Chapter 3 - The Freezing Matrix
The penthouse clinic of the Vanguard Care Tower sat forty stories above the Chicago River, a sterile world of white glass, quiet machinery, and medical personnel who didn't ask questions about corporate strategy.
Dr. Helen Sterling, a woman whose research in high-risk obstetrics I had funded with a ten-million-dollar grant three years ago, moved the ultrasound transducer across my stomach with a focused, deliberate precision. The monitor showed the small, bright shape of my daughter, her heart beating in a rapid, rhythmic thump-thump-thump that sounded like the most beautiful music in the world.
"The heart rate is stable, Cassidy," Dr. Sterling said, wiping the gel from my skin and pulling the white linen sheet over my waist. Her face was tight with a cold professional anger. "But the sudden drop in skin temperature caused a transient spike in your blood pressure. If you had stayed in those clothes for another thirty minutes, we would be talking about premature labor. Who did this to you?"
"People who are currently discovering the exact cost of a gallon of water, Helen," I said, leaning my head back against the pillow.
The door to the private room slid open, and Arthur Pendelton, the Executive Vice President of Legal Affairs for Vanguard Global, walked in. He was a tall man in his late fifties, his silver hair immaculate despite the fact that it was nearly one o'clock in the morning. He carried a leather-bound tablet and a stack of signed corporate injunctions.
"The Morrison accounts are frozen, Cassidy," Arthur said, sitting on the small stool by the bed. "Every single one of them. We caught Richard Morrison at O'Hare airport twenty minutes ago. He was trying to board a private flight to the Cayman Islands with three laptops from the executive research wing. Vanguard Security detained him at the terminal."
"Did he say anything?"
"He wept," Arthur said flatly. "He kept repeating that he didn't know you were the principal owner. He thought you were just an administrative clerk that Brendan had brought into the family to spite them. He kept saying, 'Tell her I didn't know.'"
I looked out the window at the city lights. Chicago looked like a computer chip from up here—all lines of gold and silver, pulsing with energy that I controlled through the server farms in the basement of this very building.
"What about Brendan?" I asked.
"He’s been calling the office every three minutes," Arthur said, showing me the log on his tablet. "He called the legal department, the human resources director, the public relations chief. He even tried to call your old desk phone in the pool room. He’s realized that the company credit cards were declined at the hotel they went to after the estate locks were rotated."
"Where are they?"
"A twenty-four-hour diner near Cicero," Arthur said, a small, grim smile appearing on his face. "Vance’s team tracked their personal cell phone signals. Diane Morrison is currently sitting in a vinyl booth, and Jessica is trying to use her personal retail cards to buy a room at the Holiday Inn. They were all declined."
I closed my eyes, remembering the exact sound of Diane’s laughter when the dirty water hit my face. At least you finally took a bath.
"The logistics division," I said. "The one Brendan manages. What’s the status?"
"Protocol 7 suspends all domestic shipping contracts within twenty-four hours," Arthur explained. "The warehouse in Gary, Indiana, will lock its gates at 6:00 a.m. The three hundred independent owner-operators we contract with have already received an automated text message notifying them that their fuel cards are deactivated. By sunrise, the Morrison Logistics brand will be entirely paralyzed."
"Good," I said, opening my eyes. The coldness inside me had turned into something crystalline, sharp, and perfectly balanced. "Let it freeze. And Arthur?"
"Yes, Cassidy?"
May you like
"File the formal divorce petition at 8:00 a.m. under the 'extreme cruelty' clause. I want the video from the Morrison dining room security system attached as Exhibit A. Director Vance’s team recovered the local DVR before they changed the house codes."
Arthur nodded, standing up. "Consider it done. Rest now, Cassidy. The market opens in seven hours, and the world is going to find out that Vanguard has a face."
