calm himself and think. Amber would not leave him like this. She would not allow anyone to come between them. She was not like the others. She was reliable. She was intelligent. She loved him as much as he loved her. No, she was not like the rest. She was very dependable. His mother was going to love her. Once they met, his mother would finally see how smart and capable he was.
He stood up and went to a back room in the lab. He had actually had this lab for some time; when he would come back to his home country, he would stay in Carson City, and this was always his base. He went through a sliding metal door and down a spiraling staircase. He came to a large pile of shipping crates—all of his things from his European house. He needed to fully unpack, but not now.
He went to a crate marked "fragile" and "works of art." He took a crowbar, pried the crate open, and pulled out a tall, round glazed piece. It was glazed a beautiful emerald green with soft pink highlights. The top and bottom were smooth, and the cylinder was etched with intricate designs.
He took it to a long table set into the wall with small cubbies above it—only big enough for mail or small pieces. He sat down and broke the statue with a light tap of a hammer. He exhaled deeply, put on a pair of latex gloves, and began sorting through the small pile of bronzed toes.
He calmed as he looked at each toe and put it into its place. He didn't have to worry. Amber would come to him. She would show him the way to where she was.