White Space Season 2

Sumo. It’s an app that sends you constant alerts. To make you seem like you’re busier than you are. Silvie does it to infuriate me.”
    Warren closed his eyes, holding his sigh.
    “Infuriate you? Really?” He should have had more wine, or something stronger — strong enough to dull the edge on his tongue. No, she was an adult. He could be frank. “Why do you let such stupid shit bother you?”
    Melinda blanched as if slapped.
    “You don’t need to speak to me as if I’m a child.”
    Great, it was going to be another one of those nights.
    “Yes, you’re absolutely correct,” Warren said, half smiling as he pushed his chair from the table. He dropped his cloth napkin on his plate, then marched from the dining room without bothering to look back. He had to get out of the house, go for a drive. Let Melinda stew.
    Warren walked toward the garage, agitated as he wondered if Kaiser had picked up the package.
    His hand moved to the garage panel to open the garage for his Bentley. The door whooshed open, and Father stepped through it, exhaling his final puff of cigar.
    “Ah, Warren,” Blake said. “Just who I wanted to see. Have a moment?”
    “Yeah,” Warren hoped he looked relaxed, not wanting Father to see how much he wanted to flee the house, and life.
    “Come,” he said, leading Warren to the bar.
    Blake touched the panel and closed the door, then took a spot behind the bar, poured himself a scotch, and offered the same to Warren.
    “No, I’m good,” Warren waved him away. “I’m going out for a drive.”
    “OK, well this won’t take but a minute. I wanted to tell you first before you hear it at our next Inner Circle. I’m dropping Raven in two weeks.”
    “What?” Warren cried out, “I thought you were giving me a month to clean up, which I already did. Immediately. The second you asked. The Heller family is already gone.”
    “Yeah,” Warren said, “But it was a mess. A large one. And an embarrassment. The entire situation could have, and should have, been avoided. Besides not knowing how Roger Heller got the information he did, you still don’t know why he targeted children in Phoenix, do you?”
    Blake swallowed his Glenfiddich then stepped closer to Warren, and repeated, “Do you?”
    “Well, no; we’re working on it, but these things take time.” Warren fell a step back.
    “Yes, well, we don’t have that kind of time. If there’s a leak on your team, Warren, we can’t take a risk.”
    “But … ”
    Blake interrupted. “No more arguing. I’ve made up my mind. I won’t let your little project put our evolutionary work — our real work — at risk.”
    “Little project? Since when is a trillion-dollar contract from DOD little, Father!? I’ve poured a decade of my life in this, and you’re just gonna flush it away?”
    Blake met Warren’s eyes without a twinkle of sympathy. “Best you not forget our company mission, Son. It is not, nor will it ever be about creating perfect killing machines for Earth’s highest bidder. We’re evolving our species into something that sees war as the insect play it is, to give mankind more meaning and value than any blood money you could ever hope to earn.”
    Warren’s leg was trembling. He wanted to look down and see if it was evident beneath his black slacks, to see if Father had noticed. But he couldn’t call attention to his shivering fear, not with Father. Not when Blake Conway respected boldness above all else. Warren locked his ankles, leaned forward, took a step toward Father, and shoved an index finger into his trim chest, “No!”
    Blake’s eyes widened. “Excuse me?”
    “I said no! I refuse to let you put an end to everything I’ve been working for. Not without a fight.”
    “You can fight me,” Blake shrugged. “But you won’t win. I own controlling interests in the company, best you not forget. No one in the Circle will back you, Son. You can go out and holler your plea tonight, but you won’t even get the crickets to answer.”
    Father slammed his glass on the table and leaned into Warren. “If I were you, I’d think very carefully about the next words that come from the mouth I gave you, boy. ”
    Warren shook his head, adrenaline raging through his body. He wanted to scream, to thunder, to rampage. He wanted to cry. But he had to control himself, and calmly consider his next move. With his boldness failing, Warren decided to play for his father’s few thin slivers of sympathy, hoping he cared enough