Hello, World

Chapter 1

Misty rains bubbled on the skyscraping apartment window overlooking a forty-five-story drop to the nascent morning traffic of the city streets below. Jackson stood at the window, squinting, not looking at the flashes of brake lights or splashes of dirtied water on the streets but rather at the faint ghost of his reflection staring back at him through the translucent, gray pane.

Jackson pinched the knot of his quicksilver-blue tie, just below the base, and wiggled it to ensure it was centered over the button between the folds of his starched, white collar. He looked up and to the right, with his eyes still focused on his reflection, to check the line he shaved below his beard. Straight, crisp, like the crease down the leg of his navy pants.

A flash of lightning sent a peal of thunder rumbling up to Jackson's ears, pulling his focus away from his reflection and out to the puffy, dark clouds overhanging the Pacific shore. The rain was little more than a drizzle for now but it looked set to unleash a deluge once the clouds drifted inland.

"You better grab your umbrella or you'll show up to the meeting soaking wet," Sara said.

Jackson watched her in the reflection as she walked up behind him wearing yesterday's button-down. The shirt hung down to her mid-thigh, so he couldn't tell if she wore anything beneath it. He turned around and pulled her into a hug, resting his hands in the nook where her hips curved into the ridge of her spine. The feel of her breasts pressed against the middle of his stomach made his heart flutter, as it always did. He pulled out of the hug and cupped her face in his hands for a single, light kiss before anything could happened that would guarantee that he'd be late.

"I know," Jackson said taking his hands off her soft skin and walking on the hardwood to the kitchen where his coffee waited for him. "Ten days of perfect weather, then this. Feels like a bad omen."

"It's not a bad omen," Sara said. She took the mug Jackson poured for himself with a sly smile and sat on the stool at their white-quartz breakfast bar. "It's just Seattle. If it was still sunny out everyone on the board would be wishing they were out playing golf instead of being stuck in the office. Now they have nothing better to do."

"Can't argue with that," Jackson said. He saw the oven clock and didn't have as much time as he thought. "I need to leave soon." He poured himself more coffee, this time into an insulated mug with a lid.

Sara padded to the narrow closet in the hallway between the kitchen and the bedroom and pulled his plastic-covered suit jacket out. She tore off the plastic and the dry-cleaner's tag, helped him into it, and stood on her toes to give him another quick kiss.

"You've got this," she said.

"I hope so," Jackson said.

"It's only hundreds of millions of dollars and the future of the human race at stake," she said, her wide sea-green eyes shining like her teeth through her joking smile.

"Right," Jackson said. "He squeezed her ringless left hand and turned for the door. "I'll see you tonight."

"I'd tell you good luck, but you don't need it."

Jackson picked up the briefcase he packed the night before, opened the door, and took one more look at Sara's tousled hair and tanned, bare legs. "I love you," he said, and before she could reply, the door swung closed behind him.

*****

The board room was a wood-floored rectangle with one beige wall and three walls of glass. One of those three looked into the lobby of the firm, Forward Capital, while the other two came to a corner that pointed out at the roiling sea.

The woman in an expensive dress at the front desk had led him into the room and asked if he needed anything, There was already a rolling glass cart with a bowl of ice and a carafe of water next to the door, so he told her he was fine. He had spent the next ten minutes plugging his tablet into the cable sticking out of a slot on the desk, pulling up his presentation, casting it to the massive TV mounted on the beige wall behind the head seat of the table, and clicking through every slide to make sure nothing was amiss.