Severed Bonds by R S Penney

Author:R S Penney [Penney, R S]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Creativia
Published: 2019-05-08T16:00:00+00:00

The seat they had given Ben was in the front row of this auditorium, allowing him a perfect view of a stage where a lectern stood in the glare of floodlights on the ceiling. The woman who was up there now looked nervous.

Taller than average and slightly plump, she wore a dark brown skirt that matched her jacket and kept her gray hair up in a bun. She blinked through the thin lenses of her glasses as she waited for the crowd to settle down. That last talk had been quite exciting. Ben hadn't known the advantages of Disassembled Networking.

With any luck, the audience would find his talk just as interesting, but they were all buzzing now, the sound of conversation filling every corner of this room. No sign of Jack yet, but it had been a last-minute call, and the man had to come from Denabria.

Ben sat with his hands on the armrests, frowning as he stared up at the stage. You'll be fine, he told himself. After being shot at, knocked senseless and nearly bombed out of existence, public speaking is nothing.

“Tanaben.”

He looked up to find a man in a gray shirt coming toward his chair. This guy had a thick face with rosy cheeks and white hair that was thinning on top. “I'm Robel Tavari,” he said. “Chairman of the Panel.”

Ben was on his feet in an instant.

Closing his eyes, he bowed his head and tried to ignore the warmth in his face. “It's a pleasure to meet you, sir,” he spluttered. “I have to admit I was a little surprised by the invitation to speak.”

“You shouldn't be.”

“Sir?”

A wide grin on the other man's face told Ben that he'd already earned this fellow's respect. “We've reviewed your work quite thoroughly,” Tavari said. “You seem to have found new holes in a multi-tool's software that a hacker could exploit and devised new methods to deal with them.”

“If I'm honest, sir,” Ben replied in a shaky voice, “it's because I exploited several of those weaknesses myself.”

“Yes, I'd heard as much.”

Ben stiffened, his face contorting when he considered the implications of this man knowing about his checkered past. “Well, then you know that I have an awful lot to make up for,” he said. “Maybe more than I can make up for.”

When he looked up, the other man wore a solemn expression and nodded slowly as he took in Ben's words. “We all have decisions we wish we could take back, son,” Tavari said. “What matters is that you're making the right choice now.”

A moment passed where Tavari looked over his shoulder at something on the far side of the room, and then the man let out a sigh. “I'll let you prepare,” he said. “You're on in five minutes.”

Those five minutes were some of the most awkward that Ben had endured. Worse than his appearance in court, worse than the arrest that had exposed his misdeeds to all of his friends and Darrel as well. Here he was, thinking

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