[Brackets]

by Sloan, David

  He pulled out his phone to check his messages. After a minute, he smiled faintly. “So we’ll meet again after the championship?” he asked, his phone back in his pocket.

  “I’ll let you know,” Graham replied without looking.

  “Fine.” Neeson stood up and brushed off his slacks. “If you want some good news sooner than that, I might have some.”

  “Yeah?”

  “I just got a message from ChangZhang’s corporate advertising division. They want to meet. WindSkin is about to go digital.”

  Graham snickered to himself. “Congratulations. Let me know if your fake panels for fake wind are as successful as the real thing.”

  Neeson was about to defend himself, but opted against it and began to walk away.

  “Hold on,” Graham called. “This thing. You’re doing this in Kaah Mukul?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Are you doing it through a KM Center?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  Graham paused to throw peanuts into his mouth, as if literally chewing on his thoughts. “Forget it,” he said finally. Then he cupped his hands and yelled, “Come on, buddy, eye on the ball. You got it.” Neeson walked back over the grass, away from his oppressive financier who, he was sure, had never been a father in his life.

  * * * *

  The executive floor of Chlorophyll Valley’s KM Center was far removed from the gaming action. In place of the gaudy Mayan paraphernalia was a business-casual setting that looked much more like the lounge of an airport. Light duets of classical guitar and pan flute masked what little of the yelling came up from the lower floors. Neeson had been sitting and tapping impatiently on his phone for the last six minutes, waiting for the coordinator to let him into one of the private video conference rooms.

  “Dr. Faulkner?” an aide poked her head through a door. “In here please. Sorry for the delay; there has been a slight change.”

  The door closed behind him in the small conference room, and the screen before him came to life.

  “Good afternoon,” said the image of an Asian woman in ChangZhang Corp attire, apparently aware of his local time.

  “Uh, yes, is everything in order for my meeting with Mr. Huang?”

  “Dr. Faulkner, your meeting is not with Mr. Huang today,” said the woman. “You are being transferred now.”

  In a moment, Neeson saw the screen filling with grey streaks. Unusual. When an image clarified, Neeson noticed immediately that he was not seeing the real world. Instead, he was looking into a great glass office with walls that slanted down and out. Reddish-orange sunlight was shining in on one side. In the center of the room was a desk, and standing in front of the desk was a digital image that he recognized from the cover of Forbes.

  “Dr. Faulkner, I am Myung-Ki Noh,” said the man.

  “Mr. Noh, it’s an honor,” Neeson felt himself scrambling mentally. “I wasn’t told that I would be speaking with you today.”

  “Yes, I told Mr. Huang that I would handle your case. I have some things to discuss with you.”

  “Absolutely. I’ll be happy to answer all of your questions.”

  The digital image of Noh nodded. “I was wondering if you could tell me about your basketball tournament bracket.”

  Neeson maintained his professional comportment, but just barely. “You surprise me again, Mr. Noh. I wouldn’t think that you would follow such things.”

  “You would normally be right. But in this case, I have a special interest in it. I take it from your response that the bracket named ‘WindSkin1’ is truly yours.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  “Good. I was also wondering if you could claim ownership over one or both of the other two brackets. You can answer me truthfully.”

  Neeson shifted in his seat. “I’m sorry?”

  “It is no use being evasive. I am the best detective in my city and it was not a difficult puzzle. A member of my staff brought the perfect brackets to my attention because one of the bracket holders is a Tribal Wars general named Studblood—in reality, Perry Lynwood. I have a great interest in what happens in the Tribal Wars. I asked my staff to learn more, and I was surprised to find that another bracket holder—you—had recently petitioned us to install a product on a Kaah Mukul building. It would be an unusual coincidence, if there were ever coincidences in Kaah Mukul.”

  Noh paused, but Neeson kept his face impassive.

