Out of the Shadows 005
A machine-augmented MIDNIGHT'S WAR novel
“Thank you for taking the time to meet with me, Mr. Grahame. Lorenzo de Medici, Medici Partners, Firenze.”
The man gave a formal little bow, which was just ridiculous enough to help Elliott find his balance.
“Welcome to HemaTech. It’s a pleasure to meet you. I’m Elliott Grahame, the CEO and founder.” He extended his hand, which the Italian - or so he assumed - took with a respectably firm grip. “Would you like a tour of the facilities? It’s not very lively now, being well after hours, but we’ll probably find a few of the technical people still in the labs. Our people are as motivated as they are talented.”
The man shook his head. He was wearing what appeared to be crocodile leather shoes, and the cut of his suit was enviously impeccable. And his timepiece was an ornate gold device that Elliott couldn’t identify, but looked as if it might be a cross between Philippe Patek and Versace.
“I have come a very long way in a very short time to speak with you, Mr. Grahame. I am told, by my most trusted advisors, that this is a matter of considerable importance. I only wish to speak with you now, there is no need to show me anything.”
“Well, cancel the dog-and-pony show, then!” Elliott laughed, but quickly stopped when Medici didn’t see fit to follow suit. “Won’t you have a seat.”
“I will, thank you.” Medici unbuttoned his suit coat and sat down gracefully, then nodded at Elliott.
“I read several interviews with you. The one with Tech Invest was particularly intriguing. They portrayed you as something of a dreamer.”
“If a little dreaming is dangerous, then the cure isn’t to dream less, but to dream more.”
“Ah! Very good! I see you have ambitions beyond those to which you have admitted in public, Mr. Grahame. You are not, I think, a well-read man, but you would like to be. Or, at least, to be thought so.”
“I suppose we all would like others to think well of us, Mr. de Medici.”
“Medici. The styling is just Medici when used with a title. Although, as I observe you harbor ambitions of bettering yourself, do allow me to correct you. Lord Medici is the correct formulation in the current context.”
“Lord Medici, then.” Grahame inclined his head, just a little mockingly. Was this guy serious? Well, whatever else these current circumstances might be, they were certainly ridiculous, from the secrecy of the initial call to what appeared to be grand pretensions of Old World aristocracy. And yet, if this guy was just a grifter from Queens or wherever, he was putting on a fairly convincing show.
The watch alone looked like it cost more than Elliott’s Tesla.
Medici smiled. “Allow me to respond to your quote, or rather, your paraphrase, with another bon mot courtesy of that troubled French homosexual. ‘There is one thing I can tell you: you will enjoy certain pleasures you would not fathom now.’ Or to be more precise, you will enjoy them if you are wise enough to play along, as you Americans like to say.”
“And if I don’t?”
“It is often hard to bear the tears that we ourselves have caused.”
“That sounds like another Proust quote.”
“It is indeed, Mr. Grahame. My compliments. One might well mistake you for a literary man.”
“I’m so pleased.” Elliott rolled his eyes. This wasn’t the weirdest conversation in which he’d ever found himself, he worked with too many programmers and scientists for this to even reach the top twenty. But it was pretty bizarre for an investment banker or European wealth manager. “So what is it you want with HemaTech, Lord Medici?”
“I’m less interested in the company than I am in the individual, Mr. Grahame. You interest me. You interest me very much indeed.”
“That’s very flattering, but I’m looking for an investor, not a sugar daddy.”
“How terribly droll.” Medici’s eyes, however, showed not even a flicker of amusement. “What you appear to have achieved is more remarkable than you know, Mr. Grahame. However, if you have indeed discovered a means of artificially extending the human lifespan, that promises to complicate our business in a manner that we simply cannot ignore.”
“And what business is that, Mr. Medici?”
Medici smiled faintly at the implied insult, but otherwise ignored it.
“It is a little too early in the process for us to disclose that information, Mr. Grahame. But I assure you, we have all the resources you could possibly imagine and more.”
“More than Blackrock?” Elliott raised a skeptical eyebrow. “That’s not possible.”
“Says the man who promises to grant Man decades beyond his promised threescore-and-ten. Such a doubtful sentiment is not worthy of an architect of the impossible!”
Elliott was alarmed to find himself feeling the urge to preen at the other’s flattery. But this was not his first rodeo and he knew better than to get too carried away by the praise of the pecuniary professional. Cheap words were always a much-favored weapon in any money man’s arsenal; one could always count on the financial pirates to be the most lavish with the things that cost them nothing.
Until, of course, they weren’t.
“If you don’t want to waste your time, Mr. Medici, then I suggest you tell me exactly what you want.”
The well-coiffed man nodded, folded his hands, and inclined his head towards Elliott. His eyes were intense, almost mesmerizing, as he stared intently into Elliott’s face.
“What I want, exactly, is for you to come to Rome, with me, right now.”
“You want me to go where?” Elliott wasn’t entirely sure he’d heard the man correctly.
“Rome. The axis mundi. I have a private jet waiting for us at the airport, and if we leave at once, we will arrive in time for you to have lunch at Armando’s, in the very shadow of the Pantheon. A late lunch, perhaps, but you take my point.”
“I’m not exactly prepared for international travel on zero notice, Mr. Medici. It’s not as if I keep a go-bag here in my desk.”
“Do you have your passport?”
Elliott frowned and opened the front drawer of his desk. “Actually, it seems I do.”
“Then come with me, Mr. Grahame. The passport is all you need, everything else you require will be provided, down to the toothbrush and the cinnamon floss you prefer.”
“This is crazy!” Elliott stood up and gestured at his suit, which was beginning to show the signs of having been worn for 14 straight hours. “I’ve been wearing these clothes all day and it is literally all I have to wear!”
“Fear not, we’ll provide you with something suitable.” Medici looked Elliott’s suit up and down before sniffing dismissively. “Fabrizio will take your measurements on the plane.”
Grahame looked at his passport, then shrugged and gave in to the inevitable. Very profitable. That was what Medici’s messenger had promised him. And if there was one thing he’d learned in nearly 20 years of operating in the startup world, it was that what the money wanted, the money got.
“Very well. Don’t they say all flights lead to Rome? Lead on, Gunga Din!”
It wasn’t until they reached the ground floor lobby, and he saw how the four handsome young Italian men wearing identical black suits waiting there fell silently in behind them, that he wondered if he hadn’t made a very bad mistake, and if he wasn’t already in well over his head.
I remember reading an earlier version of this a couple of years ago on Vox Popoli and very much wanting to know what happened next, but there was no more forthcoming after this point. I eagerly look forward to the next episode.
Ok, I’m hooked.