Hello, World

Chapter 6

After a painful meeting with his CFO, Alan Porter, Jackson was forced to acknowledge how unscrupulous he had been with TML's funding thus far. With the funding cut, that couldn't continue.

"We can make one hundred millions work," Alan had said. "We've already acquired most of the fixed assets you said you needed to work on Brian Harris. Can that equipment be repurposed for work on the chimp?"

"I don't see why not," Jackson said. "We've been custom-building our equipment out of various separate technologies the whole time anyway."

"Good," Alan said, "that means we'll have to find a way to cut down on our other costs. You may not like the changes, but it's what needs to be done."

"Like amputating a gangrenous limb," Jackson said.

"Exactly," Alan said. "In our case, it might be a couple of limbs."

By the time Jackson left Alan's office, he understood that two expenses needed to be cut immediately for TML to survive: salary, and the lab.

The lab was fairly straightforward. At the start of the project, Jackson signed a lease on one of the most expensive, prestigious city blocks in Seattle's technology district. At the time, Jackson thought a company set to change the future of humanity deserved a facility to match. He remembered ignoring Alan's protests back then. It would have saved him a headache if he had listened, but that was easy enough to correct.

Alan cringed as Jackson signed the early termination paperwork with its exorbitant fee, but ensured Jackson it was the right call and would save money in the long run.

Cutting the salary expense was another issue. In theory, it was just as simple as the lease; find and eliminate the excess. Problem was excess here was human beings, people whose lives and families relied on the money provided by Jackson's work. He used to be proud of providing for so many people. Now, he had to take responsibility for his failure and bear the guilt and shame of the consequences for others.

To decide who could go and who could stay, Jackson brought Tyler into the meeting with Alan. After emotions cooled after their fight, Jackson had called him to apologize and asked him to come back. Tyler agreed, relieving Jackson of a migraine brought on by the thought of running the company without him.

Tyler had been Jackson's right-hand-man since their undergrad days when TML was no more than a daydream in Jackson's mind. They had been working together since their first coding class when they learned how to make a computer log, "Hello, World," to the console, and had been changing the world of computer programming and artificial intelligence ever since. Jackson trusted his input and advice more than anyone at TML.

The three of them met in Alan's office behind closed doors and made a list of everyone who would be soon looking for new employment.

Tyler saved a handful of jobs by proposing a twenty-percent pay cut for executives and a ten percent cut for everyone else, which was immediately agreed upon, but the list of names on the chopping block was still alarmingly long: more than half the payroll.

Jackson wanted to take the rest of the day off, but Alan recommended against it. Some people had to have seen the three of them meeting, and long meetings in the CFO's office behind a closed door often meant bad news. Better to get it done fast before rumors started circulating and gave anyone a motivation to sabotage their prized equipment out of spite.

Jackson brewed himself a fresh pot of coffee and called the first unlucky employee into his office at 11:13 a.m. By 4:56 p.m., with no lunch break, it was done. Some shouted at him. Some cried. Some were silent. But in the end, all twenty-four of them left his office in the same state: unemployed.

He sunk into his black leather chair and leaned his head back, eyes closed. His head throbbed. His throat was dry. His stomach cramped. It felt like he got jumped and fell ill all in one day. He tried to hold back, but found he couldn't, and for the first time since Sara's miscarriage, he wept.

*****

Rain pelted Jackson's now-wet hair as he walked the two blocks from the office to the parking garage. His umbrella was in his left hand, but he didn't bother to open it. Lightning struck somewhere nearby, for a bone- rattling peal of thunder sounded nearly instantly, but Jackson did not blink, let alone flinch. He didn't notice the rain stop when he stepped under the concrete roof of the parking garage and didn't take his soaking-wet jacket off before he sat on the black leather of his black Mercedes.

The engine grumbled to life and growled down the slope of the garage as Jackson descended. He drove in a half-conscious stupor until he reached the highway. Then, his grief morphed into rage. He put his right foot to the carpeted floor and sent the bi-turbo V8 past eight-thousand RPM. He didn't watch the speedometer. He was going far too fast to watch anything but the other cars on the road, their relative speeds, the gaps between them.

The contoured bucket seats hugged his ribs each time the acceleration threw him back. The rain had stopped, but the roads were still wet, and a couple of his more aggressive maneuvers almost let the rear end of the coupe get away from him. Each time he felt the rear slip, he turned into the slide and righted himself without ever touching the brakes. An average driver would have crashed miles ago, but not Jackson. He didn't slow down until he had to cross four lanes of traffic to make the exit leading to the suburban roads of his and Sara's new home and drove normally from there.

When he parked in the driveway, his hands were shaking. What are you thinking? he asked himself. Sara would kill him if she knew he did that. What would she and William do if he died? He knew it was foolish and vowed to himself to stop even though he knew he'd do it again.

Sara hugged him as soon as he walked in the door. "What's wrong? You look exhausted."

"We had to amputate some limbs today," Jackson said. "It was painful. But we had to do it to survive."

Sara crinkled her brow but instead of pressing for details she kissed his chapped lips.

*****

Later that night, Jackson sat on the stool next to the open gate of William's crib with a book in his left hand. With the right, he softly smoothed the tuft of blonde hair back across William's perfect, tiny head. With each pass of Jackson's hand, William closed his eyes and opened his mouth, making an unintelligent series of noises. When William's eyes opened, however, Jackson saw within them an intelligence, and a potential, that almost moved him to tears.

He saw himself in the baby. The shape of his nose. His little ears that just hardly stuck out to the side. He saw Sara, too. She was in his eyes, his hair, the curve of his mouth in his toothless smile. What about the other parts? The parts that were no one's but William's, that could only come about by combining two separate people into one, infinitely unique being. Into an Imprint.

As William dozed off to sleep, Jackson's thoughts of the setbacks at TML morphed into a sweeping anxiety at the thought that one day William, like he and his father before him, would grow old and cease to be.

Not if I can help it, Jackson thought. He took his grief and rage of the day and channeled it into a steely resolve, a commitment to ensure that the pain suffered to get him to this point wasn't in vain. I made you a promise. I won't let that happen to you. Not now. Not ever.