  “I inquired into Studblood’s background and the records of his tribe, and I found that one of his most recent recruits, Typhoon150, joined Studblood’s tribe one week before the brackets were to be submitted. Typhoon150 hasn’t returned to the city at all for the past week. I found that Typhoon150’s membership is based in the KM Center of Chlorophyll Valley, Florida, where you sit now. The name on the membership is not yours, but given your efforts to be covert, that is not surprising. I have an advertisement from your company that came with your petition, and it boasts of your product withstanding hurricane force winds, potentially up to 150 miles per hour. Typhoon, 150. Now tell me, Dr. Faulkner, if my detective skills have failed me.”

  Neeson sat in his chair with his palms on his legs, lost in contemplation. After a second, he blinked and said, “What would you really like to know?”

  Noh leaned forward. “You have gone to great lengths, and very clever lengths, to get my attention. I can only conclude that you must have a method, some algorithm for identifying winners that exceeds everything else that has ever been tried, and you want it known to the ChangZhang corporation that it is available, supposing rightly that the company would be interested. Your plan obviously worked. But now that you have my attention, I want to know if what you have is really worth my time. You should know that I will be visiting Mr. Lynwood to evaluate him personally—tomorrow, in fact—and I have already been looking into the young man in Nebraska. Naturally, I will be looking into your own history more carefully.”

  “That seems like a lot of extra work, Mr. Noh.”

  “Yes. But I have my reasons. You may save me some trouble now, however. Is there anything else that I should know?”

  Neeson cleared his throat. “Actually, yes. I believe you will find that there is one more perfect bracket that you are not aware of yet. In Connecticut. There should be four all together.”

  Noh smiled, surprisingly communicative for an avatar. “Very good, Dr. Faulkner. I will make sure to remain in contact with your office.”

  “Thank you,” said Neeson. “Uh, I did want to ask if you were moving forward with placing WindSkin in Kaah Mukul.”

  “I believe that, should your system prove its potential, our company would be most pleased to include WindSkin on a building somewhere in the Olmec district, as a way of strengthening our working relationship. Have a good afternoon, Dr. Faulkner.”

  The image on the screen vanished behind a ChangZhang logo against a white background. Neeson remained in his chair, unmoving, silent, until a knock on the door informed him that his time was up.

  When he left the KM Center, he found it cold and close to raining outside. The winds from the north had finally arrived. Dark clouds had gathered in from the ocean, turning the twilight sky into a churned expanse of black and grey. He looked at his golf cart and thought unenthusiastically about driving back to the office in the rain. Then he looked at the bar next door and made an easy choice. He texted his secretary to hold all messages and calls until he got back, and he went in.

  Rain was now pelting the roof of the bar, but it was barely audible over the chatter and music. Neeson sat in a booth, alone, rolling a shot of bourbon between his fingers. He had to think. Things had gotten too strange, too out of hand. He felt as if he were in a dream and had become suddenly aware that it didn’t make any sense.

  Slowly, methodically, he pieced together the events of the last few weeks. OPUS, a powerful software with unprecedented capacities, had a mysterious, perpetual flaw that caused problems during simple wind tunnel tests, problems that hadn’t shown up in the preliminary trial
s. Before an important demonstration, someone with technical prowess had deliberately wrecked the electrical system of the fan. A video game player with the very telling name of Typhoon150, based in the KM Center just a half mile from his building, was associated with at least one perfect bracket. There were three other perfect brackets in the world; four total, when there were normally zero. While his own bracket had been made to impress Mr. Graham, the others had drawn the attention of the world’s most influential technology magnate. And all Neeson wanted and needed was to sell his company’s product. What was going on?

  He finished his drink and refilled. Conclusions based on the facts came relentlessly. There was, without question, someone within his company that wanted to destroy, delay, or exploit WindSkin or OPUS. Or both. This person was technically skilled. This person knew Kaah Mukul. This person knew OPUS, had access to OPUS, and was possibly advertising OPUS using Neeson’s own program. The list of candidates who fit that description was short, depressing, and infuriating. Once he was sure about who it was, he would have to confront a traitor in his organization. Afterward, he would have to deal with a demoralized staff while keeping everything a secret from potential clients. Every thought sucked him into an ever deeper morass of anger.

