"What was that?" asked Saundra, shooting Enrique a disapproving look.

"Yeah," added Michael. "You think maybe you can control that little thing of yours?"

Enrique ignored them all as he stood in place, viewing the information his DijAssist had so effectively made him aware of. "It only does that when it feels it's an emergency," he half mumbled to the group. He proceeded to check the information, ignoring the orport's loud din as well as his peers' sarcastic comments. He looked up from the screen, confused.

"Saundra?"

"Yes?"

"You were saying that this guy might be a creative, incredibly wealthy ..."

"I never said creative."

"Right. I'll throw that into the 'eccentric' mix. Anyway, we're talking about a person who would have disappeared about three hundred years ago, and who was not associated with any of the nation-state infrastructures."

"That's our guy," confirmed Saundra.

Enrique shook his head as if he almost didn't believe what he was about to say.

"I think ... I think I found him."

"Spill it, Enrique," snapped Irma.

"You're not going to believe it."

"Either way," groused Michael, "you'll be antimatter in a few seconds if you don't tell us the name!"

"I will, but you've got to let me drag it out just a little. ..."

Now Irma was starting to get miffed. "No, we ..."

"Who," Enrique asked, ignoring everyone, including his now fuming boss, "is one of the better known pre-GC personalities of his time? And he's not government-I've for sure ruled that out."

Silence.

"Who disappeared mysteriously around ... well ... three hundred years ago? And who is very well known to us very well known to us, and rich enough to have pulled this off, based on what I just told you?"

Michael's eyes lit up. "No way. Tell me you've got pictures to confirm."

Enrique cast a small hologram image of the man they'd all taken a more than keen interest in. As he did this the group instinctively encircled the image, protecting it from outside view.

"Are you insane?" Irma whispered, face taut. "Shut that thing down!"

They all stood there, staring at nothing, still taking in what they'd just seen.

"Enrique," demanded Irma, "put that image next to the one Hektor sent us, and then hand hand me your DijAssist." me your DijAssist."

Enrique did as he was told.

"Certainly a bit younger now," Irma noticed. "Plus, no beard."

Saundra was peering over her shoulder. "That would be the nano at work. But the bone structure's the same ..."

"And the eyes ... ," Irma added, "those eyes."

"Almost like a hawk," Michael agreed, squeezing between Irma and Saundra.

Irma was locked onto the figure like a cat on its prey. "I studied him in school, you know. I remember it was pre-GC history class, and of all the personalities we studied, he was one of the few I would have wanted to meet. He seemed too modern, like he was in the wrong age. And you're right, Enrique. He did just up and disappear."

"This is friggin' crazy," Michael said. "Unfriggin' believably crazy."

But there was no mistaking it. The man who had woken up just a day ago was not only preGrand Collapse; he was one of the few men of that era who had helped define that era. Only Damsah would have topped this Only Damsah would have topped this, thought Irma.

"Well, that's just great," Enrique said, folding his arms in anger. "The biggest story of our careers is locked up tighter than a V.P. at GCI headquarters in a hospital in Boulder."

Saundra was distracted by a message light from her DijAssist. It was feeding her live footage from the mediabot she'd launched less than an hour before. Her eyes bugged out when she saw it.

"No, the biggest story of our career is having pizza in Florence, Italy."

Justin put the napkin he'd earlier placed on his lap onto the table, took a sip of wine, and uttered the name he'd yet to pronounce in the century in which he currently resided.

"My name is Justin Cord."

That name, she thought. Where have I heard that name? Where have I heard that name? She desperately wanted to talk to her avatar, and cursed the virtual-reality edicts that made subcutaneous communication taboo. But then a light went on. She started to remember her course work in turn-of-the-millennium culture, specifically, a class about famous missing persons. Amelia Earhart, Glenn Miller, and the billionaire industrialist who disappeared ... into thin air ... on New Year's ... in two thousand ... She desperately wanted to talk to her avatar, and cursed the virtual-reality edicts that made subcutaneous communication taboo. But then a light went on. She started to remember her course work in turn-of-the-millennium culture, specifically, a class about famous missing persons. Amelia Earhart, Glenn Miller, and the billionaire industrialist who disappeared ... into thin air ... on New Year's ... in two thousand ...

"Damsah's ghost, you're Justin Cord!"

"Um," he said, smiling. "I believe I just said that." Justin almost hated to admit it, but there was a part of him that was secretly glad he hadn't been forgotten.

Neela was shaking her head. He could be lying. But why would he? It certainly makes sense, given where and how we found him. But He could be lying. But why would he? It certainly makes sense, given where and how we found him. But ... She decided on a simple test. ... She decided on a simple test.

"You grew up in true poverty and mastered business and corporate finance. You graduated from Yale."

"Harvard, actually," he interrupted.

