Time Heist by Anthony Vicino

Author:Anthony Vicino [Vicino, Anthony]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780692336991
Goodreads: 23643863
Publisher: One Lazy Robot
Published: 2014-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Second Time Is Hard, Too

Felix Cross, founder of Phoenix, the largest dealer of nanotechnology in the world, was a reclusive figure bordering on mythical. Young Middies and Uppies, who saw him as the closest thing to a god in the digital age, followed him with a cultish obsession.

Cross could buy the world ten times over, a fact he'd proven by establishing Phoenix's headquarters on the island formerly known as the United Kingdom. There he lived and worked on the nanite technologies reshaping the world.

His relationship with the leaders of Unity was tenuous under even the best circumstances. On the one hand, Unity needed his technologies. On the other, by choosing to base Phoenix headquarters so close to the volatile East—and so far from the nearest Unity city—he'd placed himself in a position vulnerable to the marauding bands of Lost still scouring the Eurasian continent.

The leaders of Unity held a very real concern that if the technologies stashed in the Phoenix arsenal ever fell into the hands of the Lost, the East could rise again and tip the precarious hierarchy established by Unity.

While technically a sound argument, even the staunchest of critics would agree the likelihood of the Lost overpowering Phoenix's bastion of technological might to be all but impossible. Cross, on multiple occasions, publicly proclaimed his island to be immune to any sort of infiltration—a boast rumored to have been tested by Division black ops teams with no success.

Twenty-two years ago, Unity attempted to put Cross and his cohorts in their place by subverting Phoenix Corporation's Stream access. A then young Cross returned the favor and bombarded District Five's Stream access with junk data that slowed the network to a crawl for a full three hours.

In general, people don't want to fight. They simply want to get on with their lives. Cross understood and exploited this. The disruption was as chilling as it was potent.

With that one act Cross proved he could not be manipulated or coerced. That from then on a single man could be viewed as either an ally or an enemy.

The leaders of Unity didn't want another war, nor did they want to risk compromising the Stream, so they allowed Cross his autonomy. Personally I thought they should've made him President, but he lacked aspirations of power in that arena.

Cross, in the few interviews he'd granted, stated he simply wanted to be left alone to go about his work. He provided a continual flux of technology generations ahead of anything coming out of Division subsidiaries, so nobody really complained.

Nobody understood how he continually out-innovated Unity-based developers, but until they did, Cross remained a country unto himself.

"Wouldn't have thought to see you cavorting with a Slumlord like Lou," I said after the initial shock had subsided.

"It's good to have hands and ears in all places. In a global market, diversification is the key to staying ahead of the curve." The smooth creases of Felix's black marble skin retracted to reveal a row of ivory pebble teeth.

It'd worked out for the man, so I wasn't in a place to argue.

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