Tales of the Red Panda: The Android Assassins by Gregg Taylor

Author:Gregg Taylor [Taylor, Gregg]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2012-04-25T07:00:00+00:00

Sixteen

David Hagen had been a security guard at James Labs since the company had been formed from the ashes of James Manufacturing and Holdings. He had been a worker in the old plant and managed to keep a job even as the operation became more complicated than anything that Ian James' forebearers could have imagined. The new company was perhaps the foremost research and development laboratory in the country and was growing fast in spite of hard times. There was an optimism within these walls that was shared by few outfits in the city, and every worker knew that he was a part of a business of tomorrow.

Hagen sat up straight in his chair as young Wentworth James approached, looking preoccupied as he often did. The younger Mister James did not stand on ceremony the way his father did, he did not imagine that every man who drew a salary within his family's plant was some sort of indentured servant. Indeed, if Hagen had stood up as James' father would have expected, it would have drawn an embarrassed jibe from the younger man. But, like most who worked in James Labs, Hagen knew that it was Wentworth James' genius that had saved the company when so many others had been lost to difficult times. However much his father might downplay Wentworth's contribution, his son did not merely gather the deference that was due to the heir to the crown – he was given the respect men feel for their true leader.

“Evenin' Mister James,” Hagen said with a touch of his cap in spite of himself. “On the way to check the new power plant?”

James looked up, surprised, as if he had just noticed Hagen sitting there at the security checkpoint. “Oh, excuse me,” the young man said, slapping his pockets as if searching for his security credentials. “I must have left the darn thing up in my lab,” he said, flustered.

Hagen laughed in spite of himself, and the sound seemed to give Wentworth James another start. He looked back at Hagen, puzzled.

“It's all right, Mister James,” Hagen said. “I reckon I know you well enough by now.”

Wentworth James smiled sheepishly. “Yes, of course,” he said. “Still, you can't be any too careful.”

“No, sir,” Hagen said as the young man breezed past him, distracted once again.

David Hagen watched him go and shook his head in wonder. The things that young man might be dreaming up even now. Why, they said that Wentworth James developed the new power plant at the heart of this complex almost single-handedly. Perhaps that was an exaggeration, and certainly you would never hear Wentworth James tell it that way, but it was hard not to admire a man with ideas. Not many folks born into money seemed to have them, and even fewer had any skills to make their ideas into reality, but Wentworth James did.

The ringing of the telephone jarred Hagen from his reverie and by the time fifteen minutes had gone past he had settled back into his newspaper.

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