24

The next afternoon you fly out to George Town once more, and from there you take your executive jet to Seattle. After this brief trip away, you suddenly realize that returning to your office up near the top of MetaHuman Tower is starting to feel more and more like going home.

Next

You're busy throughout most of the rest of the month. You're keenly aware that the conclusion of the first quarter will likely be an appropriate time for the company's shareholders to examine your performance so far as the head of MetaHuman, and you're eager not to disappoint them. But you still make time to see a succession of medical specialists about the mark on your shoulder, the growth of which has slowed for the moment. No doctor can give you a firm diagnosis, but you do manage to compile an exhaustive list of what it isn't: it isn't cancerous, it isn't eczema, it isn't an allergic reaction.

As April comes around, you begin to think that the mark might be supernatural in origin, and resolve to ask the opinion of your head of research, Claudette Byron, as soon as possible.

The next occasion for you to see Claudette will be at the start of April, during your monthly staff meeting. The morning before that meeting proves particularly wearisome. You have a breakfast meeting with a supplier of some of MetaHuman's pharmaceutical components, who wants to renegotiate his contract with your company. After that, you're invited to a meeting with a strategy consultant, which ultimately proves pointless because the consultant has misunderstood your brief.

You return to MetaHuman Tower in a foul mood. As you pass the reception desk in the lobby, one of the receptionists calls out to you, "Uh, Mr. ., you have a visitor here."

You slow your walk to the elevators. "How important is this on a scale of one to ten?" you ask the receptionist, a little surprised that she's been bold enough to stop you. "If I rate the meeting that's starting in a few minutes as an eight, is this higher or lower?"

"You really want to see him," she says. "It's—"

"Hello, Neah."

You turn at the interruption. Anaru Katariki is standing before you. You've never met the man before, but you recognize him at once.

He shakes your hand. "I have to give you a warning. The Surgeons are coming, and they're going to—"

That's when Katariki's head explodes.

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