"Harvard," she answered in the affirmative, "when it was a respected university." Not much of a test Not much of a test, she figured, but ... it must be him but ... it must be him. What the facts couldn't verify, her gut could. This was Mr. Cord, alright. And she'd be willing to bet her paltry month's dividend statement on that.

"Justin Cord," Neela said, speaking almost as if she was giving a book report, "started the first workerless factory, amidst a bit of controversy, if I remember my history, made the conversion to paperless bureaucracy a reality, was a billionaire at twenty-nine."

"Thirty-eight ... and guilty as charged," he answered.

"Funny, the show said nothing about your interest in cryonic suspension."

"Show?"

"Just one of many. You were the only well-known billionaire to just up and disappear. It was assumed you changed your name to escape the pressures of being one of the world's wealthiest and controversial men."

"That's a load of crap. It was great being one of the world's wealthiest men. As for the controversy, if little minds needed to be shoved into the future and hated the guy doing the shoving, well, then, what can I tell you? The future was still coming, with or without me."

He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back a bit. "Got another one?"

"Another what?" she asked.

"Another off-the-agenda type of question. I'm really enjoying this."

Neela smiled, remembering the initial moments of Justin's revive and all the questions she had wanted to ask him. While still not necessarily appropriate, she figured, what the heck? Nothing had gone according to plan, and it almost seemed with this man that nothing ever would. Fine, why not? Fine, why not?

"You seem awfully eager to answer my questions," she said.

"Who said anything about answering? I just like to hear the questions. You often learn more about a situation from the questions than the answers. And I have a lot to learn. So, you see, you'll be doing me a favor by asking your questions."

Neela found herself smiling involuntarily yet again. "My dear Mr. Cord. Are you manipulating me?"

"Wouldn't think of it," he answered back.

"OK, Justin. Why'd you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Just disappear like that?"

"That one's easy, Neela. I wanted to live."

"That I figured out without my avatar, thank you very much," she retorted. "Of course you wanted to live. But you had a much simpler, even more logical, solution in the form of preexisting cryonic organizations. Why would you go through all the extra difficulty of creating your own suspension system? Especially given the fact that suspension in your day and age was so technologically backward. I would've thought you'd have stayed with the experts. Or, at least, those who'd already made inroads into the fledgling science."

Justin waited a moment to answer. While he did, a busboy came and cleared the table while the waiter appeared once more with a dessert cart. "When in Italy," Justin proffered, "tiramisu."

"Tira me too," joked Neela. The waiter did not appear to be amused. Still, he got the gist, took the order, and left.

"Neela," Justin said, as soon as the waiter was out of earshot, "what do you know about my time?"

"Too vague. Plus, you're answering the question with a question. No doing that."

Justin was about to argue, but Neela's earnest inquisitiveness stopped him.

"Fine. Bottom line-all the cryonics organizations, indeed everyone who believed in cryonics, based their belief on one crucial factor, and all of them were wrong." Justin reconsidered. "That's unfair. Not wrong, but hopeful in the face of a glaring inconsistency in their thinking. It was a lot like hiding in a house during a hurricane. The rational part of you knows that the house is going down if the hurricane hits. But it would still be stupid to remain outside, so you go into the house and hope that the hurricane doesn't come your way. If it does, you hope that it won't destroy your house and you with it. But deep in your heart you worry."

"Well," Neela answered, "that was a masterful job of climbing Mount Analogy, but what does it mean?"

"My world was doomed."

"Your sister-in-law called. She's worried about you."

