Charlie Huston - Sleepless

As usual, he aspired to make no judgments and made them nonetheless.

But Afronzo Senior was something else again. Beyond rich, he had ascended to superrich. And scaled yet higher to become a market force. In the post-SLP economy, Afronzo-New Day, holders of the DR33M3R patent, sat at the table with oil, water, power, telecommunications, health care, and munitions. They were at the foot of the table, but demand for their product was limited only by the rate at which SLP infected and killed. Based on current trends, the overall potential market might shrink, but market share would swell. DR33M3R was a reliable grower. And Afronzo-New Day’s voice at the table demanded attention.

As the personification and will of A-ND, Senior had become something other. More so than even his son, he was existing at another level of consciousness. Park suspected that it was difficult for him to focus within a one-to-one environment. The most alarming implication of that suspicion being the thought that whatever it was Park was digging into had drawn the man’s personal attention. Attention that implied that some part of what Park believed about the world frozen under a surface of lies must be true. Attention that promised only a bad ending, as much as it did hope.

Park wished for only one thing in that moment: that his father would open the door of the cottage just behind the main house of the Afronzo estate, that he would walk in, wearing his brass-buttoned navy blue suit, assess the situation, and tell his son that he should leave the room and go play while the adults talked over some business.

He looked at the door. It did not open. He remembered his father speaking on the topic of diplomacy as practiced in countries where monarchies still reigned.

Speak truth to power. Always. Kings and potentates will be coddled, don’t let it be by you. Speak truth to power and your voice will be heard. If it is disregarded, as is likely, still you will sleep better at night. And you will have done humanity some service. Which will comfort you when you are dismissed early from your post.

Park recalled that speech and the other memory it brought to mind: Rose and his father meeting for the first time.

Senior swished the cognac at the bottom of his glass.

“You look amused by something, Haas.”

Park, straightened the odd smile that had come to his lips.

“Just something that occurred to me, sir.”

“Asked if you’d call me Senior, please.”

“I think we’ll both be more comfortable if I call you sir.”

Senior nodded.

“Then I suppose I best call you Officer.”

Park nodded as well.

“Yes, that would suit the occasion.”

“The occasion being?”

Park sat forward on the couch, his back straight, hands on his knees, not allowing himself to lean into the soft leather, to assume the conversational demeanor of the older man.

“The occasion being that I have been kidnapped by men that I believe are in your employ. Who I can only assume did so at your behest. And until I am given some indication otherwise, I assume I am being held by you against my will.”

Senior waved his snifter toward the door.

“The door’s unlocked. No one will get in your way if you leave.”

He raised the snifter a little higher.

“If you do leave without our first having a talk, I’ll have to pursue some inquiries about you and your business with my son, through official channels. That is not a threat, simply what I’ll have to do. I’d just as soon have those questions answered here and now, face-to-face. And yes, that is to save my family and my business any awkwardness, as well as to save you any professional setbacks.”

Park kept his seat.

Senior lowered his snifter.

“All right, then, let’s talk. Safe to assume that when you mentioned ‘serious crimes’ you didn’t mean my men picking you up and bringing you here. Yes?”

“That is correct.”

Senior relaxed deeper into his chair and crossed his legs.

“Let’s start there, then. What is it you suspect has been happening with my business?”

Park thought about his family and spoke.

“With or without your knowledge, an organized, high-level operation within Afronzo-New Day is diverting large shipments of DR33M3R and distributing them outside of the venues and restrictions of a Schedule Z drug. This large-scale black market enterprise has accessed inventory at the warehouses. This is not a matter of a few bottles or cases but entire pallets, pods, even shipping containers, leaving the legal supply chain. These shipments are being broken down and parceled for retailers to be sold a bottle at a time. Bottles are cached individually so that retailers are rarely in possession of enough Dreamer at any one time to be accused of intent to distribute. GPS coordinates of the caches are logged and sold to buyers. Many of these buyers are never physically in proximity to the retailers. I believe that transactions are often carried out online in social networking and gaming environments, primarily in Chasm Tide. I believe that it is likely that most of these transactions are completed through the barter of virtual goods that are translated into money and valuables in secondary transactions. Additionally, as the market is controlled by elements within A-ND, they have the wherewithal to break up the large shipments in secret after they have left your warehouses. Thus, the top end of distribution is shielded by its proximity to official Dreamer trade; the midsection, when shipments are broken down, are hidden by the financial and physical resources of the A-ND participants in the operation; the bottom end is hidden by the cache distribution, virtual space transactions, and infrequent use of traceable currencies. Seeing as the only potential users of the drug are sleepless, there is little risk that customers will reveal the existence of this black market. They are in desperate need of access to the drug, and most will die within a year of becoming fully symptomatic, the point at which Dreamer can be of use to them. It is an effectively invisible black market. But I have physical evidence of its existence, have personally witnessed a portion of it in action, and have grounds to arrest one of the architects and primary operators of the entire trade in black market DR33M3R.”

Park’s fingers had begun to dig into his knees.

“Furthermore, I believe, I believe.”

Senior leaned slightly forward.

“Are you all right, Officer?”

Park shook his head violently once.

“Furthermore, I believe that the advent of the sleepless prion was somehow, intentionally or accidentally, a by-product of your company’s initial development of Dreamer. I believe that your labs experimented with the fatal familial insomnia prion, seeking to find an application for your over-the-counter sleep aid. I believe, intentionally or by accident, that your labs created a new prion, a designed material, and that, intentionally or by accident, that prion escaped the clean zone of your labs and entered and infected the general population. I believe that prion is the prion that has come to be known as SLP I believe that A-ND’s ability to develop and bring to market a drug such as Dreamer was only possible because A-ND is the creator of SLP. I believe that A-ND, realizing that the market for their drug will eventually die out and that they will have no engine for the profits currently generated by Dreamer, have created a black market to circumvent limits placed on trade when Dreamer was designated Schedule Z. I believe. I believe.”

Senior rose, walked to the bar, poured water from a cut-glass decanter into a matching glass, carried it to Park, and pressed it into his hand.

“I think you should take a moment to catch your breath, Officer. You’ve been carrying a heavy load. A load like that, you only realize how heavy it is when you set it down.”