  A basketball game was on the TV somewhere over his head. Marquette vs. North Dakota—a match-up that had been particularly improbable for almost everyone. Marquette had come all the way back from a slow start to dominate in the second half. During a time-out, one of the commentators began to talk about what it took to make a come-back. “Toughness down the stretch,” he said. “Bend but not break! This team has proven once again why you play the whole game!” Neeson smiled a little grimly. He liked those lines. Maybe he could use them on his employees as he saved them from the brink of financial ruin. Maybe he would quote them in some future magazine interview for a piece about his rocky road to success. There would be a hurricane pun in the title, he was sure. “Bend But Not Break” sounded really good. That was WindSkin; that was him.

  With one more drink he summoned enough will, albeit slightly inebriated will, to return to the office. He would purge the treasonous elements from among his personnel; he would regain control of his company for good. But when he approached his office, he found his secretary standing anxiously by his door.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, somewhat frazzled, “you have a lot of messages. The Corazon Resort just called two minutes ago.”

  Neeson stepped into his office, closed the door, and returned the call. The person he spoke to was Lance Reynolds’ assistant. She regretted to call him that night, but she had to inform him that “we have decided not to pursue the purchase of WindSkin.”

  Neeson reeled back into his chair, rolling it a full two feet from the desk. “But I was told I would have a week to demonstrate WindSkin to your specifications. My people are preparing the demo as we speak.”

  The woman was very sorry, but it was Lance’s final decision. She wished him a good evening and hung up. He looked at the phone in disbelief, his thoughts spinning. The next number he dialed was for Haj Hittock.

  “Haj, this is Neeson Faulkner. I’m sorry to disturb you this evening, but this is urgent.”

  Haj was silent for a moment, then responded regretfully. “They told you that they decided against the sale. I’m very sorry about that. I would have warned you, but I found out just this afternoon.”

  “What happened? Can I still get them back?” Neeson heard himself sounding desperate but couldn’t stop. “I’m running the simulation tomorrow. I could have a full video prepared by noon. Whatever it takes.”

  “Neeson, it’s more than just the test. They were OK with waiting, but they began to hear rumors. I didn’t hear them myself. They said there was doubt that you even had functioning panels, that your panels worked up to 100 miles per hour and then crashed, that your software wasn’t working with the overall design. Apparently they heard this from several different sources. Lance began to consider WindSkin a gamble, and he doesn’t like to gamble, so they shut it down. Do you know where these rumors could be coming from? Are they true?”

  “No, they aren’t true,” Neeson snapped back. But I know where they are coming from.

  His mouth and throat dry, Neeson said more contritely, “Thank you for everything, Haj. I won’t forget your support.” He hung up and logged into his neglected email. Of the fifty-three unread messages, seventeen were from potential clients, all sending their regrets. The rumors had spread far and fast, like an air-borne plague. No one gave reasons, but the wording between them was remarkably similar.

  The saboteur had crippled WindSkin. His company.

  Neeson laid his head back in his chair, restraining the impulse to smash everything in his office. Someone had done these things to him.

  He sprang into an investigation with zeal, starting with the access log in his computer. There it was, starting in January: evidence of unauthorized access. He traced the breach back through the corporate network until he found the source. It was not a surprise.

  Then, in an inspired stroke, he called the KM Center. He claimed to be an IT security worker who had stopped a hacker named Typhoon150 and had later connected the handle to a KM account of the same name. He wanted to confirm the connection and get the contact info for a pending lawsuit. The inexperienced desk clerk readily gave him the name.

  Neeson hung up the phone slowly and sat in silence at his desk, his heart pounding, his lips grimacing until they trembled. He looked up on his wall and studied the pair of mounted antlers that hung over his bookshelf.

  And he broke.

  [South Division: Elite Eight]

  [Saturday, March 28]

  Early on Saturday morning, a phone call.