"Ex-sister-in-law, Sebastian. Amanda's dead," Justin answered, putting down his morning Wall Street Journal Wall Street Journal and looking up at his ever-faithful assistant, Sebastian Blancano. As usual, his aide was in a three-piece suit and firmly grasping his crackberry. In addition to notifying Justin of his ex-in-law's concern, Sebastian was scanning the smartphone as it fed him bits and pieces of information from twenty different papers in four different languages. As far as Justin was concerned, Sebastian was hands down the best executive assistant he'd ever had. He was not much of a looker, with his light brown eyes that pinched at his nose, giving him the mien of a well-groomed bird. Being very tall, very thin, and a few years away from being completely bereft of hair didn't help his physiological ensemble. As per his modus operandi, Sebastian stood while Justin sat eating his breakfast and reading his newspaper. Justin had tried early on to get his executive assistant to lighten up-even going so far as to invite him to sit and join him for breakfast-but gave up when he realized that Sebastian would have none of it. Sebastian, in fact, seemed to have no informal moments whatsoever, and whatever quirks made him treat Justin like a god also made him invaluable in helping run the Cord multibillion-dollar corporation. Of the two, Justin realized, Sebastian was unquestionably the smarter man. He spoke more languages, was much better at math, and was far more organized. But Justin also knew that Sebastian would never be able to do what he did. Because what Justin had in droves Sebastian had in drips-that intangible mix of curiosity and cunning that breathed life into the type of innovations that made one a billionaire at thirty-eight and the other a glorified secretary at fifty-three. and looking up at his ever-faithful assistant, Sebastian Blancano. As usual, his aide was in a three-piece suit and firmly grasping his crackberry. In addition to notifying Justin of his ex-in-law's concern, Sebastian was scanning the smartphone as it fed him bits and pieces of information from twenty different papers in four different languages. As far as Justin was concerned, Sebastian was hands down the best executive assistant he'd ever had. He was not much of a looker, with his light brown eyes that pinched at his nose, giving him the mien of a well-groomed bird. Being very tall, very thin, and a few years away from being completely bereft of hair didn't help his physiological ensemble. As per his modus operandi, Sebastian stood while Justin sat eating his breakfast and reading his newspaper. Justin had tried early on to get his executive assistant to lighten up-even going so far as to invite him to sit and join him for breakfast-but gave up when he realized that Sebastian would have none of it. Sebastian, in fact, seemed to have no informal moments whatsoever, and whatever quirks made him treat Justin like a god also made him invaluable in helping run the Cord multibillion-dollar corporation. Of the two, Justin realized, Sebastian was unquestionably the smarter man. He spoke more languages, was much better at math, and was far more organized. But Justin also knew that Sebastian would never be able to do what he did. Because what Justin had in droves Sebastian had in drips-that intangible mix of curiosity and cunning that breathed life into the type of innovations that made one a billionaire at thirty-eight and the other a glorified secretary at fifty-three.

"Send her some flowers," responded Justin.

"We did that already. Twice. I guess that's why she's concerned."

"Look, just tell her I'm too busy ... or out of the country."

Sebastian shot him a look.

"Done that too, huh?"

Sebastian didn't speak. A slightly raised eyebrow answered in the affirmative.

"Doesn't she realize I'm OK? Yes, her sister is dead, yes, my wife is gone, but that was over six months ago. It's time to move on." He pulled his paper back up so that Sebastian wouldn't see his eyes. "I ... have to move on."

Sebastian remained silent until he felt that his boss was ready for the next bit of news.

"We're taking a beating in the press," he said-emotionless.

Paper down. "What are they complaining about now?"

"The factory in Elkgrove."

"Well, let me guess," he groused. "They can't be complaining that I'm oppressing the workers." He, as well as everyone else, knew that the Elkgrove, Tennessee, plant was an entirely workerless factory-in fact, the first.

"No, Mr. Cord. Quite the opposite, it would seem," answered Sebastian. "They're up in arms that you have no no workers." workers."

"That's not technically true," he answered, referring to the fact that the factory had at least a few humans in it. Technicians, mostly, plus the occasional cleanup crew. But it was also true that this was the first factory in history that did not depend on humans for the day-to-day manufacturing of its product. There were plenty of self-automated plants, but all were labor-dependent. Nothing else came close to this. Because Justin had devised a system that learned from its mistakes and reconfigured itself on the fly so that new ones were not made. It was, in essence, a factory of self-replicating robots building better robots better able to accomplish the task at hand. What's more, the system could be applied to practically any manufactured product.

It also didn't help that Justin was able to pay the few workers associated with the Elkgrove plant outlandish salaries. After all, his worker costs were next to nothing, having next to nothing in workers. It was for that reason the unions hated him; it was for the potential of shutting down overseas operations that his competitors in China and India hated him; and for all of this combined that his own government was scared of him. Not surprising, he thought, in that the government always tended to be scared of the truly innovative, being by its very nature conservative.

"Maybe," offered Justin, "they'll back off when they realize it'll take at least ten years for the place to show a profit."

"Tried feeding that to them already," countered Sebastian. "Besides, sir, it's not the profit, it's the prospect."

"Right. No workers. No unions. No strikes. No family picnics ... blah, blah, blah."

"I see we woke up chipper today, sir." Sebastian realized that his boss's last statement was far closer to home than perhaps his employer was willing to admit. He knew that Justin and his deceased wife had once talked dreamily about children. He also knew that the drunk driver that had cut her life short had turned his boss from caring to callous almost overnight.

Justin feigned a smile.

"Plus," added Sebastian, "I think we both know that the ten-year mark is just a wee bit of a stretch."

The next smile was real.

Sebastian was referring to the fact that the books showed profitability in four years, and if current projections were met, as early as three. But Justin, with the help of Sebastian and some savvy PR work, found it safer to have his friends and enemies underestimate him. He smiled at the thought of the Elkgrove factory-his most controversial venture yet. It was an environmentally sound, pollution-and emission-free, efficient, and safe factory that caused no traffic jams. Yet everyone hated it. This was to be expected, and to some extent it gave Justin's belief in the project more credence. Small minds had always hated big ideas, and this idea-his idea-was proving to be no exception.