Daemon

he would not fail his country – whether or not Ross was behind it all.
    As Merritt moved away through the crowd, he didn’t notice the six-foot-tall bus stop poster framed behind graffiti-carved Lexan. It boasted a medium close-up of Anji Anderson, all business, arms folded, set against an infinity background. She glowered at passersby from above the logo of her network news show,
News to America
. The tag line read:
    ‘
The Most Trusted Name in News …
’

Chapter 27:// Mind Mapping
    Charles Mosely walked across the sunny corporate plaza and cast a glance back at the Lexus sitting curbside a hundred feet behind him. He wasn’t comfortable leaving his ride behind – but then again, The Voice was able to kill the engine at will, so it probably didn’t matter.
    A few corporate drones in business suits lock-stepped across the plaza, briefcases in hand. Mosely realized that he must look like one of them.
    A fountain occupied the center of the square. It was a dancing display of computer-controlled water jets, recirculating hundreds of gallons per second. Mosely walked around it, just now noticing how many things must be controlled by computers. It wasn’t intelligence, but then again most things in life didn’t really require intelligence.
    Gleaming twenty-story high-rises stood on either side of a four-story medical plaza. He walked straight toward the green-glass medical plaza.
    The logo over the glass doors read:
    fMRI Partners
    This was the name The Voice had given him. The landscaping and architecture were impressive. Somebody had put in little grass-carpeted mounds topped with cherry trees. It was pricey real estate. The whole district was dotted with fancy corporate towers. It was not a place where he had had reason to spend time back when he lived in Houston, and the police in these neighborhoods were always crazy suspicious of brothers. Still, he hadn’t been stopped on the way in. Must’ve been the suit and the white-guy car. For the first time he considered that classism might trump racism.
    Mosely approached the glass doors and was about to push when they slid away noiselessly to either side. A blast of refrigerated air washed over him. The hot and humid outside air collided with it, creating a mini squall line at the entrance. He stepped straight through and into a minimalist corporate lobby. The doors hissed closed behind him. His heels clicked as he crossed the tiled lobby floor.
    The company logo was repeated in bold letters on the back wall behind the receptionist’s desk. The desk itself was the typical front-office bunker designed to look like a welding accident. The receptionist was a creamy-skinned blond in her twenties who had either been born gorgeous or been modified to be that way. Didn’t matter to Mosely. She was the prettiest woman he’d seen in years.
    She was speaking on a wireless headset and smiled at him, mouthing
I’ll be right with you
. Her red lipstick almost burned images onto his corneas.
    He glanced around at the high ceiling, spotlights focused on jutting peninsulas of brushed steel. It was like a car showroom without the cars. No chairs anywhere in sight, either.
Welcome. Now get the fuck out
.
    In a moment she hung up. One could never really tell with headsets, but she focused her gaze on him and smiled. ‘Mr Taylor. You’re expected. Please go right in.’
    Twin blond wood doors opened automatically in the wall beyond. They revealed a hallway that shared distant architectural relations with the lobby.
    Mosely stared at the opening for a moment, then turned to the receptionist. ‘Listen, baby, you want to explain just what the hell I’m doing here?’
    ‘Well, for one thing, I don’t like being called “baby” any more than you’d like to be called “boy.”’
    ‘That’s just it, though. I feel like I’m a “boy” brought down here to the plantation house.’ He leaned close. ‘You know what goes on up in here. You wanna help me out?’
    She regarded him coolly. ‘Here’s some help: you’re expected through those doors.’
    Mosely straightened. ‘A company girl.’ He started for the opening. ‘That why they pay you the big bucks?’
    She watched him warily.
    Once he passed the threshold, the doors closed behind him with a
click
, sealing him in. He just smirked. ‘Mosely, you dumb ass.’ He kept walking down a nicely appointed hallway. It stretched a good fifty feet. There were no doors to either side, just tasteful artwork – ink