  “Jason, this is Neeson.”

  “Mornin’, Neeson.”

  “I hate to bother you, but I need you to come in for a half-hour and help me run a test at the wind tunnel. Could you come in at 11:00?”

  “This can’t wait until Monday?”

  “I’m afraid not, no. It’s important.”

  Jason gave a low hum while he thought. “OK, but I have to leave at lunch.”

  “Thank you.”

  * * * *

  Neeson sat alone in the control room of the wind tunnel. The computers were on, the simple red logo of OPUS blinking at him from the corner of the software’s home screen. Neeson’s face was rigid, as if he had died in his sleep. But his mind was active, his thoughts not so much burning as they were churning. His intentions were singular and simple, a state ideal for an engineer.

  At the distinctive clomp of Jason’s boots, Neeson swiveled around in his chair, unsmiling.

  “OK, I’m here. What’s so important?” Jason asked.

  “Our clients,” Neeson enunciated, “have given us an ultimatum. They need footage of a successful test this weekend. It’s very important that we deliver. I thought we could manage it together if you helped me out at the beginning.”

  “Uh-huh,” Jason grunted, looking around. “You didn’t tell me that the repairs were all done. This looks like it took a lot of work to set up. You did all this yourself?”

  “That’s right. But I know you’re a busy man, I won’t keep you too long. There is one thing I want to do first.” Neeson turned around to face the wind tunnel window. “There’s an indicator here that some of the panels on the lower left wall aren’t secured. Can you run in and do a manual check while I see if the indicator light goes off?”

  Jason shrugged and stepped down through the doorway and into the wind tunnel. The clomp of his boots echoed clamorously off the solid cement walls, filling the chamber with sound until he stopped at the tower platform. As he bent down to look at the panels, he heard a heavy metallic click and a loud buzz overhead. Red lights began blinking on all four walls. The room was sealed. Jason whirled around and saw Neeson looking at him, statuesque, still unsmiling, from behind the Plexiglas window.

  “Hey, what…?” A mechanical whining started
up from either end of the room. The fans had begun to spin.

  Jason ran over to the door and pulled on the handle. It wouldn’t open. The fans sped up, creating a breeze. He found the emergency shut-down button by the door and slammed it with his palm. But it didn’t work. It had been inactivated. The screws that held the button panel in place had been stripped so that it would be impossible to open. Jason pounded on the glass.

  “Neeson, what are you doing? Open the dang door!”

  Neeson put his mouth up to the thin microphone attached to the control desk. His voice came over the speakers in the tunnel, loud enough to be heard even over the wind that was making Jason’s shirt snap sharply around him.

  “Typhoon150.”

  Jason looked through the window into Neeson’s eyes, which were hard and nearly lifeless.

  “I have to admit that I never saw you coming,” Neeson mused sadly as he sat down heavily in his chair. “I had always considered you the safest bet in the world: smart but unambitious, independent but loyal. If it hadn’t been for the Kaah Mukul thing, I never would have believed it was you, much less been able to prove it. But now I know.”

  The wind blew harder. The indicator in the tunnel read 50. Jason pressed himself against the door, trying to find shelter in the shallow depression. Muffled, he yelled, “I don’t know what you’re talking about! Stop the fan and open this door now!”

  “It worked, by the way. Your plan killed the company. I lied about the clients wanting video. We have no clients, thanks to you. Maybe you knew that already? You saw to it that tests failed when we most needed them, that everyone who ever expressed any interest in WindSkin was lied to from multiple angles. We didn’t have a chance.”

  Jason raised his arm to keep the wind from pelting his face. Panels on the tower were fully opened.

  “I spent all night in here thinking about why you did it, but I figured that out, too. When did you figure out what I was doing with OPUS? Months ago? Was it after I started running the subroutines? You must have gotten curious, hacked into my system, saw my bracket program, saw how valuable OPUS could be. You wanted to kill the company so that you could take OPUS with you, all to yourself. I really never did see it coming. Do you already have your own clients, Jason?”