Tethered Twins

Chapter Thirty Nine

Mr King

“Sir your nine o’clock meeting is here.”

Mr King usually liked hearing from his secretary. She had a sweet voice and it reminded him of girls he had dominated in his youth. Today however was not a day he liked hearing her voice. It had been one month since he had been saved from financial ruin and now his financial backer wanted to collect.

“Ok. Send him up,” said Mr King.

He’d heard nothing from his backer for a month. Beyond an initial meeting request, he didn’t know what to expect. All he could rely on was his history with the man and that didn’t bode well. 

Tobias Zen stood in the lift as it ascended to the top floor. He knew Mr King was a showman like himself and what head of a large company wouldn’t want the top floor office?  All the better to spy on your rivals, he thought.

He had planned this meeting for a long time and knew that Mr King would never meet with him under different circumstances. He had encouraged the board of directors to invest and he knew that his little ‘death stunt’ would cause the share price to fall and Mr King to panic. He had known Mr King for a long time and this was exactly the reaction he expected. It was all going to plan.

Their meeting started rather formally whilst the two men hid their true intentions. Discussions were had about the growth of Birmingham, the economy and Government policy. The conversation was dull and mundane but was merely a chance for the men to understand each other. The words were not important, instead they watched body language for tells and tried to determine what the other person wanted.

Tobias knew exactly what he wanted but he enjoyed watching Mr King sweat. He enjoyed toying with the man and was more than happy to wait before he unveiled his request.

For Mr King this proved frustrating and tore away at him like a young boy eager for it to get to Christmas day.

“Look Tobias, let’s cut the bullshit,” said Mr King as he slammed his hands on the table midway through a discussion about resuming trade with Europe.

“I know you are here for a specific request. Your invitation said all I had to do was listen to your request and then you would go,” Mr King knew that invitation well. He had read it over and over again every day since it arrived. “So tell me.”

Tobias waited for a second. “Ok,” he said. “But I’d rather show you,” he opened his briefcase to reveal a large map. On the map were the locations of every single one of Mr King’s telecommunications stations. Every receiver and distributor in the world was located in blue dots.

He was stunned. “How did you get this? I demand to know!” Mr King was shocked to find even stations he had never publicly declared were listed on the map.

“Please. This was child’s play. You aren’t the most secretive man. Although I especially like how you have receivers located near to every embassy in the world. It’s almost as if you wanted to spy on the Government. I’m fairly sure that is treason.”

“If it’s blackmail you want then….”

“Blackmail?” Tobias laughed. “We all know that I have had more than enough to blackmail you for over twenty years. The world never did find out who funded the Separationists experiments did they?”

Mr King looked at Tobias and wondered how much longer he would have to live under the shadow of his past. Tobias had held this information over him for so long. He had used it before to manipulate Mr King to fund his early experiments and to start TethTech and now he was using it again for another purpose.